Crave

by Felicity Heaton

  And yet Callum still found himself opening his mouth and saying, “I’ve never been more serious... and I don’t care what people think. I want you, and that is all that matters to me.”

  She shook her head, an incredulous look in her eyes, and set her whisky glass down on the coffee table.

  “Just as long as you’re aware of what we’re doing here.” Her gaze met his again.

  “Are you?” he countered and she blinked, dropped her eyes back to the glass and shrugged.

  “I gave up caring about things a long time ago, and I don’t have any friends. In fact... it could only be a good thing for me if word that I had slept with a vampire filtered down the vine to my pack.”

  Callum had to wonder why that was. Her pack would likely disown her and never associate with her again. Was that something she wanted? Come to think of it. She was definitely British like he was, and based on the fact that no one seemed familiar with her in the clubs, she was new to Paris.

  “Where is your pack based?” he said and the warmth in her eyes evaporated in an instant, turning cold as her guard went up and shut him out.

  “No questions,” she snapped and stood. “If we’re going to do this, you don’t go probing into my personal life and I don’t go asking about yours. Got it?”

  The pack was definitely a sour subject for her. Her reaction only increased his curiosity about it. Had she parted with them on bad terms? His eyebrows rose. Was she on the run? She had panicked and he had sensed fear in her the whole time she had been with the werewolf last night. Afraid that the man would know her pack from her scent and contact them? He wanted to ask about it but held his tongue. The fire now blazing in her eyes warned him not to even dare to disagree with her. She would be out of the door again if he did, and he didn’t want that. As much as he wanted to know her past, he wanted her more fiercely.

  Callum nodded.

  He would wait until her guard was down and then do a little digging. It wasn’t just her safety at risk. If she was running from her pack and they were after her, he could end up caught in the crossfire. She had said that he would start a war by killing the three werewolves from last night. She would start one herself if her pack discovered she had chosen a vampire over her own kind. They would want vengeance. His death would be the start of another bloodbath between vampires and werewolves.

  “Fine.” Callum rose to his feet. He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek and her armour fell away again, lowering to reveal a touch of warmth in her eyes that he was growing to like seeing. “I won’t ask why you’re running.”

  A flicker of steel in her gaze and the twitch of her body as she tensed told him that he had presumed right. She was on the run from her pack. Why?

  Kristina stepped up to him and rested her hands on his chest. Her fingertips caressed him through the silky grey material, teasing and pushing the thought out of his mind as his body responded to her touch. He slid his hand around the nape of her neck and tipped her head back so her eyes met his. The rosy gloss on her lips still tempted him with its scent but it was the lingering fragrance of her blood in the air that had saliva pooling in his mouth and his fangs itching to taste her. He clamped down on the desire, forcing it deep inside him and keeping it there. She was already on edge as it was. Transforming in front of her again would probably send her dashing for the door. As much as he desired her, as fiercely as his hunger for her rode him, he would keep himself under control.

  He wouldn’t bite her until she asked.

  She hesitated and so did he. The hunger that had given him confidence last night was little more than a fizzling ember, reduced to ashes by everything that had passed between them in the past half an hour. He wasn’t sure what to do to bring it back or how to move past this awkward silence. He wanted to kiss her again, craved the flavour of her on his tongue, but wasn’t sure if she wanted it too.

  “This is stupid,” she muttered under her breath, leapt up and wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders. It caught him off balance and sent him tripping backwards across the room, desperately clutching her bottom to support her. He hit the door hard, the brass knob jabbing him in the back and pushing the air from his lungs in a harsh grunt. She beamed at him. “Wow... I had thought you would have been able to handle that.”

  “A little warning wouldn’t go amiss,” he grumbled and straightened his back, grimacing as the area that had collided with the door knob throbbed and ached.

  “Clearly you’re not as strong as I thought you were.” She grinned.

  Callum stared at her, feeling as though she had mentally cast him out of the role of male vampire and onto the reject pile labelled ‘human’. Not as strong as she thought? Well. If she had thought to challenge his masculinity, she had chosen the perfect words for it, and he would respond with the perfect counter argument.

  Still holding her, he strode across the room, tossed her onto the bed, and before she had stopped bouncing in the middle of it, was on her. His fingers clamped tightly around her wrists and pinned them hard to the soft striped dark blue and gold covers. Her smile fell away and her pupils dilated when he growled down at her, his hips against hers, holding her immobile and powerless beneath him.

  Her fingers flexed and she struggled, a wicked glint in her eyes commanding him to stop her. Vixen. She liked it. He shifted his grip, interlocked their fingers, and pressed her hands down harder, until his muscles tensed, his body went taut, and the urge to snarl tore through him. The scent of her arousal hit him hard. The black chasms of her pupils ate the colour in her irises, confirming her hunger.

  Callum snarled and kissed her, forcing her mouth open with his tongue. She moaned and writhed against him, her hands pushing up into his. She almost managed to get the back of her hands off the quilt. Almost. He pressed more of his weight onto her slender hands, stopping her before she managed it, and she groaned and kissed him harder, her teeth clashing with his as their mouths met in short desperate bursts. He wanted to touch her, slide his hands over her supple body and reacquaint himself with her breasts, stomach and groin, but that meant surrendering his grip on her. He was sure the moment he did such a thing, she would have him flat on his back, pinned beneath her, showing him he wasn’t in control and that she could match his strength.

  She couldn’t.

  Werewolves were weaker than vampires, and he was fairly certain that he was much older than her too.

  “Callum,” she breathed into his mouth and he dropped his lips to her throat, kissing and licking, driven by the sound of his name falling so huskily from her lips. He wanted to hear her scream it, needed to be aware of her climax and feel the pleasure rippling through her, knowing that he had given it to her.

  He nipped her collarbone with his blunt teeth and then snarled when he reached the black mac she still wore. He wanted it off her.

  Kristina didn’t move when he sat back and released her hands. She laid on the bed beneath him, panting breathlessly, her breasts heaving delightfully. He made fast work of the belt on her coat and then pulled it open.

  His breath stuttered.

  Hell.

  He wanted to devour her now.

  She looked too delicious in the little dark red leather corset and short pleated black skirt. If he had known she was wearing this beneath her plain boring mac, he probably wouldn’t have let her out of the suite the first time. He probably wouldn’t have given her a chance to lash out at him. He would have been worshipping her with kisses the moment he had set eyes on her and plunging himself into her warm sheath just a heartbeat later.

  “Christ... fuck me,” he whispered, at a loss as to what to do next. He wasn’t sure where to start.

  “Okay.” She grabbed his shoulder and flipped him onto his back on the bed. He sank into it, not putting up a fight as she removed her mac and tossed it onto the bed beside her. The vision of her astride him, her smooth creamy thighs tight against his hips, the short black skirt that barely covered her crotch, and the
wicked strapless leather corset that squashed her breasts into cleavage that took his breath away, rendered him dumb.

  She wriggled her hips against him and he groaned at the feel of her heat seeping through his dark grey trousers and the exquisite friction of her pussy rubbing along his rigid cock.

  Callum clutched her hips, breathing hard and struggling to form words. A compliment would do. He tried one but it came out garbled because she chose that moment to lean over him and blind him with the sight of her full breasts verging on spilling out of her corset. It was a miracle they stayed in.

  He wished they hadn’t.

  He wanted to swirl his tongue around each rosy button in turn and suckle them until she moaned for more.

  “Did you say something?” She frowned at him and ran her hands over his chest, heading for the buttons of his silver shirt. She undid them slowly, her fingers brushing his skin as she popped each one and parted his shirt a little. When she had undone the final button, she eased the two sides apart to reveal his torso.

  He swallowed and forced a single word out. “Beautiful.”

  She ran an appraising glance over him and smiled. “Funny... I was just thinking the same thing.”

  He groaned and bucked at the first touch of her hot mouth on his flesh. She trailed wet kisses over his chest, pausing to circle his left nipple with her tongue, and down to his stomach. She growled, the sound rumbling low in her throat, and his cock throbbed in response. He had never been with a woman who growled like he did when excited and aroused. It made him think of her biting him and he was surprised by how much he welcomed the thought.

  Callum tipped his head back into the soft duvet, groaning as she lightly bit near his navel. He clutched the bedclothes, twisting them into his fists, and she giggled.

  “You looked delicious enough when you weren’t tense,” she murmured in a heated way and lavished his stomach with kisses, licking and nipping at him. “Damn, you look irresistible now. I might have to eat you.”

  Hell. He rolled his eyes closed and groaned again, every muscle going taut as she raked her nails over his chest, catching his nipples, and down his stomach to his belt. His breathing hitched with the tug of her hands on his belt and he exhaled all the air in his lungs as the sound of his zipper sliding down filled the silent room.

  “Mmm,” she moaned and stroked his hard length through his boxers. He bucked against her palm, unable to control himself. She drove that ability away. Shattered all thought and left him with only instinct. His hips pumped, rubbing his hungry cock against her hand, leaving him aching for flesh-to-flesh contact between them. “Let’s see if you’re as damn beautiful as I remember.”

  Callum bit his lower lip, her words swimming in his hazy mind, slowly working themselves into the right order to form her sentence.

  She thought his cock was beautiful?

  He was about to pursue an answer to that question when she shuffled his boxers down over his hips and ran her tongue along the length of his erection, from root to tip, shattering his ability to think again. He groaned instead, fingers tightening against the duvet. The first swirl of her soft pink tongue around the head of his cock sent his head spinning and he grunted.

  She made a little noise of pleasure, a tiny murmur that died as she took him into her mouth. The wet slide of her tongue down the underside of his erection and the slight scrape of her teeth along the top, sent a shiver of tingles tripping through him. He grunted again, aware that he was starting to sound like some sort of animal but unable to muster enough care to stop.

  She made him into an animal.

  Each warm slide of her mouth down his cock, each brush of the back of her throat over the sensitive head, each press of her tongue against the underside as she rose off him, and each torturous swirl around the blunt head had his moans turning into snarls and his snarls becoming growls. His balls tightened and she chose that moment to cup them in her palm and roll them, increasing the tension at the base of his cock. She moaned and the sound of it joining his constant snarls and growls of bliss, the thought that she took pleasure from doing this to him, from making him feel so good that he was burning up inside, couldn’t stop himself from thrusting shallowly into her mouth as he sought his orgasm, only turned him on even more.

  She squeezed his balls, stroked the area just below them, and then rubbed it as she sucked him harder.

  Callum’s climax came upon him like a tidal wave, obliterating all conscious thought and leaving him with only intense feelings. He pressed his hips up, thrusting his cock into her mouth, and cried her name as he came. Fire blazed through his veins and limbs, sending them quaking, stealing his breath and almost stopping his heart. He screwed his face up, trembling all over, struggling to catch his breath as she licked and sucked him, her breathy little moans adding to the ecstasy carrying him away.

  He couldn’t move.

  His muscles were slack and weak, bones limp and useless. He lay on the bed beneath her, eyes closed, heart beating erratically, breathless.

  Christ, if he hadn’t wanted to let her go before, he really didn’t want to let her go now. He had never experienced something so intense and mind-blowing, not in all his five hundred plus years.

  “Good?” she said with an obvious giggle in her voice. She was teasing him. She knew it was good, was well aware of the fact she had reduced him to a quivering mess.

  She crawled up the length of him and after several seconds he managed to get his heavy eyelids up and looked into her eyes.

  “You’re smiling like a crazy person.” She giggled again, her hazel eyes full of light and warmth.

  She was beautiful, so full of life and so intoxicating. She sparkled with it, bright and blinding, completely different to how she had been around other men. There had always been wariness in her eyes then. It had even been there when she had been with him at the club.

  It was gone now.

  Was this sudden change in her because she felt safe with him? Had she been scared the whole time she had been out in the world? He wanted to make her feel this way all the time. He wanted to ride in on a white steed and play her knight in shining armour so she would never be scared again. His chest heated, heart steadying as he realised and admitted that the knot that he had felt in it before was more than fleeting.

  He really was falling for her.

  He lifted his arm, brushed his knuckles across her cheek and then opened his hand and cupped her face, resting his fingertips close to her ear. Her look changed instantly, a cautious edge entering her eyes, stealing some of the light from their hazel depths.

  Callum wanted to tell her to stop running away from him whenever he tried to show her the slightest emotion beyond simple lust and desire, but he knew that it would only make her bolt.

  She trembled beneath his touch and he could feel the fear rising in her again.

  Would she run if he told her that she didn’t need to fear him and that he wouldn’t hurt her?

  Of course she would.

  She wasn’t ready to hear such things from him.

  “I think you broke me,” he whispered and her smile returned, the hint of fear in her scent fading.

  He lowered his hand from her face, caught her right wrist, and brought it away from his chest. He frowned at the scratches across it.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He glanced up at her to find her staring at her wrist, her eyes round and distant. She didn’t tense or pull away when he inhaled slowly to catch the scent of her blood. It was still intoxicating, the undertones of sweetness and spice sparking hunger inside him. He was sure she would taste like nothing he had ever experienced before. He had smelt werewolf blood in the past and it hadn’t been like hers. It had been flat and dull, as uninteresting as most vampires’ blood. What made hers so different?

  Kristina stilled when he drew her hand towards him and reached out with his tongue, his eyes half closing as he came close to touching the scratches. She withdrew her hand and clucked her tongue.

&nb
sp; “No bloodplay.” She tortured him by licking her own wrist, stealing what he had wanted to be his, and sat up astride him. Her fingers glided up his stomach to his chest and then down his arms to his wrists. She took hold of his hands and raised them, placing them on her hips and sliding them up to her breasts. “You’re not shaking anymore.”

  He focused on his body and noted that she was right. He had stopped trembling the moment she had sat back on him, nestling his soft cock against her groin. The feel of her heat on him, their bodies separated by only her underwear, had pushed him through the haze of one orgasm into the search for his next.

  She smiled when his penis twitched, stirring at the thought of being inside her this time.

  “You vampires certainly do have the stamina everyone says you do,” she said and he frowned at her.

  When had she closed herself off again? She spoke about him as though they were strangers fucking for fun and he was just a vampire and she just a werewolf. They weren’t Callum and Kristina. Had she seen in his eyes what he had wanted to say, that he had moved past this being about nothing more than satisfying urges and cravings, and this was her reaction to it?

  She hesitated, crimson turning her cheeks rosy, and toyed with his nipples, staring at them. She obviously had acute senses because she had picked up on the barest threads of his emotions and right now she was feeling his anger.

  “Kristina,” he said, unwilling to let her pretend that this meant nothing. He would force her to use his name if he had to. He wouldn’t stop using hers. He could be cruel too, could call her werewolf or female, could place that barrier between them. How would she like that? Would it hurt her as much as her doing the same hurt him?

  He pulled her down to him and kissed her, deliberately slowly, forcing her to acknowledge that this could be something more than just a moment of madness if she wanted it to be and could accept him in her life. She struggled at first, trying to roughen the kiss and turn it passionate. He didn’t let her. Her version of passion wasn’t what he wanted this to be about. He wanted it to be about passion that meant something, that came from the heart and soul, not the sex glands.