When I bite, it’s careful. Reverent.
Her blood fills my mouth—warm, electric; Ether singing against my tongue like liquid light. I drink once. Twice. Feel the power of it chase away the hollowness I’ve been carrying, filling spaces inside me I’d forgotten existed.
She gasps softly, her fingers tightening in my hair, and the sound goes straight through me. Heat floods my body, sharp and insistent, a pulse I can’t outrun, as her Ether mingles with my hunger and transforms it into something else entirely.
I pull her closer, the hand at her waist sliding around to splay across the small of her back, pressing her against me. She fits perfectly—curves to my angles, softness to my hard edges—and when she arches slightly into the bite, a low sound rumbles from my chest.
Her other hand grips my shoulder, nails digging in just slightly, and I force myself to stop drinking before I take too much. Pull back just enough to press my forehead against hers, both of us trembling in the space between heartbeats.
Blood—her blood—still coats my lips. Her pulse flutters wildly where my mouth had been, two small punctures already beginning to close as her Ether knits the wound.
“Thane,” she breathes, and there’s something in her voice that wasn’t there before. Heat. Want.
I should step back. Give her space. Let the moment settle before I lose myself completely in what I’ve been starving for.
But she doesn’t pull away. Instead, her hands slide from my hair to frame my face again, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones, and when her eyes meet mine they’re dark with desire that mirrors my own.
“Stay,” she whispers.
Not a question. A command wrapped in invitation.
My control, already threadbare, snaps.
I capture her mouth with mine, tasting her gasp as much as her lips. She opens for me immediately, no hesitation, and the kiss is hungry and deep and nothing like careful. Her tongue slides against mine and I can taste traces of her own blood mixed with the sweetness of her mouth, the combination intoxicating.
My hand tangles in her hair, angling her head so I can kiss her deeper, while the other slides down from her back to cup her ass and draw her flush against me. She makes a small sound—not quite a moan, not quite a whimper—and I swallow it greedily.
Her hands move to my chest, fingers curling into my shirt, and when she pulls me backward toward the bed, I go willingly. Every reason I had for staying away dissolving under the simple truth that she still wants this. Still wants me.
The backs of her knees hit the mattress and we tumble together, her falling back with me catching my weight on my forearms so I don’t crush her. She’s soft beneath me, all curves and warmth and racing pulse, and when she wraps one leg around my hip to pull me closer, grinding against the hardness pressing insistently against her, I groan into her mouth.
“Bree,” I manage, pulling back just enough to look at her. To make sure. “Tell me to stop if—”
“Don’t stop,” she interrupts, her voice breathless but certain. “Don’t you dare stop.”
Her hands move to the hem of my shirt, tugging upward, and I help her pull it over my head before my mouth finds hers again. This timewhen I kiss her it’s slower, deeper, letting myself taste and explore while my hands map the shape of her body through her clothes.
She arches into my touch, her own hands roaming across my bare chest and back, nails scraping lightly across my skin in a way that makes me shudder. When my mouth leaves hers to trail down her jaw to her throat—careful to avoid the healing bite—she tilts her head back and lets out a soft moan that makes my control fray even further.
I work my way down, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the column of her throat, across her collarbone, down to where her shirt prevents me from going further. My hands find the hem and I pause, looking up at her in silent question.
She nods, chest heaving, and lifts slightly so I can pull the fabric up and over her head.
The sight of her—flushed skin, rapid breathing, eyes dark with want—makes something possessive surge through me.Mine.The thought is primal and absolute, and when I lower my mouth to trace the curve of her breast through the thin fabric of her bra, she gasps my name like a prayer.
“Thane—”
My tongue finds her nipple through the fabric, circling and teasing until she’s writhing beneath me, her leg tightening around my hip as she rocks against me in desperate need of friction.
I reach behind her, unhooking her bra with practiced ease and tossing it aside before lowering my mouth to bare skin. She tastes like salt and Ether andher, and when I close my lips around her nipple and suck, her back arches off the bed with a cry that goes straight to my cock.
My hand slides down her stomach, fingers finding the waistband of her pants, and I pause again. Waiting. Making sure.
“Yes,” she breathes before I can ask. “Please, Thane. I need—”
She doesn’t finish, but I understand. Can feel it in the way she trembles, in the desperate way she’s grinding against me, in the pleading note in her voice.
I unfasten her pants and slide them down her legs, taking her underwear with them, and the sight of her—completely bare, spread beneath me, looking up at me with trust and hunger and something that might be love—steals whatever breath I have left.
