by K. L. Kreig
She nodded, unable to respond because her mouth was now latched on the side of his neck. Sucking hard, she primed the place where she’d drop her fangs deep and drink of her Fated’s lifeblood. Her stomach twisted to be filled with power. Her cells screamed to bind his essence to hers.
Mike’s palm landed hard on the back of her head and he groaned, “Oh, fuck. Giselle.” It sounded pained, but she knew it was craving instead. She could sense how much he wanted her bite. Could feel it in the vibration of every pump of his heart, every throb of his cock that deliciously pounded against her distended clit, making her mindless.
Scraping her teeth along the plumped skin, she was getting ready to taste him again when the air whooshed out of her lungs.
Lying on his unmade bed, Mike Thatcher towered above her, his chest heaving, his eyes dilated to thin points, looking like an ancient god coming to claim her. He reached back and drew his sweater over his head, throwing it to the floor beside him, leaving him gloriously bare from the waistband of his jeans up. He didn’t stop devouring her with his weighty stare for a single second.
“I’m hungry,” she whispered in near desperation. So fucking empty and hungry. Her belly cramped painfully. Her pussy throbbed in agony.
A slow smile curled his full rosy lips. “Me too. But I’m going to be balls deep before you sink your teeth into me this time, baby. I want to feel your pussy milking me at the same time your mouth does. This time, I’m exploding inside your wet heat, not my stomach or my pants or my hands.”
She could feel the change in her face. Her incisors were razor sharp. The lines of her cheekbones severe. The glow of desire in her eyes bathed her soon-to-be lover and he growled. Actually growled low and long and so needy she almost pinned him against the headboard and took from him what she wanted.
But she held back because she could feel how much he needed to do this his way. For her. And if that right there didn’t make her fall in love with him, she didn’t know what could.
Mike was always concerned about her and her feelings. Despite his cutting comments, she’d always known that to be true. His actions had proven as much, even if his biting lips said otherwise.
“Do you even comprehend how fucking beautiful you are to me?”
Yes, she did.
With her thigh grasped between his rough palms, she thought for sure he would push upward toward the place aching and pulsing for his touch. But he didn’t. Kneeling on the floor beside the bed, he pressed soft kisses down the inside of her leg. His hands followed until they reached her stiletto. He carefully unbuckled it before ascending back up the same leg. Chills raced after his fingertips, catching up to them fast.
“Do you?” he asked again, this time demanding an answer.
“All vampires are beautiful. It’s how we lure our prey,” she breathed on a moan, barely able to stand the erotic nips he was now raining down her other leg. Her core felt unbearably empty and her hips started to roll in a silent call.
“No. It wasn’t your witchy eyes or your bee-stung lips or your curves of sin, Giselle. I wasn’t immune to those, but that’s not what I see when I look at you.”
After her other shoe hit the carpet with a thud, he crawled up her body, hovering over her. With his hips pinning hers to the softness underneath, his cock perfectly aligned, and his fingers buried in her hair, he husked, “Do you want to know what I see?”
She did want to know, but she couldn’t help the snide comment that ran away. It was all about armor, protection, deflection. Even now. She wasn’t sure if that would ever abate. “You see a species that took the love of your life from you.”
She gasped at the sting on her scalp from the angry tightening of Mike’s hands. He had her head pulled back and up at a slight angle while his gaze bore into her. “That smart mouth gets me hard as fuck every single time, but your words are wrong, Giselle. I see the love of my life. I’m looking at her and only her right now. I see the woman who every bad decision and every morsel of revenge steered me to. I see you, Giselle. The mouthy vixen, who, underneath all that huff and puff, is just a fragile, emotional wreck I want to spend the rest of my days fixing. I want to make sure she knows how fucking glad I am that she sauntered into my completely pathetic existence.”
An unhurried smile crept across her face. She couldn’t even get mad at his dig into her emotional state, because what the hell? He was right. “You’re only marginally pathetic,” she joked lightly.
Mike’s head fell back when he laughed and it lit her up like starlight. Starlight then morphed into a sea of flames when he wound a hand between them, burrowing his fingers under her panty line. He stroked through her honeyed wetness with a single finger a single time before he grabbed the sides and ripped them off with an easy snap of his wrists.
“You’re so goddamned wet, baby,” he whispered against her cheek. “So silky for me.”
He pushed off her and dragged the ruined lace down her other leg. Throwing the panties behind him, he pushed her dress up and over her hips until the leather creaked and bunched around her waist.
Mike’s burning gaze dropped to the place where he’d now spread her wide. His thumbs toyed with her nub, coiling the want in her even tighter. When he spoke, the thickened texture of his voice made her gush until she was sure her need was running down to meet the sheets. “I want you,” he murmured absently, drawing her juice from pussy to clit. He circled light and slow as the tempo of her hips increased trying to make him follow. The bastard didn’t; he just kept talking. “And to be clear, that means I want to fuck you now so damn hard tears stream from those ocean blues in sheer fucking joy. Each salty drop of water will hold a bad memory and when they hit this cotton we’re lying on, they will be washed away for good.”
She started to say she’d never be free of her shame, but he shut her up by pushing a saturated thumb into her open mouth, pressing it down on her tongue. On a low moan—his—she closed her lips around it and tasted herself for the first time as he continued to heal her with every reverent syllable, every sensual action. “And because that still won’t be good enough and because I don’t want those motherfuckers trapped where I plan to take you day after day and night after night, we’ll burn these fucking sheets together, destroying them for good. Then we’ll start over again tomorrow until every goddamned one of them that plagues you is eternally condemned.”
“That could take a lot of time. I have a lot of demons,” she said softly when he pulled his thumb out on a pop.
“I can be a patient man when I want something bad enough.”
Mike drew the wet digit down her chin, her throat, between the valley of her breasts, leaving a damp trail behind. When he reached her core once again, he repeated the same slow seduction. With each swipe of his finger, she unraveled faster. Craved him until she was almost manic.
She now understood that was his objective.
Drive everything else away but him.
It was working.
“You’d better get a burning permit. That’s going to be a lot of sheets,” she said breathlessly when he pushed inside her sopping center again.
“Don’t fucking care, Giselle.” He leaned down until they were nose to nose and she nearly protested when he withdrew his thumb, but moaned long and loud as he quickly buried two fingers in her instead. Pleasure was building on top of pleasure, spreading like slow-moving tentacles with each lazy stroke of his hand.
“You know what I want right now?”
Words. What were they? Nothing would mesh together in anything that made sense so she just shook her head. Quite frankly, she didn’t give a shit what he wanted as long as he didn’t want to stop.
“I want only you and me in here. In this room, that’s all there is. Can you do that?”
She could only nod. Bliss crowded out everything else because her detective’s fingers never stopped their diabolical caress.
“That’s good, baby because that’s the hard part. The rest is easy. Now I want your tight pussy to
clench hard for me and I want you to come until every fucking finger I have is coated with you.”
“Fuck, Mike,” she whispered as white lights started flickering in her peripheral and heat gathered in a violent, swirling firestorm inside the center of her very being.
“Then I want to rip this fucking dress off and have you ride me until your entire body quivers with the need to release. Until you take me right up to that fucking edge and you can’t stand not having my life-giving blood coursing through you for a single second longer. Only then are you allowed to sink those gorgeous teeth in me and milk both my vein and my cock at the same time.”
Jesus.
Countless males had uttered filthy things as they rutted inside her as though she were a detached, inhuman receptacle for their use. Even when her body may have betrayed her, her mind never did. Their words made her feel dirty and degraded, never hot and bothered.
Never like Mike’s sinful commands did.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement.”
She wanted to come back with a smart retort, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but a never-before-felt ecstasy gaining speed and momentum, threatening to wholly consume her.
Oh God. Her eyes closed on a roll. Mike Thatcher had finger fucked her before, but it was nothing like this. This was sheer, reverent, mutual love. His emotions bled into her with the force of a thousand moons, wrapping her in their gentle rays. She wanted to float there, revel in them for eternity.
So close.
She was so damn close.
“That’s it. Fall, Giselle. I’ve got you.”
That did it.
She tipped.
She let go completely, trusting him to catch her.
Her body shook and convulsed as bolt after bolt of lightning raced like gunshots through her muscles, firing out her fingertips and toes over and over and again. She felt wrecked. Blown utterly apart. But in a way she felt reborn, not subjugated and used.
Brutal, beautiful pleasure was all that was left behind and she basked in its warmth for seconds or minutes or maybe even days.
Lost in a sex haze, she hadn’t realized Mike had eased off her until she felt his tongue pressing where his fingers had just been.
Oh holy God.
It felt so fucking good.
For as often as she was violated, she was highly inexperienced sexually. Oral was off the table completely unless a male wished for his cock to be laying in a bloody, fleshy heap at his feet or his neck to be snapped. And she’d never been taken missionary style. They also knew better than to get too close to her fangs or their voice boxes would be viciously crushed under her bite. She’d never been caressed or kissed or stroked with gentle, loving touches.
She was glad her detective was the first. He’d be first in so many things.
Mike’s groan slammed her back to the present, where she should be. He gripped her thighs so hard, she knew she’d bruise if she were human.
“Fuck, I knew you’d taste like this.”
“Like what,” she gasped. Rising on her elbows she watched her Fated devour her like she was his last and best meal, working against the spiral of want he was delightfully spinning in her. She started to get dizzy with the need to come again.
His eyes swept up, bolting to hers. “Sweet. Addictive. Like you belong to me.”
“I do,” she whispered on a hoarse breath.
“Fuck, yeah, you do. Now show me.”
Then his mouth latched onto her clit and he sucked. And he bit. And he tugged. And he circled her with his tongue relentlessly until she was crying out, grinding against his face with unreserved abandon as her next release swept her completely downstream in a torrent of love and acceptance and hope.
Tears flowed down the side of her face while she rocked against Mike’s mouth, each flick of her hips getting slower and less aggressive until she was finally spit out from the rapids into calm, smooth waters.
Giselle floated blissfully and safely on a tightly woven raft of euphoria, truly unencumbered and free for the first time since…since ever.
And while she had a long way to go, with each droplet she blinked that spilled and ran through her hair, soaking into the fabric beneath her, she did exactly what her Fated instructed.
With his help, she began to let the past go, feeling cleaner than she ever had before.
9
Mike
He watched her give in, then glow brighter than the North fucking Star.
Giselle was blinding and he would never see the same way again. Didn’t care to.
She was the planet his moon would revolve around for eternity. The revolutions would be bumpy as hell, like some goddamned worn-out carnival ride, but he didn’t give a shit. He’d weather anything for her. He would lay down his life for her. He would carve out his own bloody heart and hand it to her, still beating if that’s what she asked of him. He would annihilate friend or foe, human or vampire or werewolf or fucking aliens to protect what was his.
He finally understood what Devon and the other Lords felt about their mates. Protective. Possessive. Animalistic. And fuck them if they said he didn’t have a clue because he didn’t live on plasma and dissolve into a million tiny pieces to travel.
He knew.
He knew.
When you knew within your soul of souls you would ruthlessly carve down anything in your path to keep the woman you love, you were done. Stick a fucking carving fork in you. There was no turning back. “Back” wasn’t even a possibility anymore, because when you spin around, it’s completely blank behind you as if it was never there in the first place. It’s simply a white, empty void without meaning or purpose.
She was now your momentum, the singular force that drove you forward.
She was the idol you prayed to each night before you drifted off.
She was the very air you filled your lungs with.
He finally got it.
His little minx moaned softly. He watched her glassy eyes open, trying to focus on him. Her soft, contented smile was literally his undoing.
She was happy. Happy. Because of him.
Giselle was always stunning. So fucking beautiful it was hard to believe she was real sometimes. But tonight, she looked positively otherworldly lying in a glowy, sated puddle on his bed. His bed.
He’d been here before, yes, but this time was different.
He’d felt it.
He’d felt what she did. It was hard to believe or comprehend and he’d been trying to deny it. Each time she gave herself over to him, he’d felt her anxiety and her pleasure. But tonight was a hundredfold over what he’d experienced before. It vibrated through his very bones and embedded itself into the sticky marrow. It hung in his mind, settled permanently in his drawn-up balls.
And he knew it had everything to do with the fact they’d both finally stopped fighting the idea of them, embracing it instead.
It felt phenomenal to see her this way. He wanted more. He wanted it all. Every-fucking-thing he never thought he’d get. And he would gladly walk through hell for it.
Again.
“Hi,” she said quietly, that goofy soft turn still on her swollen lips.
“Hi,” he croaked.
He was hard as fuck.
Ached so goddamned bad he was positive he was going to explode right now.
The thought of pushing inside Giselle’s tight pussy and driving her to scream his name repeatedly practically ate him alive, but he also understood this was the hard part for her, so tonight he was taking a slightly different approach, one he hoped didn’t backfire like the tailpipe of a rusted-out junker. Like the night he told her he loved her for the first time.
Mike shed the remainder of his own clothes. Crawling back into bed, he leaned his back against the headboard and let his legs fall open, his erect shaft bobbing against the taut muscles of his abs. His skin vibrated with the need to claim her, own her, to bind her to him for all of fucking forever.
“Take your dress off,” he
demanded while palming his painfully throbbing dick. He needed some relief, even if his fist wasn’t what he wanted strangling him.
Her bewitching orbs widened in surprise and he waited for it. His witchy woman didn’t disappoint—she never did. She cocked her head, crooked her mouth just so. “That sounded like you were telling me what to do,” she said bitingly.
“I was,” he piped back. He let his eyes drop briefly to where her dress still covered her upper half. She had pushed herself into a sitting position on the bed, but her pussy was still nice and spread open. And wet. Very fucking, deliciously wet. “The dress, Giselle. It needs to go. Right fucking now before I tear it off.” Urgent need threaded his tone. He heard it. So did she.
Giselle stood and shimmied the tight sheath back down over her hips, covering the come that was slicked all over her inner thighs. She kept her unreadable eyes peeled on him. For long, drawn-out seconds he panicked that he’d made the wrong decision. That he’d pushed her too far and she’d just evaporate on him again.
But Giselle needed to do this. He may have issued the orders, but they both knew she was really the one in control here. That’s what she desperately needed. She had to give herself to him…know she had the power and willingly hand it over. He couldn’t just take because, without a shadow of a doubt, other men had taken from her before. They’d taken something she didn’t want to give.
That thought sent white-hot molten rage scorching through his blood until it boiled over and scalded his insides black. He wanted to hunt down every one of those motherfuckers and end them. He wished he could mercilessly and agonizingly bleed them and watch the life slowly leach from their spineless eyes while they begged for their pathetic, damned souls.
Just when he thought she’d leave him high and dry for the countless time with the bluest balls known to mankind, she reached behind and painstakingly drew down the grey metal zipper on her tiny black leather dress. The move caused it to gape ever so slightly from her amazing tits. His mouth watered at the thought of tasting them again. In fact, he had yet to see her entire body naked for him at one time and the vision of perfection he imagined made a few beads of pre-cum leak from his mushroom tip.
