Her ankles locked at the small of my back, pulling me deeper. She pressed her lips to my throat — soft, barely there — thenI felt it. The tips of her fangs dragging slow across my vein. A question. A promise.
I tilted my head back and gave her my throat. The most vulnerable thing a vampire could offer another. Take it. Take all of it.
I had to tell her. She had to know before I left that it was never her. It was always me.
"I love you." It came out broken. A confession and an apology and a goodbye all tangled into three words she'd never forgive me for once she understood what they meant.
She struck. Her fangs sank into my neck and I felt my blood rush to meet her — not taken, given — and the intimacy of it shattered me. This wasn't feeding. This was two souls trying to crawl inside each other. I drove into her so hard the wall cracked behind her, and she drank from me in deep, hungry pulls that matched every thrust.
I poured everything into her. My blood. My body. Every broken, monstrous part of me.
If this was the last time, she'd remember it. She'd remember me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Selena
Rocco said he loved me.
Three words. Just three small words, and they split me wide open. I'd waited — god, I'd waited so long to hear them. Dreamed about them in the dark, alone, wondering if he'd ever let himself say it. And now, with his body buried inside me and my fangs in his throat and his blood flooding my mouth like liquid fire — hot, spicy, alive — he finally said it.
And it sounded like a funeral.
Every thrust, every breath, every pulse of his blood against my tongue was saying stay. His hands gripping my hips were saying forever.
But his eyes were saying goodbye.
He wasn't fooling me. I knew that look. The tight jaw, the way he held me a little too hard, kissed me a little too desperate. He was memorizing me. Storing me up like a man about to walk into the dark and never come back.
He wanted to walk away.
But I wasn't going to give him that option. Not now. Not ever.
My blood pumped faster, a hot current rushing downward, pooling between my thighs where every nerve ending seemed to spark and sizzle. I was on fire, my skin flushed and tingling from my cheeks to my chest, each breath catching in my throat as waves of pleasure built upon themselves. My orgasm came swift and hard, radiating outward from my core in pulsing contractions that left me trembling, gasping, momentarily blind to everything but sensation.
“I’ll never get tired of hearing that,” he panted.
I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. No matter where he went, I would find him. We clung to each other until the shower ran cold. I unhooked my ankles from his hips and he slowly lowered me onto the floor.
Cool air greeted us as we stepped out of the shower. I broke out in goosebumps and rubbed my arms.
Rocco grabbed a towel and dried me off first, slow and careful, before running it over himself.
He yawned.
I chuckled. "Tired?"
He grinned. "You wore me out."
I clasped his hand and led him out of the bathroom. I pulled back the covers and we slid underneath together. Rocco wrapped his arms around me, pulled me against his chest, and I let myself sink into him — his warmth, his weight, the solid wall of him curved around me like a shield.
His breathing slowed. Steadied. His exhales brushed warm across the back of my neck, each one coming longer, deeper, until I felt the exact moment he fell asleep. His arm went heavy across my waist. His jaw relaxed against my hair.
He looked peaceful. For the first time all night, the tension was gone from his face. No clenched jaw. No furrowed brow. No guilt eating him alive behind closed eyes. Just Rocco, finally still.
I wasn't.
Every nerve in my body hummed. My eyes stayed open, fixed on the door, on the window, on the shape of his shoes by the bed. I memorized the weight of his arm. Counted his breaths. Listened for any shift, any change, any sign that he was about to pull away and disappear.
