I pull her into my lap, cradling her against me, and kiss her like I’ve been dying to kiss her since the moment she walked into my study. My hands tangle in her damp hair. Her arms wrap around my neck.
I have no idea what I’m doing, running on instinct alone. But instinct seems to be enough because Claire moans against my mouth and presses closer, her fingers tugging at my hair.
My fangs extend fully. I can’t stop them. Three days of fighting this, of pushing her away, of lying awake hard and aching, it all crashes through me at once. I deepen the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers, and the taste of her floods my senses. The moment her taste enters my bloodstream, heat rushes through my veins. My shaft throbs in my pants. My hands grip her hips, pulling her flush against me, and I know she can feel how hard I am beneath her. I don’t care. I want her to feel it.
“Nikolai,” she gasps against my lips.
I growl and kiss down her jaw to her throat. My fangs ache with the need to bite.
Not yet. Not yet.
My mouth moves back to hers, kissing her deeper, harder. Her fingers dig into my shoulders and when her hips shift against mine.
I crowd Claire backward until she’s lying beneath me, on the rug in front of the fire and I’m above her, our bodies pressed together. The shirt she’s wearing — my shirt — has ridden up her thighs. I can see so much of her silken skin in the firelight. If she moves a millimeter, I’ll see her naked pussy.
“We should stop,” I manage to growl. “If we keep going?—”
Chapter Seven
Claire
“Iknow what happens if we keep going.” I pull him back down.
He groans against my mouth.
I’m lying on the plush rug in front of a huge fireplace, the Vampire King above me, and this has got to be the hottest moment of my life. I’ve been kissed before. I’ve had boyfriends and I’m not a virgin, but nothing has ever felt like this. All of those past encounters in my life felt like pretend until this moment. His mouth on mine. His body pressing me into the soft rug. The heat from the fire warming my bare legs where his shirt has ridden up.
Just kissing him makes me so wet I can feel the slickness between my thighs, my body preparing for him. Every nerve ending is alive. Every place he touches burns.
And we’re still just kissing.
Can a girl die from making out? Because I might be the first. It’s also super sexy that he literally saved me from that suddenblizzard and carried me back in his arms. I was trying to make it to the bus stop before the storm hit, but that was obviously the worst idea in the world.
And now I know that he truly loves me. This isn’t an affair, it really is a marriage proposal. I had no idea I was ready for something so serious, as well as becoming a parent already, but I am. I really am. With this man. “Nikolai,” I gasp against his lips. “Please. I need?—”
“Tell me what you need.”
“You. I want you inside of me.” I reach for the buttons of his shirt. “Let me see you,” I whisper. “All of you.”
“You want me to claim you?”
“Yes. Right here, on this rug in front of the fireplace.”
He lets me undress him. Button by button, revealing pale skin over hard muscle. I push the shirt off his shoulders and take a moment to just look at my soon to be husband.
I study him like it’s my life’s work.
He’s beautiful. Not in a soft way — in a dangerous way. Broad shoulders, defined chest, a trail of dark hair leading down his stomach to where it disappears beneath his waistband. The firelight casts shadows across the planes of his perfect, lanky body, turning him into something otherworldly. A dark prince from a fairy tale.
This poster did not do him justice. I run my hands across his chest, feeling the muscles tense beneath my touch. His skin is cool at first but warms quickly under my palms. I trace the ridges of his abs and he sucks in a breath when I trail down to the cut of his hips.
My hands drop to his belt and I fumble with the buckle, my fingers clumsy with need. He helps me, shoving his pants down and kicking them away.
Oh my.
He’s intimidatingly large. Cum leaks from the slit at the crown. All that thick length, just for me?
I wrap my hand around him and he hisses, his hips jerking forward. “Claire?—”
