Moving between dark reddish purple and inky black, this newer color seemed to sharpen by the minute. Knox’s fangs had grown more pronounced as well, filling his mouth as he drove inside her body in a relentless rhythm.
His eyes had drifted away from her gaze, settled on the hammering pulse of her carotid.
She had read the torment in his handsome face as a purely primal one—and it was. Not only sexual need, but another need that was riding him as savagely as the other.
“Knox.” She reached up to him, smoothing the backs of her fingers against his heated brow. “You haven’t fed since your UV burns. Even longer than that.”
His answer was a wordless snarl, his hips still moving against hers. He dragged his hungry gaze up from her pulse point, and she could see the depth of his thirst in the endless fire of his irises. He was starving.
She tilted her head on the pillow, baring the side of her neck to him. He snarled again, low, unearthly. Far from human.
“It’s not sustenance I want from you,” he uttered thickly. “I won’t settle for anything less than your bond, Lenora. If you’ll give it to me.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s been yours all along, Knox. In my heart, I know it always has been yours. I’ve just been waiting for you to come and claim me.”
He let go of another wordless noise, one that sounded so possessive and exultant it astonished her. Though nothing could have prepared her for the feel of his mouth coming down hotly over her vein. An instant later, her tender flesh gave way to the razor-sharp points of his fangs. They sank deep, his bite an indescribable shock to every fiber of her being.
Pain and pleasure twisted into a glimmering cord of sensation as he drew her blood into his mouth. Her heart fed him, beat after beat, every vessel in her body coming alive under the erotic suction of his mouth.
“Oh, God,” she gasped as he fed from her opened vein.
Instead of feeling drained, she felt energized by the act of nourishing him. She felt fulfilled.
Powerful.
And running undercurrent of those feelings was the incredible love she felt for the male who had just bound himself to her forever by blood.
“Knox,” she whispered, overcome with emotion.
His tongue swept over the wounds he’d made in her neck, his breath fanning hot against her skin. “You taste so good. Your blood is as unique as you are. Crisp and fresh, like a cedar forest in winter, yet as warm and sweet as cream. I want to drink from you all night.”
She wanted that too. She moaned at the loss of his mouth at her vein.
And she had a thirst of her own that was now beating like a drum in her marrow.
“I can feel you in me now, Leni. Your blood, your bond. Ah, Christ. It’s amazing. So fucking bright and strong. Just like you.” He lifted his head, searching out her arousal-drenched gaze. “I can feel your love. God knows I don’t deserve that any more than I deserve the rest of you. But you’re mine, Lenora. Mine.”
He kept pumping inside her as he spoke, his tempo growing more urgent, fueling the fire in her. One that had only intensified under the feel of his bite. She closed her eyes, unable to curb the broken moan that leaked past her lips.
He gathered her close, thrusting deep. Leni arched with him, taking everything he gave her. She needed more. She needed all of him now.
As if she had spoken her desire aloud, Knox picked up his tempo. It was all she could do to simply hold on to him as he brought her past the edge of a blinding, soul-scorching release and into a pleasure that knew no bounds.
CHAPTER 22
He would never get enough of this woman.
His woman.
His Breedmate.
Drinking Leni’s blood, feeling her bond take hold inside him, had been more than he’d imagined. More than he could ever hope to be worthy of, even if he had a hundred lifetimes to prove himself to her.
He had eternity now. He intended to use every second of it making sure she never regretted allowing him into her life.
Her love and forgiveness were two more gifts he hardly deserved, but was determined to keep.
Knox watched her spiral down from her release, his own veins echoing with the thrum of her pleasure as he moved inside her, still hard even after he’d come. Still craving more of the woman who had given herself over to him so openly, so honestly, right from the start.
