Passion Bites: Biting Love, Book 9 (11 page)

But as the moment stretched, his chiseled face near mine, his hazel eyes burnishing gold, something tapped me on the shoulder and said,
Don’t be a coward. He needs this. Ask.

For him? Okay. I opened my mouth to ask the question,
What happened last time?
but never got beyond “Wh—”

He leaned in and touched his mouth to mine.

His lips slid over me like the whisper of satin sheets. He teased with his tongue until I forgot what I was going to ask, until I forgot language altogether, except the language of skin to skin, breath to breath.

The warmth of his body enveloped me. The sweetness of his breath filled me, rising and expanding like heated air. My limbs rose with it, arms floating until I wrapped them around his neck in a vain attempt to keep earthbound, fingers twining in his sleek, tightly bound hair.

Working quickly, he unbuttoned my lab coat. His hands settled on my waist and slid up along my ribs, raising the silk summer-weight knit shell I’d worn underneath as cool and professional. Both cool and professional hopelessly lost out to the fire of his palms riding my skin.

I pressed against him, rubbing my bared midriff over fine open-weave wool.

With a groan, his tongue thrust inside my mouth, searing me with heat, and his arms came around me, his embrace crushing me to the hardest body in the world.

My rubbing became more frantic as my temperature rose, until I was scrubbing against him and he against me, our bodies meeting like crashing waves.

His fangs grew against my lips. I touched one with the tip of my tongue.

He made a soft, broken sound. “I want you so badly. Empty room?”

I wanted to know what happened last time. But I wanted
him
more. In reply, I licked one long canine.

He groaned like a man dying. “Alexis…don’t do that. It’s like a live wire to…I can’t…I won’t…just don’t do it.”

I freed a hand to put against his fly. Whatever he couldn’t or wouldn’t, I could guess where the live wire led, by the zipper-ripping bulge twitching there. The tension in his big body shouted louder than words how painfully constricted he was.

“I won’t.” At least, not until that monster was free.

“Thank you.” With a sigh he released his crushing hold on me and slid my coat off my shoulders.

He scooped me into his arms. “We’ll be sweet and gentle this time.”

“Sweet and gentle.” I tried not to be disappointed. The desire churning in my pelvis wasn’t sweet or gentle in the least. It was hot and wet and primitive and threatened to consume me. “There’s a patient room upstairs not in use right now.” I gave the number of a single bed on the third floor.

Luke swept me upstairs in his strong arms, somehow managing not to run into a single soul. It was darker here, cooler. Quieter, the sounds from the busier wards muffled. More than the room was unoccupied. The whole area was, lights off, the only sounds the gentle purr of the air conditioning.

Apparently this ward was closed and I hadn’t been aware.
We don’t have to be completely quiet.
An arrow of pleasure zinged through me.

He spun into the room, shut the door and set me on my feet. A quick tug of my top over my head left me clad only in my bra and pants.

I sucked in my gut and stood straighter, but he’d already gone to draw the heavy blackout curtains. The only light was a dim glow from under the door.

“It’s dark here.” I felt my eyes bug out, trying to see…anything, really. This wasn’t the soft dark that buffed out a body’s flaws. This was the hard dark of blindness.

My heart beat harder, my breath came faster. Having just been carried in Luke’s powerful arms, viscerally aware the dark was his domain, I remembered he was as dangerous in his own way as Marrone. I didn’t know if that scared me or turned me on. Maybe both.

He must’ve heard the apprehension in my voice or seen me stiffen, because instead of reminding me I’d wanted it dark last time, he said, “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.”

I almost laughed in relief. He might almost have said
I’m sorry I’m a deadly predator.

There was a click, and light flooded the room, revealing a bed with a bare mattress, and me in all my nearly forty glory. Automatically I shielded my eyes with the back of my hand, and my body with an arm.

“Too much light?”

“Too much reality.”

He laughed softly and flicked the switch down, plunging the room into darkness. A moment, a rustle of curtains, and a sliver of gold shimmered into the room. “Better?”

I smiled and nodded. “Lovely.”

“Why are you so self-conscious?” He led me to sit on the bed, not seductively but genuinely caring. “You’re beautiful.”

“Maybe my face, made up, but me, naked?”

“Especially you, naked.” His voice roughened with a growl.

I shook my head, mostly to myself. “You say it, but how can you mean it? You must have beautiful young women hounding you. I’m in good shape, but I’m forty, or as near to it as makes any difference. Things aren’t…” I hefted my breasts, “where they used to be.”

He reached out with two hands, slowly, so I could have stopped him at any time, to cup my breasts, his heat penetrating the bra. “I’m not bedding a generic female body. These are your breasts.” He gently cradled them. “
Yours,
do you understand? They belong to
you.
They are exactly where they’re supposed to be—for you. Perfect, you understand? It’s…
Kintsugi.
”

“What?”

“A Japanese philosophy that treats age as part of the history of the object, rather than something to disguise. It’s also the art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with precious metal like gold, making the broken object, not whole, but even more beautiful. Understand now?”

When I shook my head no, he made a small unhappy sound.

“Let me try again. These lines…” He traced across my forehead and the brackets around my mouth. “They’re because you’ve lived, yes. But what makes them important is they’re
part
of your life. They’re there because they were along for the ride that made you who you are today. They were made on the ride that made you. You’re perfect. So they’re perfect too.”

“That’s…lovely.” I blinked itchy eyes. Feelings threatened to swamp me, threatened to make me want things I shouldn’t.

Still moving slowly, his hands came around to the back of my bra, carefully releasing the hooks. “That’s the truth.”

Truth, I understood. Sex, I understood. I pushed inexplicable feelings away, not waiting for him to finish, but stripping the bra off to toss it away.

His eyes went bright gold with desire, feasting on my naked breasts.
He’s telling the truth.
Plumping one with his hand, he made another sound, low and satisfied. “These are more than lovely.” He bent, sucked the nipple into his hot mouth and tongued it, stimulating the other with his palm.

I gasped. The words had already aroused me and his clever mouth and rough palm released a surge of wet pleasure between my thighs. I rippled against his hand and mouth, wanting more.

A rumble came from his chest, that deep purr I’d heard before, like that of a large cat. He glanced up at me, and his eyes were molten rose-gold.

I wanted to set those eyes on
fire.

I grabbed his face with both hands and tried to stuff my whole breast into his mouth.

He backed off with a chuffed laugh. “Wait.” With a final swirl of tongue he stood and…went
poof.
A vaguely Luke-like cloud held his clothes in shape for an instant before they collapsed to the floor. He snapped back.

Naked.

My mouth was suddenly wet, my hands and belly and whole body clenching with urgency.

He thought
I
was beautiful? The man stood brushed by the golden streak of light into art, like rich Flemish oil on van Eyck’s canvas, perfection in muscle and bone.

Gilt hair glinted on the mounds of his chest, each muscle highly defined, embossed by light and shadow. Sleek skin covered his strong ribcage, backed by a cobra’s flare of muscle. Hair sparked in a furred line leading to an erection as big as a sword, straining for me.

The instant he sat next to me, I petted everything I could reach. He was as hard as rocks under bronze skin as smooth as cream, except for the nubs of his puckered nipples. I brushed my thumbs over their heads.

Groaning my name, he seized my ears and levered my mouth against his nipple. I grabbed his ribs for stability and kissed and tongued and nipped the rosy skin until he was as hard and tight as a snap. His pectoral jerked with each hot flick, and he hissed his pleasure.

My hunched position started getting awkward. A little pressure eased him onto his back. Continuing to lave his nipple, I rested a hand on his abs, hillocks of male strength.

New pleasure flooded me at the feel of them rippling under my palm. I licked down his chest, across those hard hillocks, finding the trail of soft hair leading me ever downward. My tongue tripped along, stumbling onto a soft nest, his cock jutting from it, full and thick.

My sex clenched tight at the sight, and I gave the tip a little kiss.

He looked down at himself, a confused expression touching his face. It seemed inconceivable he hadn’t noticed that monster before, but he hadn’t and now that he saw it, proud and full, he actually seemed embarrassed. I didn’t know why, but maybe he was as self-conscious about his cock as I was about my body. So I shook my hair around my head to create a veil.

Then I gave the tip of his erection a little lick. The glans was velvety and warm against my tongue.

His cock tipped a nod as if in reply.

Forgetting slow and gentle, I opened my mouth to do a helluva lot more.

I’d gotten the glans clamped into my mouth, ridged and hot, and was working on opening my throat to take more, when he made a strangled sound and pulled me off him.

Really confused now, I let him urge me off the mattress, to my feet. “What?” Was he kicking me out? “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything.”

He turned me away from him and for a second my heart dropped out of my feet.

Then he pressed himself against my back and quickly worked my snap and zipper. “I’m naked and you’re not.” The moment he opened my pants, he thrust a hand down into my panties.

Slid a finger onto my clit, already hard and pulsing.

Just the touch of his hot finger sent shock waves through me. I arched, my head hitting his chest. My mouth throbbed with the need to kiss him so I twisted in his arms until he let me turn, then grabbed his face between my hands.

His jaw was like a cliff. A stubbled cliff, the rasp waking the skin of my palms, sending ripples echoing along the rest of my flesh. I pulled his head down and kissed him, a little wild, a lot reckless, tongue driving like a jackhammer. And though I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t plan to, instinct took over.

I sucked one long fang into my mouth.

He roared, threw me onto the bed on my back and tore off my pants and panties so fast they rocketed into the far corner of the room. I lay naked and panting as he leaped onto the bed on top of me. His hands landed on either side of my head, his belly against mine, his hips between my spread thighs.

The tip of his erection slipped into the vestibule of my pussy.

His cock jerked in recognition. The head nudged my labia, spreading me. Letting out a low moan, I wriggled against him, managing to work an inch of fat cock inside.

It shocked some sort of awareness into him. Breathing hard, he forced himself still, though the way his hips strained and twitched, his cock wanted to go full-force and bury itself inside me.

“
Sorry.
I-I’m sorry.” He rasped the words. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes,” I purred. “And it was so nice.”

He startled. “Nice?”

“Mmm.” Just to show how nice it was, I reached around, grabbed him by the braid and used it as leverage to hold his head while I kissed him deep. He groaned, his fangs growing long and sleek against my lower lip. I gave one a little lick, then—well, I’d wanted to do this to his dick, but he’d stopped me—then I pulled it into my mouth and tugged at it like a straw.

He sucked in a sharp cry, like a reverse shriek. His hips jerked, lodging another inch firmly inside me. His fangs grew even longer as his ripening erection spread the slick lips wider. He panted so hard and fast his belly hair rasped against me.

Still not plunging inside. Still holding back. All that sexy control.

His losing it would be explosive.

I yanked his braid to turn his head, holding his cheek with my other hand, and swiped my tongue crossways along his fangs, nice and slow and rough.

That did it. He snarled and let his full weight fall on my body, pressing me into the mattress, then kissed me with a tongue thrust so deep I thought he’d reached my tonsils.

But it wasn’t until he seized my hips with both hands with fingers that bit that I understood what I’d unleashed—a force of nature. A beast, savagely thrusting hips so hard I bounced off the mattress

He drove himself so deep inside me, it was as if he was trying to touch my heart.

I squealed. Hot lava excitement flooded me.

He gripped me harder and thrust again, cock and tongue. He began riding me in crashing waves, grinding against me as he did, as if he wanted to merge with every inch of me, both inside and out. Bouncing and grinding until I was about to combust.

And then, on a particularly deep, vicious thrust, I did.

Orgasm swamped me, a flood of release, not “ah” but “Fucking
yes!
” Heavy and big and powerful, a rumbling quake shaking my body, my very bones apart.

In the middle of the earthquake I gripped him with everything I had, arms and legs and sex tightening until he shouted and came too. Molten release flooded me, triggering another explosion.

Gradually the earthquake contractions eased, and I thought it was over—until he thrust again, grinding savagely. Another wave steamrollered over me. He thrust again. And again.

Finally the steamroller had flattened me completely. I relaxed under him. “Wow. Just…wow.”