“Stay just like that.” I bend my knees just enough to line up with her entrance then slide myself inside. She gasps. “Look at how well you take me.” Joanna lowers her head and watches as I slowly pull out and push back in. Her thighs fight to close. “Keep them open.”
With our foreheads locked together, I continue pumping into her at a deliriously slow pace. She lets out several breathy sounds of pleasure, and all my restraint loosens. I feel my fangs pierce through my gums, but I don’t pull away. I keep hold of the connection we have, focusing fully on my instincts.
I’m not wild with bloodlust. I’m merely wild for her.
This is right. It’s meant to be this way. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.
I lift Joanna’s face by her chin so she can see my teeth. I’ll only do this if she asks me to.
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t flinch. “Do it,” she dares. Or is it a plea? “Bite me.”
She brushes her hair away from her shoulder, perfectly exposing the side of her neck to me. That tortuous vein of hers pumps steadily beneath her skin, and it’s as if a tether is being pulled torturously taut between us.
It’s been guiding me all along, exactly where I was always meant to be. I bury my face in her neck, feeling her silky skin and inhaling that sweet scent that’s uniquely hers, then I sink my canines into her at the same time as my thrust. She releasesa shout into the ether, but it’s a cry of overwhelming ecstasy. I know what she’s feeling, because I feel it too.
I was wrong. I never should have feared my desire for her. I realize now, with her hot blood coating my tongue, that something so trivial was never the drive behind my obsession.
It’s her. It’s just Jo.
I don’t swallow much, but the little blood I do consume soothes my throat. Small trickles stain her skin, but I don’t feel tempted to take more. I feel my connection to her on a biological level. Our bodies are so intune with one another, I don’t need to see. I don’t need to do anything. I just have to let go.
I stop pumping my hips and gaze up to the ceiling, panting open mouthed. I’m still inside her; I move us further on the bed so she’s lying down. Then I slam into her, lifting her leg over my shoulder to gain the perfect angle.
Joanna grips the back of my bicep. “Ohhhh, fuck.”
Every inch of my body feels like a live wire. I’m sizzling with ecstasy, and there’s too much of it to release at once. This isn’t enough. My arms slide under Jo’s shoulders and waist as I lift her off the bed. She clings to me, her hair falling around both our faces. Stepping backward blindly, I find the closest wall and turn to press her back against it. This unyielding bond between us has given me the strength of a hundred men. I feel as if I could move an entire fucking mountain. I channel all my strength into pumping myself into Joanna’s tight heat while holding her steady. There’s another peak on the horizon, and we’re seconds from cresting it.
“Do it again,” she pants.
I know what she wants. Just as I feel a tightening in my balls, I bite down on the top of Joanna’s right breast. It’s messier this time. A stream of blood cascades between her breasts and down her stomach only to smear against mine. I drink this time, slowly, not wanting to take too much, and Joanna moans andscreams and calls my name to the heavens. “Aidan! Oh, fuck. Oh, god. Yesss!”
My grunts punctuate her cries. As I cum inside her, I lick a small patch of drying blood from her nipple. My last thrust is so hard it knocks the solitary piece of art in my bedroom from the wall.
After her muscles finally relax around me, I drop to my knees, sliding Joanna down the wall gently. We stay tangled in each other’s arms, covered in her sticky sweet blood.
Whatever this connection, this bond, is, I won’t severe it, because it’s tethered straight to my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Five
JOANNA
Ishould be shocked by the state of myself. Blood is congealing on my skin, and in my right mind, I should be panicking, in need of a shower. My lack of concern is odd, but I can’t make myself do anything about it. I only want to keep the connection I have to Aidan.
He’s still inside me, my legs tangled around his waist and the backs of my thighs pressed to his hips with sweat. This is not what I intended to happen when I came over to apologize.
All day, I kept seeing the look on his face as he walked away from me, and the more I thought about it, the more shame I felt. I came over thinking full well Aidan would want to end the arrangement, but now we’re here.
And he bit me…again.
It’s too soon for me to truly process what that means, but right now I’m pretty sure I’m happy about it. The feeling of his fangs sinking into me, along with the pull of him drinking my blood, felt like an orgasm all on its own. I came so hard I nearly blacked out, and then I came again. But in the midst of all that ecstasy, something else was happening—something much deeper in my well of emotions than I knew existed. I felt myvery soul melding with his, becoming one, and in hindsight, it’s scaring the living shit out of me.
I don’t know how long we sit together, just the sound of us catching our breath, while Aidan plays with my hair and kisses my jaw.
“I hate to say this,ma douce,” he says softly, “but my legs are going numb.”
I laugh as Aidan shifts out from under me. As he does, he tucks his hands beneath my arms and lifts me as if I weigh no more than a feather.
When we’re both on our feet, he gazes wide-eyed in wonder at the state of me. I would have thought the sight of blood would be too much for him, but then I remember what he said about vampires not actually craving it.
