His pulse beats faster, hotter than even just before.
“I have an overwhelming urge, an urge to…” He stops, his mouth drawn into a tight frown. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t, just tell me.” My breath sticks in my throat.
“I just…there’s no one to ask, no snowman to teach me what to do when I fall in love with someone so much that it aches.”
I hate to see him in pain like this.
“Then tell me, we can figure it out together.” I squeeze his fingers for reassurance. He’s been nothing but patient with me, and I can only offer him the same.
“I keep looking, and thinking about, your neck.”
My heart skips a beat. “My neck?”
He nods, mortified. “The way the light hits your skin, the warm throbbing of your pulse, it calls to me. I want to…” He cuts himself off, ashamed. “I don’t know why, I’ve never felt anything like it. But the urge is so strong that I feel like I’ll break apart soon if I don’t do it.”
I breathe, lifting his chin so he has to meet my gaze. “Do you want tobiteme?”
He lets out a low, agonized grunt. “Yes—but I don’t know what it means. And I don’t want you scared or hurt…I don’t want to be amonster.”
“You’ll never be a monster to me, you’re the man I love.”
He leans in, forehead dropping against my shoulder, like I’m the only solid thing in the world.
“I wish I could ask someone like me what this all meant,” he murmurs.
I kiss his cheek, trying to push some of my reassurance through my lips to his skin. He melts against me.
“I trust you completely. If this is instinct, let's not second-guess it.”
“Are you sure?” he mutters. “I don’t know what will happen.”
“I could never be afraid of you. If this is what you need, let’s try it… I’m not scared.”
“Iam,” he says as he scoops me up and places me gently on the bed before caging me between his arms. I grab one of his horns, anchoring us together. I don’t say anything else, but guide him down, putting his mouth against the sensitive skin of my neck.
He stills, his mouth slightly open.
“Andri, Iwantyou to bite me,” I whisper gently.
His warm breaths fan over my skin, and then his teeth sink in right above my collarbone.
Colors explode behind my pupils.
A shock of sweetness floods my tastebuds, and a bolt of electricity rushes through me. My back arches against the bed, and my hands tear at the sheets. A cry escapes my lips, not from pain, but pleasure. Every nerve in my body sings.
Andri jerks back, startled, his moan against my muffled skin makes it clear to me that the same feeling rushes through him as well.
When I look at him, his eyes are blown wide, pupils huge, and he’s panting.
“What the hell is that?” He licks the trickling blood from my chest. He thrusts against me, and I can feel the hard bulge straining against his shorts.
Dazed and euphoric, I lift my hand and run a finger gently across the mark he’s made. It's hot, like his body, and it feels like he’s given me some piece of himself.
We're linked now, more than ever before.
“I think,” I say, completely out of breath, “that was something new.”