by Amelia Elias
“You want me to thank you for putting yourself in danger?”
“No one had a stake at my back,” she reminded him. When he looked ready to explode she sighed. “Diego, I didn’t live my life wrapped in cotton wool before I met you and I won’t do it now. All my life I’ve trained for exactly that kind of situation and even you have to admit I was pretty useful there.”
“And all my life I’ve been trained to keep my bondmate out of that kind of situation, and I don’t want to admit anything.” Sian crossed her arms and waited. Finally he looked at her again and scowled. “All right, fine. Thank you for keeping me from becoming a Diego-kabob, as you so poetically put it. Now can we get to the part where you promise never to do anything like that ever again?”
She shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Now’s the part where you tell me whatever Eli left out and we discuss my joining this League of yours where I can make myself useful.”
He looked pained. “How about if we skip that part in favor of the part when you drag me upstairs and apologize properly?”
Sian laughed. “Not yet,” she said, even though she would much rather fast-forward to some intense making-up. He still hadn’t said what she needed to hear. “How about—”
He crossed the room with that insane speed of his and Sian found herself swept up in his arms and headed up the stairs before she could so much as blink.
“Dios, Sian, is that all you want from me?” he murmured as his bedroom door flew open when they reached it a moment later. “Is that really all you’re waiting for?”
Sian drew a breath to reply—which was very difficult because the sudden nearness to his incredible chest had robbed her of it pretty completely—but Diego tossed her onto the bed and covered her body with his before she could get a word out. His mouth found the side of her throat, the roughness of his goatee a delicious tickle on her sensitive skin, and any breath she had left came out on a moan.
“Te amo, querida, te amo,” he murmured against her neck. Sian gasped, loving the sound of his voice speaking those sexy words almost as much as she loved what his talented mouth was doing to her throat. “That means I love you, in case you forgot,” he added as his mouth moved up to her ear.
“I didn’t forget,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair as her heart sang.
He chuckled low and she shivered when his hand slowly slid up her thigh, reminding her vividly that she still hadn’t managed to procure any panties. “Now’s the part where you say it back,” he prompted gently.
Sian’s smile came from her very soul. She pushed him onto his back and straddled his waist, reveling in the surprised pleasure on his face. “Then pay attention,” she said huskily, reaching down and tracing that wicked, delicious, totally sinful mouth of his with a fingertip. “Because I can think of quite a few ways to say it, and you’re about to hear them all.”
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
Sian delighted in the anticipation flaring in Diego’s eyes as she let her gaze travel slowly over his body. His breathing quickened and she licked her lips. “You’re way overdressed,” she said, letting one fingertip trail along the collar of his shirt. “Shall I remedy that for you?”
His hands were sliding up her thighs again and she closed her eyes on a sigh when they disappeared under her skirt. At last, he whispered in her mind, his thought a rush of heat. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this? A moment later his palms cradled her bottom and his breath caught.
“You didn’t manage to find any lingerie shops while you were gone, I see,” he murmured in a very approving tone. “And yes, now that you mention it, these clothes are a little—” his hips shifted under hers, “—constricting.”
Sian laughed and let her wandering fingertip trail down the center of his chest before twirling around one of the buttons. She was about to slip it free when she remembered how he’d reacted to her biting him in the shower and inspiration struck. “So, tell me,” she said as casually as she could manage with what his hands were doing under her skirt, “would you prefer I use my hands for this, or my teeth?” She glanced through her lashes at him and ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. “I have to be sure I give you an apology you’ll accept, you know. You haven’t seemed to like any of the ones I’ve offered before now.”
Diego took a shuddering breath and his hands tightened on her hips. “Dios, wildcat, which do you think?”
She bent to his chest, hiding her smile as she nuzzled his throat and slowly made her way down to the top button. She didn’t know if it was just being with Diego or if it was the vampire side of her nature coming out at last, but the thought of biting him was suddenly very tempting. She dared a glance up at him before she went to work on the button and a thrill shot through her at the look of bliss and anticipation on his face. Another inspiration struck and she pulled away and gave him a sensual smile. “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think?”
He groaned. “You’re playing with me now, aren’t you?”
She wiggled a little atop him and he groaned again. “Not yet,” she murmured. Diego closed his eyes and she clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “You’ll want to look, I think,” she told him.
He opened his eyes and a thrill shot through her at the sight of them, cat-like and passionate. How she loved knowing she brought out this wild side of him! She grasped the hem of her top and slowly pulled it up over her head, revealing a lot of skin covered by very little lace, and reveled in his sigh of appreciation. Diego’s hands left her skirt and slid up her stomach to cup her breasts. She captured one before it found its goal and brought it to her lips, drawing his index finger into her mouth and sucking it lightly while she held his eyes with her own.
His breath caught and his hips shifted under hers, bringing the proof of his desire firmly against her. Sian closed her eyes on a moan and a shudder shook him. She was starting to get seriously distracted and made herself release his finger. He started to make a sound of disappointment but when she guided his hand down her throat and over to her breast it turned into a sigh of pleasure.
“Querida, please,” he breathed, rocking his hips against hers again.
She smiled and opened her eyes. “I thought I was pleasing you,” she teased, leaning forward and tracing the edge of his goatee with a fingertip. “Am I not?”
Before he could answer, she nipped his collarbone through his shirt. One arm went around her waist and he growled with pleasure. “Do that again and I’ll bite you back.”
She laughed softly. “That’s not much of a deterrent.” She moved lower, trying her best to ignore what his talented fingers were doing to her breast, and fastened her teeth around the first button. She felt him holding his breath and laughed softly. She wasn’t really sure she’d be able to bite it off—after all, her teeth weren’t exactly extra sharp like his—but she was pretty sure he’d appreciate the effort all the same. She pulled back slowly, glancing at him through her lashes and biting down on the thread that held the button in place, knowing by his rapt expression how much he was loving this.
When the thread parted with the lightest touch, she was so surprised she almost swallowed the button. Luckily she recovered her wits before she did something to spoil the mood and glanced around, trying to decide what to do with the button. Finally she turned her head delicately to the side and plucked it from between her lips, intending to drop it to the floor or something, but she was suddenly distracted when her fingertips met something she didn’t expect.
She ran her finger over her teeth in shock, feeling their strange new sharpness. When she got to her incisors, she gasped.
Diego was watching her closely and Sian stared at him in shock, still touching the tooth that didn’t feel remotely like her own. It wasn’t anything like what Diego revealed when he smiled reassuringly at her, but it was definitely a fang.
“Diego?” she whispered, confused. What else had changed? What did she look like now? She was almost afraid to know.
He s
troked her hair. “Your eyes have changed as well. Don’t be afraid of it, querida,” he murmured softly when she gasped again. “I’ve never seen anything sexier in my life. You’re beautiful.”
He pulled her forward and kissed her, gently at first and then with growing fire, and Sian forgot the strangeness of her new fangs and her curiosity about what her new eyes looked like and kissed him back. He groaned as she broke away.
“Don’t let me keep you from what you were doing,” he said, leaning back and giving her such a suggestive grin, she couldn’t help but smile in return.
She traced a little pattern on the skin she’d revealed when she’d bitten off his top button. “Liked that, did you?”
His eyes darkened. “Hmm, can’t remember,” he said in a voice a full octave lower than his usual. “Why don’t you remind me what it was like?”
Sian laughed and shook her head at him. “Subtle, aren’t you?” she teased.
His thumb stroked her breast, surprising a moan from her. “Whatever works, querida. Whatever works.”
She smiled and kissed a path down his throat to the second button. He sighed when she made short work of the button and ran her tongue over his skin.
“Feel free to bite anything else that strikes your fancy,” he groaned when she nuzzled her way over to his nipple.
Sian laughed and went for the next button, a little afraid to actually bite him with her new fangs. He’d told her before how much he liked it, but that was when she’d had normal teeth. These things—she snapped off another button as easily as biting through butter—could do some real damage.
She felt him in her mind then, a warm wave of love and pleasure and amusement filling her senses. You won’t hurt me, he reassured her. I promise you. Didn’t I tell you that to vampires, biting is foreplay?
She remembered the first time he’d kissed her when she’d bitten his lip to get away and he’d told her that. At the time, she’d thought he was insane but after she’d experienced the earth-shattering pleasure his bite had brought her she completely understood. God, she’d love to give Diego such ecstasy, but she felt the sharp edge of her teeth against her lip and still hesitated. Could she really bring herself to sink those through his skin and—
He groaned, clearly still a ghost in her mind. “Will you stop thinking about it and do it before I burst into flames?”
Sian bit off the last button, holding his gaze the entire time and loving how he didn’t try to hide how crazy she was making him. She ran her tongue in a circle around his navel and his muscles jumped. She laughed. “Ticklish?” she murmured against his skin.
“If you want me to be,” he said, closing his eyes and breathing fast. Sian laughed at the raw desire in his voice and in his mind as she flicked her tongue on a delicious journey down to the waistband of his jeans. She tugged his belt loose before resting her cheek against his thigh and smiling up at him as she ran a fingertip around the button of his jeans.
“I don’t think I can bite this one off,” she told him, watching his eyes dilate as she played with the button. He started to say something and she reached up and pressed her finger against his lips. He caught it between his teeth and a bolt of heat pooled low in her belly.
“I’m going to need that back,” she whispered, her pulse quickening as his tongue slid over her skin.
He took his sweet time releasing it. “Do you have any idea how sexy you look right now?” he murmured as she slid her hand slowly down his chest to the waistband of his jeans.
“If it’s half as sexy as you look, we’ll burn the house down,” Sian said, loving the view from this vantage point. Diego was stretched out before her like a lush feast of pure sin and she was suddenly starving to death.
“I’m already burning,” he told her hoarsely. “Are you going to put me out of my misery soon, wildcat?”
She laughed and unbuttoned his jeans. He drew in a shaky breath when she raised her head from his thigh and pressed a feather-soft kiss to the inch of sensitive skin she’d exposed. “I couldn’t do the button with my teeth,” she breathed against his skin, “but I think I can handle the zipper, don’t you?”
He arched with a moan when she took the tab of the zipper between her teeth and slowly tugged it down. “You’re killing me,” he growled, both hands in her hair now.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said when she released the zipper. She glanced down at him and grinned up his body into those velvet green eyes. “Look, I’m not the only one not wearing underwear.”
“You’re a bad influence on me.”
She laughed as she freed him from the denim and let her hair caress his skin. Diego moaned something in Spanish and she thought she’d never heard anything sexier in her life.
Something like that definitely deserved a reward. He cried out when she ran her tongue along his length, his fingers tightening in her hair and his body shaking. Sian smiled, reveling in this intimate power over him, before taking him fully into her mouth.
I love you, she murmured in his mind as she pleasured him with her mouth. I love you, Diego.
Te amo, he thought back, his thoughts in her head so hot she felt in serious danger of bursting into flame. And I’m going to lose my mind if you keep doing that, querida.
She chuckled around him and the deep vibration made him cry out with pleasure and need. I like making you lose your mind, she teased. You’re not complaining, are you?
Dios, no, he groaned. I’m not complaining, but I wish you’d hurry up and bite me. You have no idea how much I want that.
Sian laughed out loud, pulling away from him and meeting his eyes. “You’re awfully brave to say that while I was doing that. What if I’d taken you up on it right then?”
“I’d be a very happy man right now.”
The next thing Sian knew she was on her back with Diego blocking her view of the room and pinning her beneath his very hard, very male, and very sexy body. “You don’t understand what it feels like for a vampire, Sian. You’ve only felt it as a mortal. Let me show you what I want you to do to me,” he murmured before bending to her breast and sinking his fangs deep.
The pleasure that flooded her mind and body was erotic, intense, wild and glorious. Sian almost climaxed from the incredible sensory onslaught. Apparently her hearing and vision weren’t the only senses to be enhanced by whatever process seemed to be turning her into a vampire. Her sensitivity to pleasure had shot through the roof too. Diego drew lightly against the little wound and she arched on the bed, crying out with surprised ecstasy. Good Lord, had she thought this felt good last time he’d done it?
Diego chuckled against her skin and pulled away only a moment later to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses over her skin. “Nice, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“Oh yes,” she gasped, even though nice didn’t even begin to cover such exquisite ecstasy. Every inch of her skin ached with the echoes of intense pleasure. “Very—very nice.”
His fangs found the curve of her waist next and she did come that time, moaning his name as her head whipped back and forth on the pillow. He moved again, sliding down to her thigh and nuzzling at the hem of her little skirt.
“Do you have any idea,” he growled as he pressed her thighs apart, “how crazy it makes me to know you’re bare under these short little skirts? I may never let you wear anything else.”
He didn’t give her a chance to reply as he eased her skirt up and bit her on the calf. Sian moaned his name and he growled, his own pleasure at driving her wild filling her mind. “Dios, you taste so damn good,” he whispered as he moved again, kissing his way higher still.
Her breath came short as she remembered his incredibly sensual bite on her inner thigh in the shower. She hadn’t fully appreciated it then, even though it had been the most erotic thing she’d ever experienced. She ached for him to do it again now when she could enjoy it properly.
He pulled away though, kissing his way back up her body even as his clever hands made short work of her skirt an
d bra. She cried out with pleasure when he bit her on the throat, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her leg around his waist as another incredible climax overcame her, wave after wave of pleasure she never wanted to stop.
But he did, rolling onto his back and taking her with him. “Your turn,” he whispered, his voice a black velvet seduction she couldn’t resist.
She could hardly breathe, let alone think, but the temptation wouldn’t be denied. To give him the same pleasure would be truly intoxicating and she couldn’t decide where to start first.
“You’re still overdressed,” she whispered, running a hand down his thigh and feeling denim between her and his hot skin. Diego had his buttonless shirt off in an instant and started to push the jeans off but she stopped him. “Let me finish what I started,” she murmured, curling her fingers around the waistband and tugging them down.
She followed their path with kisses, part of her aching to give him the same incredible pleasure she’d just experienced, but another part still afraid. What if she did it wrong and hurt him?
“Querida, please,” he groaned when she tossed the jeans aside and started kissing her way back up his body. “You can’t hurt me, I swear it.”
His longing, his obvious craving, finally made the decision for her. Sian lay over him, covering him like a blanket, and ran her tongue down the side of his throat. His pulse kicked beneath her lips, calling to her in a way she’d never felt before and couldn’t resist now. “Here?” she whispered.
“Yes, there, anywhere, just do it,” he moaned, his arms tightening around her waist. “Share this with me, querida. I promise you won’t be sorry.”
She couldn’t refuse him anything. Pushing aside all her doubts, Sian took a deep breath and bit down over his throbbing pulse.
For a moment, everything disappeared in a white-hot flash of ecstasy, everything but Diego. She heard his cry of pleasure, felt his arms around her and his body hot beneath her, his taste perfect on her tongue and his joy and love deep in her mind. Something deep inside her cried out at the rightness of it, a firestorm binding Diego to her so tightly she knew she’d never be without him again, knew she had only to think of him to know where he was or touch his mind. It was the most incredible thing she’d ever felt in her life, so wonderful she felt no disgust at all at drawing his essence into her.
