Raven mewled and nodded before her brain could even process the question.
“Tell…me,” he gasped, massaging her clit with tenderness offsetting the sudden fury of his body’s assault. How they had gone from slow to fast so quickly she didn’t know or care. This was what she needed, what she knew, despite this body’s inexperience. His quick reclaiming of everything that was his, if only so she could do the same. “Tell me…how I feel.”
“Hot.”
“That’s…you, sweetness.”
“You feel hot.” She paused for emphasis—or possibly for air. It didn’t matter. “I…feel…hot.”
“Raven, Raven, Raven…”
Then suddenly, the proverbial light switch flicked upwards, and she remembered something important. And without warning, she began contracting her inner muscles with every plunge of his cock, squeezing around him so tightly that something closely resembling a howl tore through his throat and his hips bucked against her with maddened desperation.
“Oh fuck. Oh yes. Oh yes oh yes yes yes. Raven. Raven Raven Raven…”
He rubbed her clit so hard and striking into her pussy with ferocity that dissolved her knowledge of the line between pleasure and pain. Somehow it had ceased to matter. All she knew was she was crying and whispering a thousand things into his skin, battling him for custody of his cock every time he tried to leave her. When they kissed, it was all teeth and tongue. She tasted blood, but she didn’t know whose. At some point, the crystal blue of his eyes melted into the burning yellow of a demon’s, and just when the pressure mounting her insides became too much to bear, his fangs sliced into her neck and the world around her exploded.
She fell, but he caught her, thrusting desperately into her still as she spasmed and trembled into orgasm. The name she screamed was Nicholas.
“Mine!” he growled against her bloodied flesh, and somewhere deep inside her, a raging pain at last fell to peace.
This was what she needed, what she’d always needed.
“Yours,” she sobbed eagerly, clinging to him madly.
“Take me,” he demanded.
She did. Her blunt teeth sank hard into his neck and she felt him spill inside her, cooling the fire but starting a new one in the same stroke. “Mine,” she whispered.
Something within her locked and held.
“Yours. Oh God, Raven, always.”
The inner screaming stopped, and every inch of her burned with light.
The last thought before consciousness left her completely was a reminder to herself.
He’d asked her what he felt like. She hadn’t had the words then. Not to articulate what she really wanted to say or what she felt he truly needed to hear.
She’d have to remember when she awoke. He needed to know.
He needed to know that he felt like home.
He always had.
Chapter 22
He loved the way she felt against him. Curled sweetly at his chest, her right leg hooked over his hip and the drum of her heartbeat thumping lightly against him. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe they were a thousand miles and a couple centuries away. He could see them lying together in the cottage they’d once shared. The place he last remembered being truly happy.
Except now. This topped everything.
It was odd, knowing he’d once been truly happy. After generations of feigning bliss, he truly had it. He had all along. In some closed off corner of his mind were memories of absolute perfection. Now that he was here, it boggled him that he’d ever gotten so thoroughly lost.
“Mmm…” Raven murmured, her fingernails drawing soft, tantalizing patterns across his chest. “I never knew the floors of tombs could be so comfy.”
Nicholas grinned and brushed his lips across her brow. “You’re not lying on the floor.”
An adorable pout depressed her mouth. “I kinda am,” she argued, wiggling against him. “The frozen cheek of my ass will testify as much.”
He was assaulted with lavish images involving his teeth and said ass, images his cock very much appreciated. “I could warm it up for you if you like,” he purred, trailing his fingers down her spine until he had her perfect flesh cradled against his palm.
“Bad,” she scolded.
“The baddest.”
Her fingers danced around his chest. “You have the most perfect man-nipples,” she said, leaning upward to tease his indicated nipple with her tongue. “I don’t think I ever told you that before.”
Nicholas tried to listen to her. He really did. However, at the first caress of her mouth, his head slammed into the floor so hard he was sure he would see stars for a week. “Fuck,” he gasped, digging his fingers into her skin. “Raven…”
“Just saying. They’re all with the…yummy.” She emphasized her point with another lick.
He grinned and kissed her brow again, the hand at her ass making a steady trek up her perfectly firm body until he held her breast. “I don’t remember you being so forward.”
“I was all virginal before. And it was a different century.” She grinned, resting her chin against his chest. “Don’t tell me you don’t like forward-Raven.”
“I love all incarnations of Raven.”
“Yeah, you better.”
Nicholas smiled gently and raised his head, suddenly starved for her lips, as though he hadn’t spent the past few hours kissing her as much and as often as possible. “Guess I’ll just have to double my efforts when I wanna see you blush, then,” he said. “Used to be I could just comment on how much I enjoy nibbling on your pussy and—”
While the thwap of her hand against his chest felt oddly comforting, it was the pink in her cheeks that had him grinning like an idiot. A lesser creature would have missed her flushed skin in the dark, but there was little she could hide from his heightened senses. No matter how hot he found being on the receiving end of a slightly more adventurous Raven, he absolutely adored her innocence. The way she blushed and looked away whenever he said something teetering on the side of lewd, the way the slightest innuendo had her wiggling in embarrassment, was a part of what made her Raven. His Raven. He adored it all.
God, he loved her so much it made his nerves tingle. Even when left in doubt, when mourning how alone the world made him feel, he’d known she was out there.
He’d known he belonged.
“It’s weird,” Raven mused thoughtfully once her self-conscious blushes abated. “I feel like I’ve missed this all my life.”
“I know what you mean, kitten.”
“But I’ve only known…” She drew in a deep breath and shook her head, again resting her cheek against him. He loved the feel of her resting against his chest and the warmth of her pressed into his side. He waited for her to complete her thought but silence settled instead. It was for the best, he supposed. If they started musing over lost time, it would eventually drive them crazy.
He much preferred focusing on the future they had now, the one certain thing in his life. Everything was in the air, but he felt more or less accustomed to a complete lack of direction. He’d never really lived a day knowing where he’d sleep tomorrow. He could live with uncertainty. He always had.
The only thing he’d ever been certain about was currently snuggled in his arms.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done,” Raven murmured gently.
Nicholas frowned and squeezed her shoulder. “What is it?”
“If you hadn’t remembered.” There was a long silence. “I mean I prepared myself for it. I did. Up until it happened, I told myself you were likely never going to, but a part of me was clinging. I needed you to remember.”
He arched a brow. “I thought we covered this already, kitten.”
“We did.”
“Yeah, and you still don’t get it. You really think I couldn’t have loved you without my memories?”
“That’s not it.”
“Good, because that’s rubbish.” He smiled gently when she glanced up at him in question, clutching
her ass again and gently coaxing her to straddle his waist. He was too starved for her to not feel her flesh against his; he couldn’t lay naked with her without touching her or feeling her wet pussy pulsing around his cock. He loved the way she looked astride him, a shy, however wanton goddess. She was sheer perfection and she didn’t know it. “How could I not love you?” he whispered, eager fingers pinching her nipples, loving the way she gasped and gyrated against him. “I don’t give a damn what I do or don’t remember. Well, no, that’s not true, but even if I hadn’t—”
She nodded, her eyes heavy with arousal. “I know, Nicolai.”
He couldn’t imagine why the name had inspired such anger a short twenty-four hours ago. Then again, forever had passed in a matter of a day. He was older now than he ever had been, with even more experience under his belt. While Nicholas had never entertained thoughts of his own mortality, especially as an immortal being, a part of him had similarly never expected to get this far in life. To have seen all he’d seen and done all he’d done.
Now the future seemed limitless.
Raven drew in a gentle breath. “I guess the idea of being the only one who knew, who remembered, was a bit much.”
This he understood. Had it been the other way around, had he recognized Raven before she recognized him, he would have felt devastated at the history lost between them. Even if lightning struck twice and he managed to win her love a second time, he doubted he would ever completely recover from having lost such an essential part of who they were.
Now he felt whole.
“You know how it happened, right?” he asked her, abandoning one of her breasts to explore the renewed claim mark on her throat. A small thrill raced through his body the second his fingertips brushed the sacred skin. “This…”
“I know. You bit my tongue.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m not.”
Nicholas grinned. “Neither am I. I just fancy warning you before I’m about to bite.”
Raven arched a perfect brow. “I don’t seem to remember that.”
“Sometimes my warnings are the nonverbal sort. I figure if you see fangs, you know what’s coming.”
She gently ran her nails over one of his nipples, and he jerked slightly, eyes blazing with excitement. “And if I don’t wanna be bitten?”
“Tough.”
She pinched him, and he yelped, his hips bucking upward, his cock rigid and demanding attention. “Christ, Raven…” He didn’t realize his eyes were closed until he felt her lean forward. until her breasts pressed against his chest, and her wet, heavenly tongue licked the mark she’d given him.
There was definitely something to be said for forward-Raven. He could easily learn to love this.
He thought for a minute she might raise herself above him and lock him inside her body again, and he honestly didn’t know whether or not to be disappointed when she instead resumed resting against him.
Well, the demon knew what it wanted. It wanted its mate over and over and over again. The demon wanted the solace of her body. The demon wanted her drenching his cock with her cream while he drowned in her eyes. While Nicholas shared a good part of that sentiment, there remained sweet comfort in simply lying with her. It was comfort that sex couldn’t provide, no matter how he hungered for it.
Furthermore, there were too many things in the air they needed to discuss before they lost themselves to carnal pleasure.
Something told him Raven was on the same page. After everything she’d been through in the past couple of days, she likely needed verbal comfort more than anything.
“We think your history hunting down the Few was claim-linked,” Raven said. “It was something I kicked around for a while. Dexter pretty much confirmed it.”
There was no condemnation in her voice, nothing like he would have expected. He was a vampire lying naked with One of the Few—a vampire who had the blood of her brethren warriors on his hands—and she wasn’t angry. Not in her voice, and not in what she subconsciously sent him through their blood link.
Furthermore, her conclusion was one Nicholas had already reached, but he felt some measure of gratitude in hearing it confirmed. “Yeah?” he murmured, brushing her hair over her shoulder.
“Your…your inner vamp, the demon, I mean. We think it knew it was supposed to look for me.”
He shrugged. This explanation seemed reasonable enough. “The demon’s linked to you. No shame in saying it.” Nicholas kissed her brow again. He wanted to kiss every inch of her golden body, but he felt satisfied with her brow for now. “Your Guardian seems to be a big help.”
“I know. Weird, huh?”
“It’s a nice change.” He paused, a dark thought shuddering through him. “Don’t suppose you know what happened to Mal, do you? I’d fancy an ending full of pain and suffering, but I guess it’s too much to hope.”
There was a long, deadly pause, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Raven?”
Nicholas waited a long beat. Still nothing.
And then, seconds later, he felt it.
Trembling.
“Sweetheart…”
“I killed him.”
Strange how one could feel the world stop moving, even while lying down. Every living component of his body seemed to freeze at once, and for one who considered himself more or less dead, it was a rather bizarre sensation.
Raven couldn’t hurt anyone, not a living, breathing being of her own species. He’d seen her. The light in her soul was what had drawn him to her. It was one of the many reasons he’d fallen in love with her—her purity, her innocence, her…glow.
Now this unreality of reality. He ached to think of it.
“Oh God,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her. “Raven…”
“It’s okay.”
“The claim’s what did it. Fuck—”
“No. It wasn’t like that.” Raven shifted, resting her chin against his chest, her green eyes swallowing him whole. “I didn’t go after him or anything. It was an accident. After you…” There was a long pause, and when he felt her tremble again some part of his heart broke. “After you were gone I stayed in the room a long time. I couldn’t leave.”
“Oh God…”
“But I did. There was this…my mind kept dragging me back to the books in Kenneth’s library and the things I’d read. There were ways to get around it, and I had to get you back. And Kenneth was the only connection I had. Well, the only immediate connection. I know I could’ve found something else, someone else, but I couldn’t wait. I knew he had access. I knew he had books. So I went back and I found them, and he came in.”
She paused again, and Nicholas waited. There was nothing to do or say. He wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t know about what. It seemed natural that his death was what came to mind, and what she’d gone through. The circumstances had been outside of his control, but considering the place he’d left her, she’d been without option.
These were things he remembered thinking as he watched her weep for him, his heart too full of love for her to feel fear. What Raven had gone through in the time following was something he didn’t wish to consider.
“There were…words. Let’s just say he pissed me off, and considering I was a woman on the edge, it was a stupid move on his part.” Raven sighed and inched upward, brushing a tender kiss across his lips. “Oh, and by the way, he told me what you did.”
Nicholas frowned. “What’s that?”
“Yeah. The whole dying thing. When I could have saved you.”
He winced, and his guilt intensified. “Oh right. That.”
“Jerk.”
It was a tempered insult compared to what he felt was coming, so tempered that it made him nervous. Her tone lacked even malice, holding only a slight pout one might hear from a child. “Raven…I couldn’t let you die for me.”
“But dying for me was cool?”
“Kitten, I—”
She pressed her index finger to h
is lips, a sad smile tugging across hers. “No. It’s okay. I understand.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, you’re not. And I wouldn’t be, either. If it’d been me, I would’ve done the same thing.” Raven kissed him again before resting her cheek against his chest once more. “So you’re off the hook. I did most of the cursing of your name between burying Kenneth and finding the right book to use. It didn’t make me love you any less. If anything, I think it ultimately had the reverse effect.”
“You love me more for making you suffer?”
A short, humorless laugh bubbled off her lips. “In a weird way, yeah.”
“But I—”
“Devastated me? Kinda. But hey, I bounced back. I bounced all the way to Kenneth’s, where I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t. Not at first, at least.” She swallowed hard. “I had him at my mercy, then he started laying the guilt and so I let up…and he tried to kill me, but he wasn’t fast enough.”
Nicholas had never gone from one emotion to another so rapidly. One minute he felt saturated in guilt, and the next he was ready to beat his chest and rip the stuffing out of the first jackass he came across with even a passing resemblance for Kenneth Mal. At this point, pretty much anyone would do.
“I swear to—”
“Swear to no one. I killed him dead.”
“That bastard tried to kill—”
“—me. I know. Twice. He’s dead as in way dead, and he doesn’t need to be killed again.”
“I think I’ll be the judge.”
“Nicolai—”
“He—”
Raven silenced him with her lips. “Is dead,” she whispered again. “Very. And we’re here.”
It amazed him what she could do to him with that mouth of hers. “We’re here,” he murmured.
“And despite whatever tricks Paimon tried to pull—”
Nicholas blinked and pulled back, his brow furrowing. “Paimon?”
Ripples Through Time Page 24
