“I know, you’re a monster,” she teased.
The playful smile she gave him made him realize she didn’t believe him. “I am a monster. I’ve—”
Before he could finish telling her about the evil staining his soul, she bent and kissed him. He easily could have stopped her and made her listen, but the heat of her mouth and the way her hands slid around until her fingers played with the hair on his nape hushed his protests.
Willow teased Declan’s clamped lips until his mouth opened. He was right; he probably wasn’t any good for her, and this may be the biggest mistake of her life, but what did it matter when they might not see the sun set? And was it a life worth living if she didn’t grasp it in both hands and hold on for the ride?
She’d never been one to back down from a challenge, and she’d never lived her life in fear. She wasn’t about to start now. She may be the cause of his torment, but she sensed she could also give him some relief from it. And if she couldn’t relieve his torment, then she would give him a different kind of relief.
His stubble-roughened cheeks tickled hers as the kiss deepened. His lips were firm yet soft as his tongue entwining with hers melted away the last of her reservations. She’d always been brazen, and she’d initiated sex before, but she’d never been quite this brazen. However, she’d never wanted a man as badly as him.
Declan drew her forward until she straddled his lap with her long legs hanging over the arms of the chair as she settled onto him. Her hair spilled over his face in tickling waves as Willow shifted her hips in a way that caused her to grind against his cock.
He was supposed to tell her something, but it was impossible to think about anything other than her scent, her warm, luscious body, and the fact she had him on the verge of coming already. He ran his hands up her hips to the bottom of her shirt. He tugged it up until he could settle his hands on her silken flesh.
Running his hands up her back, he skimmed them along her spine and held her closer when he realized how fragile her life was.And I can be the one who ends it.
Declan didn’t think he would hurt her, but he hadn’t believed he would snap before either. Memories of the past threatened to overwhelm him. He started to turn his head away, but she nipped his lip to express her displeasure.
When his blood hit her tongue, the wave of excitement and passion that erupted from her knocked the breath from him. He stopped resisting as he bent her back while drawing her closer.
Nipping at his lip again, she drew more blood, and he didn’t stop her. He’d never given his blood to a vampire before, never intended to let it happen, but he wouldn’t deny Willow anything.
Willow circled her hips as she ground against his thick erection and tugged at his hair. Between his heady taste and the scent of his blood, she’d lost all control of herself, and she welcomed every second of it.
She hated her jeans and wanted to tear them from her. She reached for the button, but his hands were already undoing it and pulling the zipper down. The position she was in made it impossible for them to come off. Reluctant to break the kiss, she tried to wiggle them past her hips, but only ended up with them wedged under her ass.
Finally admitting defeat, she broke the kiss and pulled away to stand before him. His fingers curved around the ends of the chair; his knuckles turned white as he watched her from hooded silver eyes.
The look in his eyes and the way his muscles strained as if he was barely in control, told her she was messing with something far beyond anything she’d ever dealt with before. A trickle of apprehension ran through her.
However, as much as he unnerved her, the need in his eyes also called to her. Maybe it was foolish on her part, but she wouldn’t turn back now. She believed she could soothe the tension from him, ease his need, and give them both what they desperately craved.
Declan remained unmoving as he waited to see what she would do. He sensed her uncertainty and knew he radiated a wildness that would send any sane woman screaming for the hills.
It had been nearly five hundred years since he last had sex. Out of all the many women who came before his period of abstinence, none had ever made him ache to be inside them as much as Willow, but he would wait for her.
He would control himself; he wouldn’t harm her. This wouldn’t be like the last time. He was a lot different now, and Willow was so much more to him.
She was…everything.
They’d only really known each other for a short time, and he had so much to tell her, but she was the woman who would walk by his side for eternity, and he would die before he ever hurt her.
In a seductive, teasing manner that caused his nails to bite into the wood of the chair, she started pushing the jeans down her thighs. He leaned forward as they slid over her shapely calves and off her feet. She kicked them aside with a flick of her toes.
Next, she grasped the edges of her shirt and slid it up to reveal inch by tantalizing inch of her alabaster skin. The swell of her breasts appeared and then fell free as she tugged the shirt over her head and tossed it aside.
She threw her shoulders back and stood with the haughty arrogance of one who was confident in her body, and she had every right to be. His mouth watered, and he sat back in the chair while his gaze ran over the swell of her pert breasts, flat, toned stomach, rounded hips, and long legs that he couldn’t wait to have wrapped around him. The neatly trimmed, dark blonde triangle of hair between her thighs shielded her sex from him.
“Do you like what you see?” Willow inquired as she ran her fingers lazily from her collarbone, between her breasts, and down to her belly.
He followed her movements with the rapt attention of an eagle following a field mouse. Willow thrilled at the idea of being his prey.
“I do. And I’ll like it more when I’m fucking it,” Declan growled.
“That you will,” she murmured.
Declan remained riveted as she ran her fingers around her nipples until they stood out from her body. And then she gave them a pinch and rolled them between her fingers. Wood splintered beneath his fingers, but he couldn’t bring himself to release the chair.
