I trust you.
Yes.
Keeping my eyes locked on his, I slowly unhook the collar. My fingers tremble. Cleopatra’s jewels fall into my hands, heavy and cool to the touch. I imagine I can feel them humming against my fingers. I lean over and drape them over a velvet jewellery box on my vanity.
I swallow. Without the heavy collar of jewels, I’m naked in a way I haven’t been in a long time. I’m used to men seeing me without my clothes on. I’m used to faking intimacy to get what I want.
I’m not used to being soexposed.
“You’re even more beautiful without those heavy stones,” Gideon murmurs before running his tongue down my neck as his hand slips between my legs.
A deep, unsteady breath fills my lungs and I gouge deep welts down his chest with my nails as he uses his fingers to rub my already punished clit.
But if he can torture me, I can just as easily torture him. I hover above his waiting cock, sinking down just enough to tease his tip with my entrance.
He groans, gripping my hip with his free hand while he rubs harder. “Are you trying to torture me?”
“Yes,” I say with a smile, sinking way down so he fills me completely. “It’s all part of the La Petite Mort full service. Afterwards, I’ll drink your blood.”
“I’d like that.”
He shouldn’t say that to me, not when he smells so delicious and the veins in his neck pulse with excitement. But not now, not this first time. I want him to be fully in charge of his faculties when I break him apart.
He feels amazing inside me, hot and hard and so big that I ride on the edge of pain.
Gideon lets out a ragged breath but I don’t move, just sit there, letting my body get used to the feel of him.
It takes all the strength I have to hold back. I only break when he reaches up, wrapping his hand around my bare neck, and crushes his lips to mine.
I rock my hips to meet his over and over again. He drives up into me, desperate and wild, whispering sweet words of longing as he punishes me with his cock. He’s a mess of contradictions, this human who loves life yet tethers himself to a king of the undead, this man who hates opera and loves art, who craves wealth and yet wants me even without my jewels.
We’re more alike than I care to admit.
Our breathing and our bodies were always meant to meet this way. We match each other, every piece of him designed by the bountiful gods to fit perfectly against me. And when he thrusts into me… I see stars behind my eyes.
His thumb rubs my clit in perfect rhythm with his thrusts. His cobalt eyes never leave mine, always calling me back from my pleasure to focus on him, on us, on the dance of our bodies.
My orgasm builds slowly. I savour it, moving against Gideon’s body, drinking in the intensity of his gaze as blood and red cherry swirl inside my skull.
He must sense my body clenching because he grips my hips in his hand and whispers, “That’s it. Fall apart for me, Arabella. We’ll come together.”
At his words, my whole body shivers then explodes as I cry out his name, riding my orgasm on his cock, clawing at the skin of his shoulders.
“Oh, Arabella.” He cries my name like a prayer as he digs his fingers into my hips and spills inside of me.
He pulls me against him as the throes of pleasure leave his body. I rest my head against his shoulder, breathing in his scent as we lie together, a tangle of limbs beneath the watchful eyes of the goddesses on my bed, our breathing as one.
“May I stay with you tonight?” he whispers before leaving a trail of kisses down my ear and bare neck. “May I keep you safe and warm?”
“That is acceptable,” I murmur.
Safe and warm.
The last time I was safe and warm was in my mother’s arms, before she was cruelly taken from me, before I followed her into a life of sin, before my sire stole the warmth from my veins and I was forced to break the most sacred vampire law.
I never thought I’d be safe or warm again.
But now, for the first time in decades, I’m warm, inside and out.
