“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re floating. You’re doing it, Winnie. I knew you could. You can do anything.”
The way he says it, with the surety of ages, makes the butterflies flutter in my chest. I reach my arm up to touch him, and this unbalances me. I tip sideways and water closes over my face.
“Argh!” Panic rises through my chest as I flail, kicking my legs, trying to find the bottom again.
But then his arms go around me, and he pulls my head from the water and presses his lips to mine.
The water heats to a million degrees.
My chest feels as if someone’s kicked it in. His cool lips do nothing to ease the heat pooling low in my belly. Before, when he’s kissed me, I’ve tasted his hunger, but now, I taste something deeper.
I study him, wide-eyed, as I press my body into him and kiss him back. He is so beautiful that it hurts to look at him, like trying to glimpse the sun. Water clings to his skin in cool droplets. Stars shimmer in his eyes – reflections of the Milky Way above us in their inky depths.
He pulls away, breathing heavily. “I know it’s hard for you to let me see your weakness,” he murmurs. “You have always had to be so strong. You’re the one who cleans up everyone’s mess, so you never get to be a mess yourself. Well, I want to love you whether youare a quiet day or a raging hurricane. I want you to fall apart for me so I can love every piece of you. Give me your wounds, Winnie, and I will bleed for you.”
I want to love you.
How can I be afraid of loving him when he speaks like this?
But Iamafraid. I’m afraid that I might sink beneath the tumult of his love. I’m even more afraid that I might float.
I can’t find words to voice my fears, so I pour them into him with our kiss. And he takes them and swallows them down for me.My monster.
And then, the kiss is no longer sweet, no longer stained with pretty poetry. It’s hot and hard and possessive. It’s his fingers tugging my hair, his teeth scraping my lip, his huge hands everywhere all at once, driving me wild.
Alaric spins me around and pushes me against the side of the pool, caging my body with his arms. I look out over the cliffs into the valley beyond, everything shadowed and shrouded in fog. I can’t escape him even if I want to, and I definitely don’t want to. His cock brushes against my arse and I gasp a little, pushing back against him until he lets out a pained groan.
“Naughty humans who tease me like that might find themselves bitten,” he growls, scraping his fangs over my neck.
In response, I wiggle even harder.
He pins me against the rocks, kicking my legs apart. I’m no longer touching the bottom, but I know that he won’t let me drown. He slides his length between my thighs to tease my entrance, and I hear myself make that needy little groan again.
“I am utterly lost when you make that sound,” he growls against my ear.
In a single stroke, Alaric pierces me from behind, driving up inside me with such force it expels the air from my lungs. I gasp and grip the rocks as Alaric draws back and slams into me again.
“You feel amazing, Winnie. Youareamazing.”
The way he says it, the hard edges of his voice blasted away, Iknow. He loves me. And the reality of that slams into me with his nextpunishing thrust.
He loves me.
And maybe I can’t say it back yet, but …
But maybe …
“If this is swimming,” I grin, “I think I like it.”
In response, he dives his other hand beneath the water to circle my clit. His cool touch beneath the toasty water is too much. My last doubts and questions fall away, because how can anything bad for me feelthisgood? Alaric swirls and circles as he spears me from behind, and I’m floating and falling all at once.
My orgasm is yanked from the soles of my feet, from the deepest chambers of my heart, offered up on the altar of this wild god, this monster who only wants to worship me.
I come around him with moans and splashes, staring over the edge into the dark valley below. The night steals my cries and the stars bear witness as Alaric sinks his teeth into my neck. Euphoria rushes my head, stealing away the last of my fears as I come a second time and he rides his pleasure to its peak.
He licks my wound closed as he collapses against me, his body cooling the ecstasy that courses through me. I can see why vampires must be careful, why they have rules. Humans could ruin themselves over the pleasure of their bite.
The stars shimmer their approval. Alaric is still rigid inside me. He sings softly, an old song in a language I don’t understand, but I don’t have to know the words to hear the worship in it.
