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But is, because somehow it feels insane. This thick swell of heat seems to expand outward from the point of contact, brutal and brilliant enough that it makes me squirm. My hips almost leave the bed, and only don’t because he spreads his free hand over my thigh. He holds me in place. He keeps me where he wants me as he gently sinks a finger through my slick folds.

Then sighs at the feel and the sight.

“You are as lovely as I imagined,” he murmurs.

And when he does I don’t just think of the compliment. I think of it forming in his head, long before now. Lying on my couch, head full of what my pretty little cunt would look like. Did you touch yourself thinking of it, I want to ask. Do vampires even do things like that.

But then he slides a finger over my clit, and I forget how to speak.

All I can do is make a series of breathless sounds that almost turn into pleas, when he just as abruptly moves away. And they get higher and more desperate when he stays away. Maybe he has kind of no idea what he’s doing, maybe Vikings hadn’t yet spread the word about these things, I consider—though I’m not really mad about it. I’m so primed that even the clumsiest of touches will probably get me there. And that’s without even considering how it will definitely feel to have him drink. Once he gets that mouth on me it’s going to happen, I know, regardless of how little he understands about any of this.

But then he does the same thing a second time.

And a third time.

And a fourth.

And by the fifth, oh god, oh god, I get that this isn’t an accident. That he’s not just exploring and stumbling over whatever he can find. This is purposeful, this is intended—he wants to tease me. He wants to get me all worked up, until I’m even wetter than I already am. Until I’m a mess, in a way most men probably wouldn’t like. But of course he does, because that is the point.

He wants more to feast on.

He wants to slake his thirst.

And I can definitely feel it working. He strokes those big fingers into me, spreading and curling them as he does until every sensitive part of me gets some. Then he just rubs, steady and inexorable. Insistent, in a way that makes my toes curl. It makes me judder like a faulty washing machine. I almost have to ask him to stop, it’s that intense—but I’m glad I don’t. Because then he does it again, and god, it’s like a dam of bliss, bursting. All these centuries of so little and suddenly I’m overflowing, just like he said.

Stronger than that, better than that.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna come,” I moan.

But I think he can already tell.

He’s gazing at his own good work with so much hunger I can’t stand it. It’s simultaneously the most terrifying and most deliriously delicious thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The two feelings intertwine in a way I could never have imagined happening only a week before. Just a week, and I’m so sure of him that he can take all my fear, all that horror, and squeeze, until it bleeds something blissful.

In part, I think, because he holds back.

As starved as he still is, he does it.

But also for the way he gives in, just as I do. My orgasm breaks over my body, and he holds my gaze through it. He doesn’t look away as I call out his name. Then I tell him, “Yes, oh yes, please,” and he just breaks.

He actually does bury his face between my legs.

And oh, dear god, the way he goes about it.

I know he’s going to be ravenous, of course I do. But what I don’t expect is how it feels to have someone be like that with you. It’s not like the soft deliberateness of the library—it’s full of abandonment, and desperation. He almost smothers himself, he presses in so deep.

And that’s before he really tastes me.

Once he has, I have sense enough to brace.

He almost goes rigid, all over. I see all the muscles in his arched back sort of ripple as they tense. And for a moment, he can’t seem to do a single thing. He doesn’t move for what feels like an age. I almost touch him to see if he’s okay—as if he’s the one who should be afraid somehow. He’s the one who could be hurt.

It’s the other reason I don’t fear him, I think.

It isn’t like I’m at his mercy.

It’s like he’s at mine. All that matters to him is giving in to me, of getting more of me, of worshipping my cunt until I spill all over his tongue. And I do, I do, I do. I can feel it—the hot, slippery rush of it, as he does me just right. Then once he knows how to get what he needs, he does it again, and again.

He laps at my clit in the exact way I like, until I cream for him.