He lowers his head, falling ravenously onto my breasts, his lips finding my nipple. The sudden sensation makes me gasp, and he flicks his tongue over me again. And again.
“Now,” I demand, and he doesn’t argue, stripping away my leggings and underwear, until I’m blinking up at him, naked. He steps out of his training leathers, and I let my gaze drift down to the rigid length of his cock.
I’ve taken it before, but …
Tiernon gives me a wicked grin filled with dark promise. “You’re good for my ego, Velle.”
He doesn’t make me wait, his mouth hungry on mine as he lifts me, positioning himself at my entrance. He’s large, but I arch my hips, opening for him as he thrusts inside me. With a roll of his hips, Tiernon picks up a steady rhythm, and I gasp against his mouth as he finds that spot inside me.
“You feel so fucking good,” he growls, and my head falls back against the wall as I clench my legs tighter around his hips, spurringhim on. “You never should have come here. And I’m a selfish bastard because I’m so fucking glad you did.”
He picks up the pace, sliding deeper, and every muscle in my body begins to tighten.
“More,” I demand breathlessly, and he laughs, his mouth finding mine again in a carnal kiss.
I writhe, my fingernails digging into his back, and his hands slide to my ass, shifting me so he can get even deeper. He drives into me, again, and again, and again. I’ll be bruised tomorrow, but I don’t care. I revel in it, demanding more.
Nothing else exists except this moment. These sensations. Us.
My breath catches, and pleasure washes over every inch of my body, spiraling through me in all-consuming waves. Tiernon plunges into me, stretching my climax as I shiver and arch and moan. With a rough curse, he slumps against me, following me over the edge.
My whole body is trembling, my limbs shaky. Tiernon holds me tight, stumbling toward the bed, and I curl up against him, both of us still panting.
“That was …”
“Yeah.” I’m still breathless, and he reaches out an arm, pulling me even closer. He presses a kiss to the birthmark on my shoulder, nuzzling at it. He used to tease me about that birthmark, insisting it looked like a skull.
We lay quietly, and I stroke his chest. My hands find a particularly vicious scar near his ribs. It must have been made with silver to scar like this, but Tiernon tenses when I caress it, so I leave the subject alone.
“Bodyguarding, huh?” He pokes at one of my ribs, and I laugh.
That sets us off, and we talk about anything and everything. It’s this I missed the most—talking and laughing with Tiernon. Getting his thoughts on my problems and giving him mine.
He tells me about the imperius, and how most of them hated him when he first arrived. Lucius had expected the promotion, and my mouth drops open when Tiernon tells me he was the one who took the longest to warm up to him.
Now, each and every imperium would give their lives for him without hesitation. Just as Lucius did today.
Tiernon’s expression turns flat, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.
“You were just a few years older than me when we met …”
Tiernon laughs, his bicep tensing beneath my head. “Is that a question?”
I poke him in the ribs. “I just wanted to check. I don’t understand how vampires age.”
“I never lied to you about that. Turned vampires are like insects in amber—frozen at the exact age of their turning. Born vampires age similarly to humans until around a decade after we’re fully turned. It’s only then that we’re … paused.”
Paused in a way that ensures they can live for centuries. I’ll be dust, and Tiernon will still look like a man in his early thirties.
“And your … brother? When we were young, it seemed like you were growing up together, but he’s a vampire too.”
“Rorrik is six years older than I am.”
“It’s … difficult to understand how you could be related to him,” I murmur. It’s even more difficult to understand how he could be related to the emperor, who is almost nine hundred years old.
Tiernon sighs. “Despite our father’s cruelty, Rorrik was once the best person I knew. He suffered loss after loss as a child and hung on to the scraps of his humanity. I was the one who pushed him over that final edge. I did this to him.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “How?”
