Blood-Bonded by Force (40 page)

She shrugged stiffly. “Sex has always been about blowing off a proper head of steam for me, Thomal, usually involving violence to some degree.” She turned to look at him. “Something I’m sure you can attest to. There’s a good chance I’ll kick ten balls out of you when we’re done.” Especially should it
mean something
. How heinous.

“You can certainly try.” A thread of amusement ran through his voice.

Her skin flushed hot. “Flaming hell, now isn’t the time to get mangled up in your male ego. I’m dead serious here.”

“So am I.” He scratched the side of his face. “I’m not afraid of you, Pändra.”

She planted her hands on her hips. Everyone was afraid of her, the fool. “You ought to be. Stuff your Dragon speed and your Vârcolac strength. You can’t beat me.”

He shrugged, his expression remaining neutral. “That’s something we’ll never find out for sure, because I’m never fighting you again. If you come at me with violence, I’ll combat you with love—kisses, hugs, and a bunch of dorky jokes, poor you.”

She gaped at him. She had no words for that, not a one. Nor did she have any idea what the devil she’d do if he actually followed through and played smoochie face with her nasty half.

He walked over to her and reached behind her, gently closing the door, grinning as he said, “This is my bedroom, by the way.”

She flushed.

“Now you and I are going to do that thing couples do when they don’t have sex.” More humor rippled through his tone. “I think it’s called cuddling.”

Chapter Forty-three

Pändra pulled her hand from Thomal’s when he tried to lead her to the bed, and instead strayed to the other side of the room. Her husband’s eyes followed her as she went over to his desk and slumped down at it. Cuddling? Playing
little spoon
to a man’s
big spoon
was another precipice she didn’t care to approach.

“What’s wrong?” Thomal asked quietly.

She peered up at the ceiling. “Why do you have to make everything so bloody complicated?” She spun around and started to prop her elbows on the desk. Then froze.
What the dickens
? She picked up the art pad off the top of the desk and stared down at the drawing with her lips parted, utterly stupefied.

She heard Thomal move up behind her.

A landslide of emotion and heat tumbled through her. She turned on her chair to gape up at him. “Is this how you actually see me?”

Tenderness filled his gaze. “That
is
you.”

She looked back down at the portrait he’d drawn of her, her throat closing off around an emotion too unfamiliar to name. Embarrassment? Pride? A sort of giddy
that’s me
wonderment? Her likeness stared back at her, the mouth turned in a smile both ironic and gentle, the depth of the eyes so… No…no…it was…

Pändra outlined the edge of the art pad with her fingertips. For as long as she could remember, she’d felt like her soul resided on the outside of her body; that she had one, yes, but it was separate from her, walking hand-in-hand, perhaps, without a great deal of influence. Somehow Thomal, with no more than charcoal, dark pencils, and his gifted hand, had merged the two, body and soul in one. That was the only way she could think to describe the indescribable
something
that he’d put on the page. In essence, he’d portrayed the woman she’d always wanted to be, and it was the furthest thing from Dirty Pändra in existence. “How did you do this?”

His eyes warmed on her. “I was feeling inspired.” He stepped nearer, his fingertips drifting beneath her jaw. His body heat floated around her.

The hint of a shiver touched the base of her spine.

“I have a way of seeing the truth in people,” he told her. “Even that night in the seedy hotel room, I sensed you were more than just some half-Rău bully.” His fingers floated partway down her throat, then wandered away. “It’s why I didn’t kill you.”

She lifted her brows slightly.

He smiled. “When I was feeding on you, I couldn’t drain you dry, but I definitely could’ve ripped your throat to shreds.”

She exhaled a short laugh. “I wondered about that. I thought perhaps there was some natural Vârcolac law against hurting a host.”

“Nope.” His mouth angled a bit. “Why would you let me bite you, if you weren’t sure about it?”

She smiled thinly. “Self-destructive risk-taking was sort of my go-to back then.”

Thomal’s mouth canted more to the side.

She glanced down at her portrait again, marveling once more at the image staring back at her. “You
are
a dab hand at capturing a person, Thomal. Whyever did you give it up?”

He shrugged. “I suppose I figured it wasn’t manly. I had my dad and Arc to compete with in the household, and being an artist felt like a disadvantage.”

She didn’t know about his father, but he was overestimating Arc’s level above him on that score. “There are many different ways to define masculinity.”

He laughed. “No, there aren’t.”

She made a moue of her lips.

“But, yeah, if you mean that it’s time to figure out who I am based on who I want to be, I agree.”

She snorted. “Welcome to the club on that.” She carefully set the picture back on the desk. “Maybe,” she murmured, “we’re closer to each other than either of us realize.” She looked up at him, holding his gaze for a long moment. “Remember earlier how you said you wanted to give our relationship a chance?”

He nodded.

“Do you truly think more waiting is going to help us build a marriage? We’ve already been circling each other for eight long months.”

“Probably not.”

“I know you’re trying to be good to me, and I appreciate that, but can it be enough that I
want
to trust you? And that I’d like to try and have relations with you which are…uh, special.”

A smile concentrated in his eyes.

“I need you to
show
me how to be, hubby. Cuddling isn’t going to do that.”

His lips curled silkily. “Well, hell, now you’ve made it a challenge.” He took both of her hands in his, kissed the tops of each, then helped her stand and led her over to the bed.

She sat down on the mattress and scooted to the middle, leaning back on her elbows.

His eyes changed color, darkening and deepening. He prowled onto the bed, climbing up her body and nudged her knees apart, his pelvis coming to rest between her thighs.

The weight of his body stirred her aggression awake, like the mythological Echidna roused from her cave. That was her, half-woman, half-snake monster…
No
. She forced the portrait Thomal had drawn of her to her mind’s eye, and checked herself.
This isn’t an act of domination
.
He isn’t trying to make you vulnerable
.
He’s trying to make love to you
. She drew in a full breath and looped her arms around his neck.
This is Thomal, not an enemy, but an artist down to his very soul
. She lifted her mouth to his, and he took the invitation, his lips exploring hers with lazy heat, his tongue making a silky journey along the line of her mouth, coaxing her lips apart. His tongue crept inside, and she met it with an easy swirl.

Groaning, he shifted on top of her. He had a lob on again…if he’d ever lost it entirely. His fingers crept beneath her shirt—
his
shirt—grazing up the side of her ribcage on a route toward her breast. His hand found her flesh and encircled it. He slowly broke their kiss, his lips peeling centimeter by centimeter away from hers, as if he couldn’t bear to leave, but had been called away to other, compulsory endeavors. Pushing the shirt up to her collar bone, he ducked down to her nipple and sucked it into the moist well of his mouth, his lips fastening onto the erect berry with exquisite care.

Her blood slowed to a sluggish crawl through her veins, her heart wavering. It’d been so long since she’d been touched by a man, and never like this. He was being so damnably gentle—something she hadn’t expected after all that talk of being horny as shit and crushing a woman against him with tongues going hard and wet. Could a man be gentle while bonking? Thrusting dobber, pounding hips…doubtful. That offered a measure of comfort. She gripped his perfectly formed buttocks and pulled him tightly against her, encouraging him to enter her.

Air rushed out of his nose and mouth, but he resisted her impatience. Tugging the shirt all the way off, he flung it aside and found her other nipple, his tongue swirling and lapping around the erect point.

She moaned. The man had the softest tongue ever.

“Okay,” he whispered. “This was actually a very good idea.” He left her breast to move down her body, placing kisses along her flesh to her waist, as he’d done before. And again, he hesitated.

She snapped her teeth shut. For crying out loud, not more of his—

“No questions,” he said in a gravelly voice, unbuttoning her jean shorts. He pushed them down her legs, along with her knickers. “Whoa,” he breathed out, peering at her nethers. “You have hair now.”

“Part of my new persona.” She twisted her ankles to slip her clothes the rest of the way off, then edged her thighs open a little wider. “You approve?”

His eyes lit. “Baby, I’m about to show you how much.” He bent his head and placed a kiss on her small patch of curls.

Damnation
! She slammed her legs together, one of her knees clonking his chin.

“Ouch!” He lurched back. “What the hell, Pändra?!”

“Bugger off from down there, Thomal.”

His eyebrows scrunched together. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I just don’t go in for that.”

His brows changed positions, ascending high on his forehead. “Do you mean no guy has ever gone down on you before?”

What did he truly think? That using sex to violently blow off steam entailed her lying like a sacrifice before a man, her legs flopped wide while his mouth fiddled with parts best left to her own self?

He laughed throatily. “My badass, half-Rău wife, the cunnilingus virgin.” He swept a hand across his chest. “I feel honored to be the one to change that.”

She held her thighs firmly shut. “Not on your Nellie, mucker.”

He shook his head at her, the look on his face intractable. “Pändra, you’re my bonded mate. I have to scent and taste you, or I’ll go crazy. And I mean that literally.” He set his chin on her closed knees and gazed down on her, his eyes glinting blue flames. “I’m Vârcolac, honey, so, you know, I’m very orally inclined.”

“Oh, piss.” She scowled at him.

His lips spread into the kind of broad, fangy grin that highlighted his handsomeness to a near heart-stopping degree.

Her belly went all squidgey. Hells bells, the bugger knew he was irresistible when he did that.

“Nothing bad, I promise.” He coaxed her legs apart. “All good.” His attention fastened keenly on her nethers as he mattress-jogged out of his blue jeans, his knees pumping to fling his trousers off. Sprawling between her thighs again, he pressed his face into her nascent pubic hair, nuzzling the curly nest.

She cursed, her legs instinctively jerking.

Thomal shot back into a crouch. “Okay, listen up.” He pointed a finger at her. “No more shutting your legs on me, you hear? No matter what. As strong as you are, you’ll pop my skull like a rotten grapefruit. We solid on that?”

She made a face at him. “Away and shite.”

“If you don’t like something I’m doing, tell me, and I’ll stop. Give me your word.”

“I can’t believe what a chuffing arse you’re being.”

A bold smile curved his lips. “You smell extremely good, by the way.”

She reddened. “All
right
, for crying out loud. Do your stupid thing.”

He dropped down onto his belly and pushed his hands against her inner thighs, spreading her legs wider.

Her stomach balled. She latched her eyes onto the ceiling, as if the spot of chipped paint up there could keep her from killing her husband between the vise-grip of her thighs.

The tips of his fingers found the inside of one of her knees. He sketched a figure eight there, then trailed his touch along the flesh of her inner thigh to brush near her feminine core.

She held her breath.

A single finger glided up the side of her opening, over the hood covering her clitoris, then back down the other side. Back up he went to the area just above her clitoris, where—she expelled her held breath—he stayed. His finger made little circles around her clitoris, around and around, skimming over her tight bundle of nerve endings, over and over.

Broken gasps escaped from between the barrier of her teeth as her nethers filled with a carnal heat. She tingled and shivered; her belly quaked; her pelvis grew heavy.

Thomal inhaled deeply, as if testing the air for a scent. Grunting once, he dipped his head down, and her womb quickened as his tongue probed into her sex. He shoved his tongue deeper into her hole and groaned in what sounded like sheer rapture. She clenched her toes into the bedsheets as he lapped at her opening, murmuring, “You taste so good,” between strokes, the exquisite feeling sending her heart into a wild staccato beat against her ribs. His tongue smoothed in an extra-slow path all the way up to her clitoris, and the game changed again.