Love Me to Death (Underveil)

by Marissa Clarke

  “I approve wholeheartedly of your plan…in execution,” he said, still holding her shoulders. “It’s your motivation that concerns me.” His grip loosened slightly. “And the timing. You’ve gone from cold to hot.”

  “Hot, yes.” She reached out and ran her hands over his hard chest. “Very hot.”

  The words were true. It was the first time in a while she hadn’t felt cold. The wagon was cozy, and she’d had just enough alcohol to warm her.

  “Relax, Nikolai. I won’t bite you,” she whispered. But she would. There was no going back. She could never return to her old life. All she could do was follow her destiny and make wise choices. So far, she’d made no choices…until now. She was not going to put her fate in anyone else’s hands again. Even if those hands could make her see stars.

  “Kiss me, Nikolai. Not as a show for some woman spying on us. Kiss me for me. For you. For real.”

  And the kiss was real. Too real. So good, she almost lost her nerve.

  “Elena.” Her name from his lips drove her wild, and she pressed even closer.

  Step three: get him so aroused he wouldn’t care if she bit him. So far, so good.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp.

  He groaned and rolled her beneath him.

  “You’re not so talkative tonight,” she teased, running her hands down his back and up again.

  “I’m slightly overwhelmed.”

  “Only slightly?” She slid her hands under his shirt and scraped her nails down his back, and he thrust against her.

  “Okay. More than slightly.” His voice was deep and raspy, which caused her lower body to tighten.

  She scraped her nails back up to his shoulders. “You want me.”

  He placed his forehead against hers. “God, yes.”

  She reached between them and unsnapped his jeans. He grabbed her arm and pinned it above her head, then did the same with her other hand. This is not what she had planned. She needed control in order to achieve her plan. But this big, powerful man had a different scenario in mind.

  “Not now. Not here,” he said. “Not like this.”

  What the hell? He was saying no? She’d have none of that. She wrapped her legs around him and thrust up, and he groaned. He released her arms and grabbed her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers in a deep, consuming kiss. That mouth. That delicious, talented mouth.

  She wrapped her arms around him and reveled in the intimacy. Several times, she almost bit him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. It would be so sneaky—wrong, like what he had done to her. Yeah… He had done it with no thought as to her wishes. So be it.

  She took his bottom lip between her teeth and bit down. Hard.

  He hissed in pain, but then groaned as she rocked up against him and sucked.

  The result was instantaneous and shocking. His blood filled her mouth, and she went crazy. More. She needed more of it. Of him. Now.

  “Elena,” he said when she pulled away to swallow. “My God, what you do to me.”

  Like super high-octane gas, his blood fueled her. She no longer felt hungry or thirsty or tired. She felt powerful. Strong. Strong enough to push him over onto his back. She straddled him and kissed him again, drawing deep on his lower lip as he cupped her breasts over her parka.

  She needed his hands on her. “Clothes off,” she ordered, ripping the parka from her body. Damned Velcro on the sleeve. She couldn’t get it off fast enough. Then she removed the pajama top.

  She looked down at Nikolai who gazed up in wonder, blood glistening on his lips. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Extraordinary.” He reached up and skimmed his fingers over her breasts, causing warmth to pool between her legs. “Perfect.”

  “I need you naked.” She unbuttoned the shoulder of his shirt and pulled it down to his waist. She climbed off him and tugged his boots off, then unzipped and yanked his jeans down, shirt right along with them, and tossed them away. Kneeling at his feet, she paused to enjoy the view. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Every inch of him was powerful, and his skin flickered gold in the lamplight. Yes. She wanted this. All of him, and his blood coursing through her made her strong. She needed more.

  “I need to bite you,” she said, crawling back over him wearing only the boots, centering her core right over his erection.

  “I know.” He placed his warm hands on either side of her face. “Open. Let me see.” She opened her mouth, and his erection pulsed under her. “You’re changing.” He placed his thumb against a tooth. He withdrew, showing her a puncture wound with a drop of blood swelling from it.

  Holy shit. She ran her tongue over her top teeth to find two elongated and very sharp canines. A pang of fear stopped short and melted immediately when he grinned.

  “And your eyes are red. Deep, beautiful, passionate red,” he whispered. “I love it.”

  Her chest pinched inside. Slayers didn’t believe in love. And there was no way the most distinguishing features of vampires—her red eyes—appealed to him. Focus on the plan, she reminded herself.

  “Bite me, Elena.” He ran his hands from her throat across her breasts, circling the nipples, then lower, down her belly to where her body met his. “Tell me what you need.” His fingers found just the right spot, and he applied pressure, causing her to grind down on him. “That’s it. Tell me with your body and your words.”

  She groaned. The blood had made her strong, but she needed more. She stared down at the beautiful man beneath her. He hated vampires, but he was encouraging her to drink his blood. Desire, fear, and confusion swirled through her in a volatile concoction. She couldn’t back out now. She had to do this to stay safe. To stay alive, she had to become immortal and free herself from him.

  “Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”

  Him. She needed him. More than just his blood or the pleasure he offered with his playground of a body, she needed him—and that was far more terrifying than becoming a blood-sucking monster.

  Blood still glistened over the bite on his lip. She leaned down and licked it off, and he ran his hands over her back, urging her on.

  “Do it,” he whispered, sweeping his hands over her skin, making her body thrum. “You can’t hurt me.”

  But he could hurt her, and now that she had his blood flowing through her, she felt even more bonded to him. The goal was to escape. The plan. Return to the plan.

  Step four: drink enough blood to become immortal.

  Instinctually, her body ground against his, forward and back. It was difficult to focus with his thick erection so hot and hard underneath her. Just a few inches forward, then a shift in angle, and a hard press down, and she could have him inside her. That’s what she wanted. And she’d heard Aleksandra say she couldn’t get pregnant. Diseases didn’t even transfer between different species. Perfect. She threw her head back and continued to rub over him.

  No. She’d gotten off schedule. Blood first, then Step Five.

  She kissed his shoulder.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Do it. Make yourself strong and safe. Bite me. Drink from me.”

  Running her tongue over his skin, she could feel his pulse. He was alive with what she needed. His blood would save her life and make her immortal. It would enable her to escape.

  “Do it, Elena.” He swept his warm hands over her back.

  Breaths coming in shuddering gasps, she paused at the area between his neck and shoulder and pressed her lips to him. She could feel the blood right under the surface. So close she could almost taste it.

  He thrust up against her. “Yes. There. Now.”

  Her teeth cut through the flesh easily, and evidently painlessly, because his body bucked and he moaned with pleasure as she bit down. Rich, sweet blood filled her mouth, and she clutched him in desperation. She needed something else. More. More than his blood. She needed his body. She needed Step Five.

  Not withdrawing her mouth, she scooted forward to where the head of his erection
pressed against her entrance.

  He took himself in hand and rubbed up and down against her. She was slick and so ready.

  “Now?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her waist.

  Yes, God, yes. Now. Unwilling to pull away from his neck, she pushed down, and he groaned. Barely there. Just the head of him was inside her now, and she thought she would die from the overwhelming pleasure. She swallowed and lifted her head, power surging through her as her body hummed with change and need.

  “What did I say in the cabin?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath and pushed down several more inches. Moaning, she reveled in the fullness as he stretched her. So large. So right. She paused as his blood and body filled her.

  He reached between them and rubbed his thumb against her core. “I made a prediction, did I not?”

  She couldn’t answer. She could only survive, as she struggled to breathe and the pressure built from the fullness and the relentless circle he made with his thumb. His blood filled her with electricity and his body with the promise of spectacular release.

  “I said you would come before I was fully inside you. You’re there. Let go,” he whispered, pulling her down, forcing himself farther into her, massaging her with his thumb.

  She gasped for breath as her body hummed with pleasure. So perfect. So right. Just there. You will not call his name this time. This…exercise is for the sole purpose of escape and survival. Follow the plan. Then, he increased the pressure of his thumb, and she tumbled over that edge, escape and the plan completely obliterated momentarily by pleasure.

  Nikolai almost spilled when she convulsed around him, ecstasy on her face as she came silently in wave after wave, but he held on. She deserved more.

  And she was tight. So impossibly tight. As her climax receded and her body relaxed, he pushed a little farther into her and she moaned. It was almost more than he could stand. Perhaps it was because it had been so long, or maybe it was because the blood sharing was programmed in his body to be mind-blowing, but part of him suspected it was because it was her. And he needed her so badly.

  This was not how he had wanted their first time to be—rushed and in a caravan in the middle of nowhere. He had wanted to pamper her and make it perfect, but fate had decided otherwise and stopping now was impossible. His body and soul screamed to truly claim her and not hold back. His was on fire to the point of near mindlessness, which was bad.

  But she was immortal now. She could take anything. Still, he didn’t want to hurt her. He grabbed her pelvis and pushed her up to where he was barely inside, and she gasped, and then, using every ounce of self-control he possessed, he pulled down gently, gaining more entrance. She moaned. Just a little more and he’d be fully inside.

  Arm tight around her waist, careful not to get the cord tangled on anything, he rolled her under him. She planted her feet and pushed up. Yes. She wanted more. He pulled out, then slid back in. Almost there. “Okay?”

  She opened her blood-red eyes, and it was all he could do to not lose it. So hot. So…

  He thrust hard and she gasped. Then she smiled. So he did it again and again and again. He was fully seated now, and she met him thrust for thrust—harder and harder until he was mindless from the feel of her, wet and tight around him. His body slammed against hers in a fast and steady rhythm until he thought he couldn’t hold on anymore, and then she pulled him down and bit him on the other side of his neck.

  And that was it. The minute she pierced his skin, she came. He stilled as she clenched around him, squeezing him while she drew from his neck. The pain was so right. Everything about her was exactly right. He thrust into her one last time, and in a resplendent burst of light, he found the release he’d longed for since he met her. Complete, total, and absolute release.

  Once he came back down to earth, he rolled to his side and pulled her against him. The cord had been right. She was his. For the first time ever, he could envision spending his life with someone. She was powerful, and smart…and his.

  Still breathing hard, she shifted and held up her right arm. “It worked. The cord is gone.”

  “Not really.” He buried his face in her hair and pulled a blanket over them. “We’re bound, you and I. I won’t ever let you go. You’re mine.”

  A pained expression crossed her face and a tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “Step six,” she whispered.

  And just like that, Nikolai found himself alone in the wagon with nothing in his arms but the empty air.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nikolai shot bolt upright. What the hell had just happened? He shouted Elena’s name as he yanked his jeans on. It was as if she had just disappeared. No. Not as if. She had disappeared. He picked up his shirt from off of her parka. Shit. She was still naked, wherever she was.

  Fully dressed, he bounded from the back of the cart. “Elena!” he shouted. He put his arms through the straps of his sword sheath and called her name again. Nothing answered but the wind through the snow-laden trees.

  She could teleport in her immortal form, dammit.

  A sickening churn filled his gut as Aleksandra’s words slapped him in the face. Elena had followed them to a tee. She’d used him to turn, fucked him, and gotten rid of him.

  She was gone.

  He leaned back against the wagon and closed his eyes. She’d left him and he might never see her again. No more of her smartass comebacks, no exquisite come-ons. Nothing.

  The snow coated his lashes and stung on his bare arms. A few of the men, awakened by his calls, emerged from their tents to see what was going on.

  “It’s nothing,” he told them. “Go back to bed. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Everything is fine.”

  One by one, they disappeared, except for the old woman. She poked him in the chest as she passed to climb the steps back into her wagon. “You don’t strike me as one who just gives up. Sometimes you have to make fate bend to your will.” And with that, she lifted the flap and disappeared inside her home.

  Nikolai stood shivering for several moments. The woman was right. He’d just had mind-blowing sex with a woman who made him think of forever. No way in hell was he just going to let her leave him. He wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was his.

  He had to find her.

  Wow. It had worked. After she’d bitten Nik the second time, Elena had known she could teleport. She’d even seen images of herself standing right here, like a premonition, so she gave it a try. She’d pictured where she wanted to be, and then, poof, there she was. After a few disoriented moments where her body felt like it was shrink-wrapped a little too tightly, she grabbed a bath towel from the bar next to Stefan’s enormous tub and wrapped it around herself. Her body still thrummed with Nik’s blood and felt as if it were stretching from the inside out, probably as a result of her changing into a whatever-the-hell-she-was. Not painful, but not comfortable, either.

  “You’re mine,” she repeated out loud. “What kind of misogynistic crap is that?”

  She wiped the tears from her cheek and grabbed the remote that operated the tub and pushed the red button to call Stefan. He’d told her she was welcome anytime. Hopefully, he meant it. She pushed a green button, and the lights came on full. She squinted and cursed, pushing a different button that caused the exhaust fan to whir to life.

  “Technical difficulties?” Stefan asked from the doorway.

  “Oh. Hi. Sorry to just burst in like this. I, uh…was just going to…”

  He took the remote from her. “I assume you want a bath. You smell like it’s been quite an adventure.” He pushed several buttons, and the water poured from the tub spout, the lights dimmed, and light classical music piped in from the ceiling. “Dirt, blood, vodka, and sex, yes?”

  That pretty much summed it up.

  He tilted his head in that odd manner he had. “And look at you all grown up and immortal. How do you feel?”

  She turned and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. A total stranger stared back. Her hair was a tangled mess, he
r skin pale, and though more muscled than she had been, she looked thin. And her eyes—they were tinged with red like the blood she’d consumed. She was real monster now. “I feel like crap.”

  “You need food.”

  “Do I?” She thought she’d be stuck with a blood diet.

  “What sounds good? Pasta? Garlic bread?”

  It all sounded good. “Yum.”

  He took her hand and pinched the skin of her forearm. “And you are horribly dehydrated.” He held her hand between his. “And cold.” His icy, pale eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill the prick.”

  “Take a number.” Her voice sounded as tired as she felt.

  “First things first. Remove whatever those things are on your feet and get clean and warm.” He poured bubble bath in, then handed her the remote. “As you know, the red button calls me.”

  After he left, she stepped into the warm, frothy water and relaxed against the sloped wall of the tub. Warm and safe, she was no longer a prisoner. She had gotten here on her own. She dunked under and rinsed the grime from her hair, then shampooed three times.

  Stefan brought her food and a pitcher of water with a stemmed goblet. Everything was perfect and elegant, just like the man. So not like Nikolai. The brute.

  She stood and scrubbed her legs. “I’ll never let you go,” she mimicked in her best Nik-like accent. “You’re mine.” She sat and washed her feet. “His what? His freaking lap dog?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Stefan called from the next room.

  “Sorry. Just talking to myself.” She washed her face one last time, then finished off her fourth goblet of water.

  He appeared in the doorway. “You are highly agitated. What did he do to you?”

  She lifted an eyebrow, bubbles up to her neck.

  “I don’t need a play-by-play. I just want to know what drove you here.” He held a towel out for her. When she hesitated, he continued. “Elena, as lovely as you are, I have no interest whatsoever in you sexually. I am biologically designed to desire only one person. She was…born twenty-three years ago. The minute that happened, my sexual appetite turned off like a light switch, only to come back on recently when she came into power—and only for her.” He shook the towel he had stretched between his hands. “Come on. I’m a one-woman man. Lose the human modesty. It has no place in the Underveil. Enjoy what you are.”