She closed her eyes, kissing him back, letting pleasure and need fuse together and run through her unimpeded. Never in her life had she been kissed like this. While she might not remember her entire history, she’d remember anything that felt this good. Even so, there was a control in his touch, in his kiss, that she craved to let loose.
Her hands flattened over the hard planes of his chest, her fingers curving over his rock-solid shoulders and digging in, trying to draw him even nearer.
One of his hands released her head, and he brushed down the side of her arm, sliding up beneath the too-large T-shirt covering her. His palm, scalding hot, climbed her ribs, one by one, and settled on her bare breast.
She gasped and arched against him, her head going back on the pillow, her muscles tensing and her heart rate accelerating from zero toOMGin a second. This was actually happening. While she’d always been small-chested and a little self-conscious, all uncertainty sailed out of her head as he palmed her, gently squeezing her nipple between the base of two fingers.
The design on his hand, the one he’d marked her with, felt hot against her skin.
Air wheezed through her chest and she tried to breathe without panting. It had been at least five years, probably a lot more, since anybody had touched her, and this was exquisite. He moved to the other breast, his hand getting caught in the material of the shirt. Swearing, he reached down and ripped the material over her head, his head dropping at the same time and his mouth capturing her other nipple.
Electricity arced through her, and she bit her lip, her panties becoming wet and her hands frantic across his chest and down his abs, her fingers dipping into each ribbed muscle. She pulled his shirt up, making him duck, and then tossed it behind her. Everything was happening so fast, but she didn’t want to stop. Or think.
His chest was amazing. Hard and angled, strong and powerful. His abs were a twelve-pack, each hard edge clearly defined as if somebody had drawn him. A tattoo she couldn’t make out covered his left pec entirely.
He released her nipple and turned to place a soft kiss on the other one before looking up at her, his gaze a silvery black, his nostrils flared, and crimson darkening his rugged cheekbones. The warrior in him, the Highlander he’d always be, was in full force and on display.
She couldseehim. The real him.
“We can’t do this.” His brogue was a low rumble that caressed her aching nipples.
“I know,” she breathed, digging her nails into his skin. “It’s a huge mistake.”
He kissed between her breasts. “Just one taste, Grace. That’s all I ask.”
The words didn’t compute. “I don’t—”
He slid her panties down with one finger, following with his mouth, kissing each hipbone and palming her thigh. Need and want and lust and every other feeling that was possible assaulted her, rioting through every nerve with a demand she couldn’t fight.
He rubbed his five o’clock shadow across her tender thighs, stirring her desire hotter. He lifted up, his eyes pure silver. “Tell me I can have one taste.”
Her mind rioted and her body pulsed. She was exposed to him, vulnerable and needy. She wanted to think of something clever, something flirty, something sophisticated to say. “Okay,” she breathed.
He settled between her legs, driving her thighs apart to make room for his wide shoulders. “One taste,” he murmured, as if to himself. His left hand planted itself on her thigh and he turned his head, striking with the speed of a true predator.
His fangs sliced deep into her thigh, and pain erupted through her lower half. She cried out, crashing both hands down on the bedspread and digging deep with her nails, her mouth opening in shock. Her body froze and then drifted into a warm numbness, followed by acute pleasure, sharp and direct, right to her core.
Oh, God. It was too much.
He drank her blood, and she felt the demanding pull deep in her sex.
Live wires uncoiled and sparked out, throwing her into an orgasm that had her crying out his name this time. In one smooth motion, he retracted his fangs and turned his head, sucking her clit into his heated mouth. The orgasm built in intensity, shooting sparks of pure white light behind her closed eyelids.
She whimpered, swelling and surging through a cyclone of battering pleasure that he increased by sliding one finger through her wetness and curling up, somehow caressing her clit from inside her. Her mind shut down as the ecstasy became too much, and she let it take her, until finally she came down and went limp.
Her breath panted, hard and fast.
He released her and gently pulled her panties back up, kissing her once right above her clit. His rough tongue then scraped over the wound in her thigh. To heal it? She remembered something about how that worked.
Then he looked up and licked a spot of blood off his lip.
She couldn’t speak. Her body was satiated and on fire at the same time, and no words would come. What had just happened?
He reached for her discarded shirt and handed it to her, sliding back on the bed to stand. An obvious erection showed behind his jeans.
“Wh—what about you?” she asked, her voice barely coming out.
His smile was as gentle as it was rueful. “I’m fine—will take a quick run. It has to be this way.” He turned, still shirtless, showing the black shield beneath the skin of his back where his torso had been made impenetrable during the Seven ritual. The words he spoke as he left were quiet but clear. “Thank you, Grace.”
