Skye
Alex moves us away from the couch, taking two steps to the side and pressing me against the smooth plaster wall. I breathe in his scent, closing my eyes against the sensation of his hands closing around my hips, his body flush to mine. It’s like the library but… better. We’re alone. There’re no wandering eyes, no whisper-hissed lead up to this–to this. His lips part over mine before he leans in to kiss me like this is the first time all over again.
I make an involuntary sound–a moan, a noise I doubt I’ve ever made, and Alex sighs into the kiss, turning it from exploratory and measured to something wild and more passionate than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
His hands travel up the curve of my waist until he clutches my ribs, his thumbs resting precariously near the slope of my breasts, which ache with an intensity I’m not prepared for in the slightest. I feel deliciously heavy. I feel… warm and out of control in a way that would normally have me spiraling, but now?
He pulls away ever so slightly, panting a breath as our eyes meet in a silent question.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, desperation lining each syllable.
I wait for his argument, for his infuriatingly rational mind to take over and ruin this for both of us. He leans in, the tip of his nose brushing mine while his hands travel upward, slowly taking me in by touch, and it’s impossibly intimate being mapped by him.
I understand how his mind works, which is why I think this has been so fucking difficult. We’re the same. Every move, every step, every decision we make, no matter how small or tedious, is a grand production–something calculated and meticulous.
I want to just let go for once. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to see. I just want him in a dark room, guided by touch and feel.
That’s all I want. It’s what I need.
His lips press to mine in a strangled kind of kiss, like he’s slowly losing himself, and when our eyes meet again, I witness his mask slip. His heated gaze sears mine from the inside out. Molten heat licks down my spine and spreads like wildfire over my skin when he inhales and braces one hand against the wall beside my head, the other dragging down my waist again.
“We’re on dangerous ground,” he murmurs, his voice low and deep, followed by a breathy sigh and the scrape of his fangs against the top of my ear.
“I know,” I jab back. “You’ve said it before. You’re a vampire. You could kill me. I get it. You’ve made your point. Now, I’m going to make mine.”
His mouth tics into a wry smile that turns to a grimace within a second.
I rise on my toes and drag my tongue across the column of his throat before biting down–not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to leave a bruise, enough that he can feel it.
Shifters bite, too. A lot. My wolf whines with excitement and heat. Alex presses me hard against the wall, his grip on my hips hard. “What do you think you’re doing, wolf?”
“I’ll do it again,” I warn, but he kisses me, and I giggle against his mouth as he picks me up and carries me into his bedroom.
It’s only when he tosses me unceremoniously onto his bed that my nerves begin to creep in. He slowly takes off his shirt. His muscles ripple–tight and roping–with every move he makes. His black hair is ruffled, his cheeks flushed a deep, ruddy red, and his eyes?
They burn the brightest blue… for me.
I slip off my shirt–his sweatshirt. I’m not wearing anything beneath but panties. My fingers catch on the fabric, however, and I squeeze, trying to banish the memory from, Goddess, several years ago, out of my head.
He leans forward and braces his hands on either side of my feet at the end of the mattress, bowing his head and taking a breath. When he meets my eyes again, it’s clear as crystal that he has sensed my hesitation–whether it’s the jumping, erratic beating of my heart or the way I’m pulling inward–however vampires do it.
“Have you ever done this before?”
“I’m twenty-eight–”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t strike me as someone who casually has sex.”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
He narrows his eyes. “Skye.”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth. His eyes roam over my face and dip down, his jaw tightening when his gaze hones in on my breasts, and that deep, unsatisfiable hunger returns, painting his face in shadow against the bright burn of his blue eyes. He’s sharper than I’ve ever seen him, like everything that makes him a vampire is now on display. I can see how he’s dangerous. His otherworldly speed and strength. The power of his jaw. His fangs.
He’s a killer.
But he’s mine.
“I have a thing about… things that I think belong to me,” I try to explain.
“Like your precious rocks? I’ve noticed.”
“Wh–wait a minute. I very kindly allowed you to look at them.”
“That’s what I mean.” He smiles softly. “The look on your face when I stepped closer to examine the rock you were holding in your office made it clear you’re exceptionally territorial, even for a shifter.”
“I think it goes beyond that in this case.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Skye?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I doubt it.”
I crumple the sweatshirt in my hands but feel surprisingly warm despite being mostly naked. I can feel his gaze everywhere, like he’s drinking me down, memorizing the soft curves of my body and new angles no one else has seen.
“Every time I like someone, which is hard for me… well, the last time I slept with someone? He found his mate right after. And it wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. I kiss someone, and they find their mate. I have a crush and suddenly…”
“I’m a vampire. We don’t have mates.”
A ripple of relief skitters through me. I meet his eyes, feeling suddenly bashful. “Are you sure?”
“You think I’m going to sleep with you and change my mind?” His shock, and, if I’m being honest, disgusted expression makes me feel almost like I’m being scolded. “Skye. I’ve wanted you for a very long time.”
“But I have this thing, this matchmaking ability. That–I don’t have a mate in my tether,” I try to explain, but my thoughts jumble. I could show him? No, that’s ridiculous. “I don’t have a fated mate. For whatever reason, as far as I’ve been able to see in the tapestry. You know, the stars? The prophecies…. I don’t have one, but everyone else does, and I have this uncanny ability when it comes to falling for someone and them being led right to their person, and it’s never me. And I don’t want to share you with anyone else.” My yelp of surprise swallows my words. Alex has me by the ankles, dragging me down the mattress and pinning me with my arms over my head.
“I thought I made it clear what happens when a vampire feeds on a shifter, but I think something might have been lost in translation.”
“You speak perfect–” The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. I draw my thighs up, Alex resting between my legs while leaning over me with an elbow braced on the mattress. His other hand holds my head to the side, giving him access to my neck, where his tongue sweeps and circles over a very specific spot, and an even more specific bruise still painting my skin slightly yellow.
“I told you we couldn’t do this again because I was sure I could remain neutral about my feelings for you,” he says against my skin. “I was lying to myself and to you.” He bites down–hard–hard enough I nearly screech in a strange, mangled sense of pleasure and pain. I writhe under him, but he holds me steady against the bed, forcing me to submit, and I love it.
He takes pull after pull until I am nothing but a puddle of sensation, my body loosening with each slow thump of my heart. He grinds against me, our hips flush, and I feel his cock pressed hard against my center through his pants.
“I think about you all the time,” he says, then licks the wound clean. “Not just your blood. You. All of you. Your voice haunts my dreams. I can hear your heartbeat across campus. Watching you lecture, enthusiastic about everything? It’s my undoing. I want you. This isn’t natural for either of us. We’re different, Skye, but fuck, I would do anything to be inside of you right now. The rest can wait.”
He’s right.
The next few seconds are a blur of the rest of our clothing falling off our bodies. As inexperienced as I am, every touch, every frantic, heated kiss feels utterly, overwhelmingly natural, like this moment was written in the stars, and maybe it was.
I know what this is, and it has very little to do with us. I want him. He wants me. Our wires are crossed, and our minds are out of sorts after several hellish days of death and grief. But we have each other right now.
That’s all I need.
I think it’s all he wants.
Just me. Like this. His arm wrapped around my waist and hauling me to the center of his bed. His mouth pressing kisses down the flat of my stomach to the juncture of my thighs. His tongue parting my folds and his hands spreading my thighs apart while I cry out his name. I arch off the bed with every suck, lick, and gentle bite, and he groans into the sensation of me coming unglued in his hands.
“I’m going to bite you again,” he warns, his voice low and gravelly with desire, and he bites down on my inner thigh, his finger still inside me, his thumb drawing slow circles over my clit, and it’s… magical. He bites me again and again, awakening a primal, starving beast inside of me. My wolf is just as surprised as I am by how insanely perfect this is–him and me. Me and a vampire.
“Vampires bite for fun, don’t they?” I ask with a breathy laugh when he finally comes up for air, his lips slightly reddened and swollen.
He chuckles low, pressing kisses up my belly and over my breasts, pausing to lick and suck my nipples until I’m falling back into his trance again, my eyes heavy with a pleasure I didn’t know was possible. He hovers over me, our bodies flush, his cock pressed to my lower belly–rock hard and hot. His body radiates warmth, I think, because of me, like I bring him back to life in a strange way.
“We do bite for fun. It can be a teasing or loving gesture, a lot like shifters nipping each other while in wolf form.” He nips my shoulder for emphasis, and I smile until my cheeks hurt. “You’re not much of a biter, though, I think.”
“I bit you earlier,” I argue. He nudges my thighs apart.
“I hardly call that a bite. You should practice.”
He holds my gaze. Seconds pass with us just looking at each other. I think he might be hesitating. Changing his mind. Maybe vampires can have mates, and he’s sensing it now–and it’s not me.
But he slowly presses a kiss to my lips, lingering there, sharing a breath as he eases his cock through my entrance. It’s a tight fit. Almost too tight. I gasp in a breath, and he closes his eyes, cursing quietly, overwhelming me with his touch and weight.
“You’re mine now,” he says, his voice distant and dream-like. “I don’t like to share either.”