Page 84 of Her Vampire, His Ruin

“Are you dreaming of me, Edie? Do I haunt you as much as you haunt me?” I whisper, my breath misting up the window.

“Please,” she mutters, her eyes flickering beneath her closed lids as she dreams. “Please, Dorian...”

She doesn’t know what she’s begging for.

She has no idea what I am.

“Leave. Now.” I say, forcing myself to take a step back, but when Edie shifts beneath her cover, her hand sliding between her legs, all rational thought leaves my mind as my whole body quakes with an uncontrollable need to be close to her once again.

Without giving it another thought, I slide my fingers between the gap in her window and open it. Silently, I creep into her bedroom, her heady perfume an aphrodisiac that makes me sway drunkenly. Beneath the top notes of sunshine warming a salt-scented shore is the decadent, musky scent of her arousal as she touches herself, moaning, yet still deeply asleep.

In less than two beats, I’m standing at the foot of her bed, her cover gripped in my hand as I slowly drag it from her body. Bare before me, I vibrate with an intense need so powerful it’s like a punch to my gut. I groan, instantly regretting it as her eyelids flicker. For a moment I think she’s going to awaken, but another soft breath eases from her lips and her muscles relax as she’s pulled back into a deep sleep.

My gaze tracks her sleeping form, and a glint of silver catches my eye. Resting beside her hip is the dildo I’d gifted Edie. I lean over her sleeping form, sweeping it up in my hand and lifting it to my nose.

“Fuck,” I whisper, the scent of her pussy making my fangs drop.

There’s no doubt she’s been fucking herself with it, and despite everything that happened at the club, that foolishly gives me hope.

Tentatively, and with more care than I’ve ever displayed, I rest my fingertips on her bare ankle, allowing her skin to warm my hand, needing that brief touch to ground myself. Edie widens her legs, her fingers slipping between her folds as she circles her clit and bares her pussy to me. The slash of glistening pink has my cock throbbing painfully.

“Dorian,” she moans, her mouth parting as her eyes flicker beneath her closed lids.

“I’m here,” I whisper, a trail of goosebumps spreading across every inch of her skin as I traverse the bed and drop to my knees beside her. Beneath her ribcage her heart beats slow and steady, a reminder she’s everything I’ll never be.

I watch, enraptured, as her pretty pink nipples tighten with every circle of her finger against her clit.

“Ahhhhh,” she moans, her clit swelling beneath her fingers, revealing itself beneath the fleshy hood. I desperately want to flick my tongue over it, to suck the hardened nub into my mouth and scrape my teeth against the bundle of nerves until she awakens, writhing beneath me, begging for more.

But I won’t.

She hasn’t given me her express permission, and I refuse to be like those men who tried to hurt her and Henrietta. Instead, my gaze focuses on her fingers swirling over her clit. She whimpers in her sleep, and I gently slip the dildo beneath her hand, hoping somewhere in her subconscious mind she’ll recognise what it is and use it.

Drifting somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, Edie’s fingers wrap around the dildo as she slides the long edge between her folds. A gasp parts her lips, her stomach muscles contracting as her subconscious mind tries to make sense of the sensations wracking her body.

“I… want… to… come…” she moans, each word a breathy demand that has me enraptured.

Dropping my head as though in prayer, something shifts within me. I am no longer Dorian Crow, ruler of the most decadent, sensual club in the city. I am a monster stripped bare. I am a man who lost his soul a long time ago, yet I feel the same flicker of warmth that I’d experienced at the club gathering strength within me now. Feelings, once again, rise to the surface and my tattoos tighten, the vines squeezing, the barbs sinking into flesh and muscle. A groan is ripped from my lips as I fight against the pain, the warmth, against feeling.

End this. Take her.

My fangs drop, the urge to bite her overwhelming. Planting my hands on either side of her head, I lean over and scrape my teeth over her pulse, the darkness within urging me to give in to its baser desires. It wants to stifle that warmth, to exert its dominance, to disavow these feelings setting root inside of me. The monster within me hungers for her, a wild, feral beast desperate to drink her blood.

Acutely aware of her every breath, every pound of her heart, and the delicate thrum of her pulse, her pleasure becomes mine, her desire heightens my own, and I can’t fucking stop myself from gently nicking her skin just enough to draw out a tiny bead of blood. I lift my head slightly, watching it slide down her neck.

She’s a temptation I must resist.

She’s the cause of my physical pain.

She’ll be my undoing.

Even knowing all of that, I give in to the lure of her blood, the tip of my tongue gliding over her skin. Her essence explodes in my mouth, and I shudder from its purity, from the incomparable taste. Even though I want to sink my fangs into her neck, to gorge myself on her, I somehow find the strength to resist.

“Please, Edie. Come,” I whisper against her ear.

Her responding whimpers become more urgent, her breath uneven as she brings herself to the pinnacle of an orgasm. I press open-mouthed kisses against her pulse, my tongue tasting the tiny beads of sweat that glisten there.

“Come for me, Edie. Please, come,” I beg once again, my restraint slipping.