“Please,” he whispered, voice breaking like he was truly scared of her. “Before I stop caring what happens next.”
That was when she finally truly saw it. The shadow in his eyes. The tension in his shoulders, like a predator barely leashed. Her lips parted, but she said nothing. Her breath clouded the space between them.
“Then don’t,” she said softly, voice steady despite the storm in her own chest. “Stop caring about what happens next. Just what happens now. Here, with me.”
He stared at her, breath hitching. “I’mnothingbut hunger around you.”
Her lips curved into the faintest smile. “Then let me help you, Elias. That was our deal, remember?”
The words slipped from her like a surrender.
Elias’s hand trembled as it rose, hesitant, hovering near her throat—the delicate pulse beneath her skin like a fragile drum.
“Are you certain?” His voice was barely a whisper, filled with fear and awe.
“Take me,” she breathed.
He lowered his face slowly, reverence in every movement. His lips brushed the hollow at her throat, warm and tender in a way that belied what was to come.
Her skin shivered beneath him as heat pooled in her sex, throbbing—aching for his bite.
And then his fangs found her flesh.
The bite was careful, hesitant at first, as if he feared breaking her. But when the hunger took hold, it was fierce and exquisite—an agony mingled with the sweetest of ecstasies.
Penelope’s fingers tangled in his hair and a soft sound escaped her lips as his hand found her waist, holding her with an almost crushing grip.
Without releasing her, he guided her back until her legs hit the edge of her bed, causing them to fall back onto the soft sheets. He caged her beneath him like a beast that had been starved. He moaned against her skin causing a shiver to wrack her body.
But before she could lose herself in the ecstasy of his bite, he released her.
He stared down at her, blood dripping from his lips, with pure desire.
“I am okay,” she whispered, assuring him as she pulled his head down.
His lips met hers as the taste of her own blood coated her tongue. Yet, she did not despise it. Did not despise him. Instead,she pressed closer, letting the sharp sweetness mingle with the warmth of their closeness, a surrender threaded with trust, daring his restraint.
And as they kissed, she knew one thing to be true.
Everyone was wrong.
Henry was wrong.
Elias was not a monster.
13
PENELOPE
The morning sun slanted weakly through the tall windows of the study. Penelope sat across from Henry at the polished oak table, her hands folded neatly in her lap as he read through some papers. She had expected the day to be calm, orderly, and filled with instruction—her mind was anything but.
Elias had kissed her.
And she hadenjoyedit? No—yearnedfor it. For him. For more. But just as soon as he had kissed her, he had left.
Her fingers lifted to her lips, tracing where he had touched her. That heat returned in full force, coursing through her like wildfire, blood rushing to her cheeks. The sin of it all made her pulse quicken. What would her father say? What would Henry say?
And what if…
