Hunger

by Jacquelyn Frank

  His strong fingers circled her clit, waking up all the nerves around it, as his mouth began to trail down the skin of her body. First at her collarbone, briefly pausing to kiss the closed wound on her shoulder, and then down to pay homage to her breast. As his fingers searched her, his mouth took command of her nipple, closing the connection between the two erogenous zones. She moaned, her back arching. As he worked his magic against her she felt herself spinning off into a world of pure sensation. She had never felt so alive. He made her feel every inch of her own vitality.

  Halo swept his touch all around the sensitive flesh between her thighs, stimulating her even as his mouth left her breast and continued inexorably down her body. She was panting for breath, her fingers desperately clutching at his hair and shoulders. She didn’t know if she could bear what he was going to do. It felt all too overwhelming. Part of her wondered if she could possibly survive his skill and allure as a lover. Every time he kissed her he flicked his tongue against her skin, his mouth sucking a little at her flesh, promising the same treatment once he reached his goal.

  He reached that goal only moments later. He pressed a kiss at the crest of her mound, then dipped his tongue into the folds beneath it with a flutter both quick and sure. He had drifted his fingers downward to make room for his mouth at her clit and she arched off the bed when one slid into her body, caressing her from the very inside of herself. All the while his free hand coasted over her skin wherever he could reach. Sometimes he was at her breasts, others he was touching her thighs. He made certain she perceived him as being everywhere at once.

  He worked his particular brand of magic until she went spinning off into her first orgasm, her body alive with the sensations of pleasure riding through her. She gasped for breath, trying to come down from the unbelievable high, but he wouldn’t let her. He inserted a second finger inside of her and continued to dance his tongue against her clit.

  “Stop!” she gasped. “Please! I want you…inside of me.”

  “I am inside of you,” he said, breaking away from her body to flash her a wicked grin.

  “You know what I mean,” she said in breathless exasperation. “I want you to fuck me…and feed from me. I want to feel that again. I need to feel it again. Now. While we have the time to enjoy it and indulge in it. Not like before.”

  He made a savage sound, surging up her body and kissing her mouth fiercely. She tasted herself on his tongue and moaned at the eroticism of it. He knew why she reacted and it made him react in equal measure.

  Then suddenly he was flipping her over, pressing the front of her body into the mattress for a brief moment before grabbing her hips and jerking her up onto her hands and knees. His rough handling only served to excite her. She backed her bottom up against him, even as he moved into place behind her.

  He shaped the globes of her buttocks with his large hand, reinserting his fingers for the briefest moment, enlivening her nerves once more right before he pulled them out and notched the head of his cock to her vaginal opening. Then, with a rending thrust, he was inside of her. One of his hands was gripping her hip, pulling her back onto him even as he thrust forward deep and true. The clash of their bodies rocked them both forward and then back again. Then he was bending over her back, whispering hotly into her ear.

  “I’m going to fuck you as I feed from you. It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Are you ready for it?”

  “Yes!” she gasped.

  “Good,” he said fiercely as he swept her hair aside, exposing her neck. He thrust inside of her hard, rocking her body, even as he affixed his mouth to the knob of bone at the top of her spine. She tensed, felt her nipples tightening and her body slickening even more from the sensual anticipation. He teased her only a brief moment, flicking his tongue against her skin, but he was just as desperate for her as she was for him. Perhaps even more so as he was so in need of a feed.

  And she wanted to feed him. She wanted to give him sustenance. She wanted to be everything to him. Everything vital and necessary. Everything he couldn’t live without.

  She felt his mouth suck at her sensitive flesh briefly, then gasped when he suddenly and savagely bit down on her. She wondered for the briefest instant where those wicked fangs came from, and where they went when he wasn’t feeding. Then it no longer mattered to her. She felt the electricity of her own body suddenly going in reverse; instead of signals radiating outward, they began to draw inward, up to the juncture where her impulses from her brain went to the top of her spine. Numbness followed, dizzying pleasure as well. She felt him penetrating her in two separate ways, stimulating her in both ways. She gasped for her every breath, moaned and panted as pleasure continued to cascade through her, even as he drew the impulses of her brain into himself, feeding on her energy. Feeding on her.

  The feeding took longer this time, perhaps because he wasn’t in a life-or-death moment and he wanted to draw it out…which was fine with her. As each moment passed he thrust harder and harder into her, their bodies connecting and surging together.

  Then suddenly he released her and every impulse in her body returned to normal, if it could be called normal to feel a rush of sensitive energy along every nerve of her body all at once. She orgasmed from the wild sensations, her body going tense from head to toe, locking into the pleasure. She heard him groan against her ear and she wanted to wonder how it felt for him, except she was too selfishly involved in her own ecstasy. That was okay, she realized a moment later, because he was being just as selfish. He surged into her body once more then held himself rigid against her, crying out with animalistic intensity as he joined her in the rush of orgasm.

  They collapsed together, release rushing through their nerves and muscles. His weight was heavy along the back of her body, his breath spooled rapidly against her ear.

  “That was…” he panted harshly.

  “Amazing,” she finished for him, equally without breath.

  He chuckled, the sound warm and inviting in her ear. She liked this side of him. The relaxed, humorous side. She wriggled around beneath him until she was on her back and they were pressed together breast to chest. She looked into his eyes and could swear she saw electrical sparking deep within his pupils. But she was so dizzy with the aftermath of pleasure she would never be sure.

  “Was I enough?” she asked him softly.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Was I enough to feed you? To sate you? Did I give you everything that you needed?”

  “And then some,” he told her fiercely as his hands tightened on her body and ravaged her mouth for long moments. When he finally came up for air he said, “Never doubt that you are enough for me, I wish I could make you feel what this is like for me, I wish I could come up with adequate words to describe it. But I’m no poet. I don’t have the words to tell you how your energy electrifies and invigorates me. How hard with need it makes me. How wildly content it makes me.”

  “You just did,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “I hope it is always this way.”

  “I cannot feed from you too often,” he warned her. “It would weaken your immune system, make you more vulnerable to disease. No more than once every two weeks. Preferably a little longer.”

  “Once every two weeks,” she insisted. “I will look forward to it. I will plan it to the very second.” She hesitated. “We can plan other things as well. Where we will live. How we will live. What the future holds for us.”

  “We have time for all of that. Right now I want to bask in you. Bask in this energy and in you. I want to enjoy the knowledge that you are finally safe from Roth and Michael. And I want to pretend that nothing will ever threaten us again.”

  “Nothing will,” she insisted.

  But she knew that, in his heart, he did not believe that. That he was preparing himself for more. That he was forcing himself to accept that possibility and the steps he would have to take to see to it that it was dealt with and she was kept safe.

  She
did not know about the hovering threat of Draz, and he did not tell her.

  “You are my precious one,” he said to her instead. “I suspect what I feel for you is the deepest sort of love. I don’t know for certain because I’ve never felt it before. There is very little I have not experienced in my wild, decadent life. But this is the wildest and most decadent feeling that I have ever felt. I am convinced it is the wildest and deepest love for you.”

  She laughed softly, cleared her throat of its sudden and extraordinary tightness of emotion. She knew this was a huge step for him. Not only the feeling itself, but for him to risk telling her about it…to expose his vulnerability before she exposed hers. That touched her more than anything anyone else in the world could have offered her.

  “I love you too,” she whispered to him fiercely.

  “How do you know?” he asked honestly.

  “I love others in my life, but this is different. This is beyond the devotion of a family bond. Or even the fancy of a past love. I think I never knew what love was until I knew this.”

  He laid back in satisfaction, drawing her close to his side.

  “I think you’re gonna have to say this to me several times a day every day. Just to remind me of how awesome we are.”

  “Will you need so much reminding? Can’t you feel it on your own?” she said with a tease.

  “I can feel it on my own,” he agreed, pulling her in for a fierce kiss, letting himself be distracted by the lushness of her mouth for a moment. Then he lifted away and said, “You are everything to me. I simply want to hear that I am everything to you. And…I want you to tell me the minute you stop feeling this way. I don’t want to keep you longer than you are willing to stay. I want us to deal honestly with each other.”

  “We will,” she insisted. And just as vehemently she said, “But it won’t be me who grows tired of this relationship.” Her tone was fierce and utterly sure. Absolutely believable. She made certain of it. She wanted him to know the depth of her devotion, and she wanted to let him know he would always have a way out if one day he should decide to take it.

  But that day was not today. And if it were in her power to do so she would see to it that day never came. She would make him happy.

  “I do not need an escape clause,” he whispered against her temple. “I am in this to stay.”

  “Even though you’ve never stayed anywhere before?” she asked.

  “I’ve never had a reason to stay before.” He kissed her on the corner of her lips. “I have one now.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “For investing in me.”

  “An easy investment with excellent returns,” he said with a chuckle. “Now…now that all of that is settled, I want to lie with you and hold you. I want us to keep each other warm.”

  “It is terribly chilly in here,” she remarked.

  “I know. Let me turn up the heat,” he said, moving to get out of the bed. But she stopped him.

  “Don’t go,” she said. She wriggled around with him until they were both under the covers. They snuggled down together in each other’s arms.

  “There. Now we’re right where we’re supposed to be,” she said softly. She nuzzled her face against his chest.

  “I don’t know why I would have wanted it any other way,” he said with a frown. “I almost pushed you out of my life. If you hadn’t come after me…”

  “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “I can be very stubborn. I still have reservations. But I also believe in myself…just as you believe in me. I can keep you safe.”

  “I worry more about you than I do myself. You’re the one who goes out there hunting after those monsters.”

  “You know, you still have to face the committee. They still haven’t decided if you will keep your memories.”

  “Actually, yes they have. I met with them today. I convinced them that I could keep their secret—and that I was in love with you and would be devoted to you, and that they had no right to take that away from me. They agreed.”

  “Without consulting me?” He frowned.

  “Apparently they felt it was high time someone reeled you in.”

  His frown faded and a corner of his mouth lifted. “It sounds like something those pompous busybodies would do.”

  “Well, they were right, weren’t they?”

  “They usually are, damn them.”

  She laughed at him. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I hate it when they are right. It just makes them more obnoxious. In this case, however, I will forgive them and thank them.”

  “And so you should,” she said primly. “In fact, you have a lot of thanking to do.”

  “Oh?”

  “Rafe. Danton. For looking out for me.”

  “I’ve already done so. You may not have seen me, but I was keeping an eye on you. Making sure you were safe. From a distance, to protect you, but I was counting on Rafe and Danton, and they didn’t let me down.”

  “You have more friends than you realize.”

  “Perhaps,” he said with a smile. “But I only need one.”

  He kissed her shoulder, just above her healing wound.

  “What will you do now?” he asked her then. “We can’t carry on a relationship with me in the city and you upstate.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “You can open a shop in the Village. They always have eclectic stores.”

  “I don’t know if I could pay the rent.”

  “We’ll use my money. God knows I have enough of the stuff and nothing else worth spending it on.”

  “We have to have a home,” she said. “A real home. With all our own things.”

  She watched him closely as she said it. Looked for fear or the instinct to flee from the idea of putting down roots. She saw none of it. She smiled in ultimate pleasure when he said, “I can get us a very nice apartment in the vampire building. It will help keep you protected. They have lovely homes.”

  She didn’t ask why he’d not lived there in the first place. She already knew. He felt like an outsider. Like something to be feared and avoided. Well, she was going to change all of that. She was going to ease him back into the fold of his own people. She wouldn’t let him feel like he was all alone in the world any longer.

  “Don’t count on me not to fuck it up,” he said gruffly when she told him as much. “Don’t try to change me.”

  “Not you. Them. The way they look at you,” she said.

  “I like the way they look at me. They are scared of me. That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Well. Maybe for most of them. But surely there are some you wouldn’t mind letting close.”

  “Depends. How close are we talkin’?”

  She laughed at the surly remark. “Don’t worry. You can stay curmudgeonly whenever it suits you. Just…I can’t be the only one you let in. And I know you’re lonely. You have to be.”

  “I’m not,” he denied. But there wasn’t that much power behind the denial. “I’ll have you. That’ll be more than enough for me.”

  He pulled her head down so he could kiss the top of it. She heard him breathe in the scent of her hair, then felt him trail his face down the side of hers, kissing her temple, her cheek, her lips.

  “Now, are we going to yammer about me all night or are you going to screw around with me at some point?”

  She burst out in a bright laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Yeah, well…you love me that way.”

  “I do. I do very much so.” She brought her hands up to cup his face between them, making sure he met her eyes. “Just the way you are. All of you.”

  “I know the feeling,” he said softly, reaching to kiss her lips. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

  “I’m glad…because I can be quite pompous and a little bit preachy.”

  “I noticed,” he said with a chuckle. “Preachy more than pompous. Sure of yourself is a better term. As I said, just the way you are. I’m no
t going to change you.”

  “All right. I’m glad. We can be just the way we are together.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  Halo rolled on top of her, kissing her deeply. Felice was overwhelmed with a sense of happiness and pure joy. She couldn’t remember ever being so happy. She wanted to share the feeling with the world…but she would settle for him. She kissed him back and held him to herself. She wasn’t letting go and he wasn’t going to let her.

  And that was just the way it should be.

  Epilogue

  Draz took Roth’s defeat in stride. After all, he had not thought much of the man and had had no great alliance with him. They had simply existed in a mutually beneficial relationship. Draz let Roth live and Roth did as Draz instructed. Simple.

  He had never really thought Roth’s plan to get Halo to switch allegiances and kill the queen would work. True, Roth had had early success converting others prior to Halo. Draz had seen the results. But Draz had also known that Halo was made of very different stuff than the average vampire. Just as he was made of very different stuff than the average sycophant. No. Halo was a formidable and respectable opponent. One with no apparent weaknesses. Sure, he had walked the edge of what was legal and what was not, but he had never once failed to serve the queen.

  Draz, settled in his bed for the night, letting his mind wander to his plans for the queen. He had a plan that would be far more successful than anything Roth would have ever come up with. But first he had to weaken the defenses around her.

  He would start with the man who protected her most valiantly. Danton. He knew he could never turn Danton to sycophanthropy, but he could weaken his position in other ways. Just as he could weaken the almighty vampire nation in other ways.

  After all, their very existence was based on one big secret. And if one were to whisper that secret into the right ear at just the right moment then the mighty vampire nation might be brought to its knees. Then Draz could swoop in and take the queen’s throne from her and put her crown on his head without ever shedding a single drop of blood.