I shake all over. Vlad tightens his grip on my hands. Okay. Okay, I can do this.
Ican. The slightest of nudges has my magic rolling out of me and into Vlad, and he tenses when he feels the brush of it, but only for a moment, hardly any time at all. Then he lets out a sigh, one far less pained, and when I close my eyes, I see the same as I did with Rachel, only closer, clearer. The wound is deep, but the blood stops flowing and the edges come together and within a few minutes, there’s nothing at all, not even a scar.
I draw my hands back with a gasp and work at the buttons on Vlad’s shirt almost frantically. He helps me, huffing when the cuffs get caught on his wrists, but I don’t care about that. Aside from the dried blood on his skin, there really isn’t a mark beneath.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “I—”
Vlad kisses me. His shirt is still around his wrists and I’m pretty sure we’ve smeared blood on the duvet cover, but he grabs my face and plunders my mouth, and I want to laugh, I want to cry, but I don’t want him to stop.
I push closer, instead, close enough I can throw my arms around his neck and plant a knee on the bed between his legs. One of his hands slides down my back and when he grabs my arse I moan into his mouth.
“We should shower,” Vlad rumbles when I kiss his cheekbone. I run my fingers through his beard and tip my head onto his shoulder.
“We should.”
“And then…”
“In the shower.”
He goes still for a moment. I’ve surprised him. “Inthe shower?”
“I need you,” I breathe, the words lighting a fire inside me. “I mean, we could wait until we go home, but—”
“No,” Vlad says sharply. “No. In the shower. Up. Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vladimir
Grantturnsontheshower as I struggle out of the rest of my shirt, then almost tears off his own clothes in his haste to get naked. I would laugh, charmed by his eagerness, except that I find it hard to breathe once he is wearing nothing at all, skin faintly glowing even under the harsh lights of the hotel bathroom.
He grins at my hesitation and kisses me before he attacks my belt. He sucks on my tongue as he opens my trousers, shoving them down over my hips, and we part just long enough for me to push down my underwear and pull off my socks.
The water is warm by the time he backs me under it, going and going until I rest against the tiled wall. His mouth is so clever, even like this, tongue darting out to tease, teeth scraping just hard enough that I gasp and arch against him.
He put lube on the shelf in the shower earlier. No need to ask why he brought it, but I am glad he did. Perhaps before I wanted our first time to be slow and loving and planned to be ever so romantic, but here and now he bites down on my collarbone, and I gasp out his name. The feel of wet, warm skin against me is all I can think about.
“Vlad,” Grant murmurs. His mouth finds mine again, and when he pulls back, the skin around his lips is faintly red from my beard. “How do you wanna do this?”
Any way.Everyway. We have hours stretching ahead of us, and centuries stretching ahead of that. I kiss down his throat and his shoulder, and he arches against me, fingers moving over my now-uninjured side.
“I want to fuck you,” I say, suddenly transfixed by the idea of beinginsidehim, of finally having what I have secretly wanted for so long. “What do you want?”
“That,” Grant breathes. He rocks against me, cock hard and hot, and when it nudges mine, I grip him harder. “Let’s do that.”
I grin and when he puts his arms around my neck, I grab him by the thighs and spin so his back is pressed up against the wall. Water beats down on us, steam filling the room. My head spins from the reality of it all—I am here, and I finally have Grant in my arms, and he wants this,me, so desperately.
He snatches up the lube, pushing it into my hand, and as soon as I take it, his hands sink into my hair, tugging lightly. I growland kiss down his jaw. He tugs harder, his next breath amused, and pushes his hips forward again. My cock is pressed along his, the movement bringing them both into contact. I bite his jaw hard enough to leave the indent of blunt teeth, a stinging red mark. Grant pants and looks at me with delighted eyes.
“Gonna fuck me hard?” he asks.
I let go of him just enough to get the cap off the lube and squirt some onto my fingers.
“Yes.”
Grant lets out a filthy moan, eyes going half-lidded as he watches. I skim my fingers over his behind, letting them tease the groove between his cheeks. Grant pants and bucks against me.
He breaks quickly. “Come on, do it. Please. You know you want to.” Then he realises something, and his smile has a sudden sly edge I do not dislike at all. “You’ve wanted to forages, haven’t you? So have I. Fuck me, Vlad, come on.”
