Most vampires didn’t really need to live underground anymore, as many made do with light-proofing technology, canopied beds, and other methods of achieving the confined feeling they craved, but Carmine had lived most of her life underground, so she appreciated it immensely.
Like the rest of his house, his bedroom was sparsely decorated and tidy. His bed took up the vast majority of the room. It was soft, and when he lowered her onto it, a cloud of his scent enveloped her.
Carmine wiggled beneath him, too eager to shuck her own clothes to be anything near dignified. He helped her strip with an equal amount of enthusiasm. When he pulled her jeans off, he did so with enough force to nearly yank her off the bed. They both exploded into laughter as she clawed at the duvet.
“Sorry.” He shook his head and gave her a wry grin. “I should go slower. I want your first time to be?—”
“With you, right here, right now.” She tossed her bra onto the floor and reached for the band of her panties, her hips lifting. “I don’t care if it’s fast. I don’t care if it’s not perfect. I only care that it’syou.”
Atticus planted a fist by her hip, his shoulders hunching as he closed his eyes. He breathed deeply through his nose before whispering, “Luckiest fuckin’ man in the world.”
Opening his eyes, he braced a knee on the bed and levered himself up. Atticus favored black clothing, which made his skin seem all the more pale. He pulled his shirt over his head, his torso stretching as he lifted his arms. She was transfixed by the sight of so much of that fair skin as it was revealed to her.
Atticus was not a man with superfluous muscle. He was dense, strong. The lines of his abdomen were sturdy, his shoulders broad, and his movements tightly controlled.
And the tattoos that decorated all that perfect, pale flesh were…
“Gorgeous,” she breathed.
He was perfect. Perfectly real, solid,him.If she’d ever dared to dream of an anchor, she would have imagined someone like him.
Black ink stretched down from the neck tattoos she knew so well. They covered his chest and abdomen with all sorts of imagery. A lot of it was floral, but there were skulls, knives, and religious iconography she identified immediately. She’d once asked him if his tattoos had a meaning — something she’d always wondered and never got the chance to ask her dead friends from the slab — but he’d only shrugged.
“Nah,”he’d explained.“Only a few mean anything. Most of it I got because I liked it.”
He’d shown her the ones that did have meaning, though — the paintbrush for his sister, the north star for Harlan, the roses for Zia, and the baby’s handprint for Serafina. But he hadn’t shown her everything, and he certainly hadn’t revealed the inflamed, fresh-looking tattoo on his left pec.
Carmine blinked. Sitting up abruptly, she hooked her fingers into the belt loops of his pants, pulling him closer. She gaped at her name, inked in what she recognized as his own handwriting, over his heart.
Atticus went very still as he let her look her fill. When she could finally tear her eyes away from it long enough to glance at him, he offered a lopsided smile. “Whatever happens with us, my heart’s yours. I’m yours.”
“You’re mine,” she breathed, just to feel the words on her lips again. She wanted them carved into her marrow, into her flesh and soul just as surely it had been inked into his.
Cupping her jaw with both hands, he pressed a heart-stopping kiss to her lips. “I’m yours.”
“I want to be yours, too.” Carmine gripped his hips with greedy fingers. “Bite me.”
“Not until I’m inside you.” But even as he said it, Atticus’s fangs scraped her lip and moved down, leaving stinging trails over her jaw and the line of her throat.
Carmine’s heart pounded. Her fingers shook, too, but they still managed to find the button and fly of his jeans. Pushing them and his briefs down his strong thighs, she immediately sought out the hot bar of his cock.
Giving it a slow stroke, she gasped, “Then I need you inside me. Now.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but in the next moment she was spun around, her cheek pressed into the blankets, and her backside in the air. Atticus kept one firm hand on the back of her neck while the other trailed over her flank and between her legs to spread her thighs.
“Can’t look in those eyes,” he rumbled, his voice gritty with want, “or this will be over before it starts.”
Carmine slapped one hand on the bed in protest. Her own growl built in her throat. “Atty?—”
“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.” Featherlight and torturous, he trailed the pads of his fingers over her slick cunt, parting her, until he found what he was looking for. Her hips jerked when he circled her clitoris, lightly at first and then with increasing pressure.
She clenched, hips rolling. They’d done this part many times. Atticus had become something of an expert at how to make her orgasm, and she feared that was exactly why he wasn’t employing any of his usual tricks. Instead, he brought her to the brink, only to pull back a moment before she went over the edge.
His fingers moved away just in time, a mere moment before the first sparks of her orgasm began to flicker. A whine replaced her growl.
Warmth seeped into her back as he leaned over her, covering her with his wider body. His lips skimmed her shoulder, teasing her with the tips of his fangs and the hot, wet glide of his tongue.
“My beautiful little doll,” he murmured, the gentle tone giving her no warning before he thrust two fingers inside her.
