He shot over me, pressing his chest to mine and kissing me hard. I tasted myself, salty and sweet on his lips.
I wrestled with the button of his jeans. He pushed my hand away and freed his cock in a swift and deft move—no underwear, oh my God, so hot—still managing to kiss the hell out of me, then yanked me close, pulling my legs around his waist. His erection pressed against my core and we grunted at the contact. He bit my lower lip and I almost took him inside me then and there but my mouth watered and I wanted more. I wanted to taste him.
“Sit,” I rasped. To my utter delight, he complied instantly, landing us with a thud on the padded piano bench. I scrambled from his lap and sank to my knees between his legs. His erection jutted toward me, bobbing at me, begging for attention.
I slid my hand over the base of him, my fingers not quite able to connect around his thickness and didn’t that thought make my insides twitch, an echo of the mind-blowing orgasm he’d just given me. I lowered my head and took a long slow lick from where my hand held him up to the very tip, then sucked his warm, velvety head into my mouth.
“Carina.” My man’s hands fisted my hair, and he held on for dear life as I showed him exactly how much I loved him.
I love him. I do.
The thought stole my breath, and I paused in my ministrations for a moment, just holding his length inside me as deep as I could take it. He gave my head a gentle pull, withdrawing himself to the very tip. I pushed forward once more, slow and steady, letting him fill me again. And again.
His hips jerked. “Enough, enough,” he groaned, voice all gravel and need.
I slid my mouth off him in a slow glide that had him shaking and growling. I smiled around his head then released him with one last kiss on the tip.
“Come here.” He hauled me against him and flew us up to his balcony bedroom, landing with a soft thump at the foot of his bed. One quick swipe of his strong hands and my dress flew over my head. He tossed it over his shoulder to float down to the first floor. My bra followed.
His wild gaze swept over me from head to toe as I stood there quivering under his scrutiny. “You’re mine, Carina Tranquilli. Only mine.”
“Yes.” No hesitation from me. No barriers. Only us. Now and forever.
He hauled off his T-shirt, his stare never straying from mine. “Lie down.”
I scrambled backward onto the bed, my heart doing rapid somersaults in my chest. I propped myself up on my elbows, my legs spread wide in welcome. Excitement sizzled over my skin when he slid off his jeans and freed his erection. It pointed straight at me as he sank onto the bed and prowled up my body, peppering my skin with attention. A nibble here, a nip there.
At my core, he paused and blew on my swollen clit, his hot breath making my trembling increase. He gave my folds a nice, slow and loving lick then shot over me, his hands finding mine, stretching them above my head, pinning them with one hand while his other drifted down to tease first my nipples then my folds. He positioned his cock at my entrance and stared down at me.
Raw need darkened his eyes, blue like an evening sky, enveloping me in his longing. “I love you, Carina.” He pushed inside.
We cried out at the joining. Our first time. He filled me to the hilt and stopped. My insides shuddered around his twitching cock. Emotion clogged my throat as I looked up at him, my eyes watering. Happy tears.
He kissed my eyelids, my forehead, my lips. Then he moved—slow and steady, fast and hard—and all rational thought fled the building. Sweat slicked our bodies, our mutual panting the sweetest music I’d ever heard. He reached between us. Flicked my clit. I exploded in orgasm, my eyes rolling up in my head with more pleasure than I thought my heart could withstand.
Above me, Alexander stiffened, his own orgasm riding in on the tail of my own. He collapsed on top of me, a pleasing heavy weight.
But we weren’t finished. My fangs punched out, and I buried them in his neck.
“What the…fuuuuuuck.” Alexander’s surprised, strangled words fueled my thirst.
I took long, greedy pulls from his neck. His cock sprang to life, and he pumped into me, faster now, in vampire hyper speed, the bed frame thudding against the wall. My power exploded over us, calling his to life, the thick threads braiding together, snaking around us, diving through us, again and again, so much pleasure. Almost pain.
I loved every second of it. When I pulled out of Alexander’s neck, his fangs slid into mine, riding us over another peak, higher and higher until I keened without stop, until we came again, our bodies, our power, the very essence of who we were coalescing together in one final supernova of pleasure and connection.
I saw nothing but stars.
~ * ~
We made love twice more in the early morning hours before exhaustion shoved us into a sated sleep. But as with many ecstatic highs, the low point followed on fleet feet. Dixon infiltrated my dreams, killing my brother, attacking me, rutting against my body, taunting me with,
You’re mine, pet. Say farewell to your life, little kitty.
The dream shifted, and Dixon ripped out Faith’s throat. Blood gushed. Lifeless brown eyes stared at me. Kai lay at their feet, neck broken, body mangled. Dixon leered, silver eyes glowing with triumph.
You’re mine.
“Carina. Wake up.” Alexander’s urgent voice pulled me from the abyss, his hands gripping my arms as I thrashed on the bed.
Tremors shook me from head to toe as I blinked up at my lover.
“Shit, baby.” He tucked me into his side, my head against his shoulder, one hand cupping my head as his other swept up and down my spine. “Breathe, baby.”
He’d never called me baby. I liked it.
I struggled to steady my breathing, my body relaxing under Alexander’s soothing strokes, the sound of his voice blanketing me in a sense of safety. I didn’t register most of what he said, but his gentle, even tone anchored me to the present like nothing else could.
When I lay quiet in his arms and groggy with sleep he asked the question I didn’t want to answer. The question I couldn’t answer. “What’s wrong, baby? You were screaming for Faith.”
Oh, shit. “Nothing,” I lied, draping my leg over his and snuggling closer. I placed my hand over his heart, enjoying the steady pounding against my palm. It didn’t need to beat. He did that for me, knew how much I liked it.
“Want to try that again?” He laced his dry tone with a subtle demand.
No more secrets. No more lies. God, how I wanted to bare it all to him. But I couldn’t. If Dixon found out… “Just a nightmare about Faith getting hurt.”
His hand paused in the middle of my back. “Where is she? I didn’t see her at the club.”
“Out of town. With Kai.” Not a lie, but so far from the truth my throat constricted around a lump of guilt.
“Adrian told me your nightmares have been bad since I left.” He trailed his hand lower, stroking over the curve of my hip. “You never told me.”
“Didn’t want you to worry.” Truth. I also didn’t want to look at any of it too closely. Now, with Dixon back and holding my friends hostage, I had no choice, no choice at all.
“Want to talk about it?”
His supportive tone just about did me in. “Not really.” I faked a yawn and rolled over, encouraging him to spoon me from behind.
He complied but pushed my hair aside to nip my earlobe and whisper in my ear. “I know what you’re doing.”
I stiffened in his embrace, breath trapped in my lungs. He couldn’t mean
that
. No one knew. No one but Fin and soon, the wolves.
“You want to battle your PTSD demons alone, but you don’t have to. Let me help you. I’ve been where you are.” He licked the sensitive rim of my ear. “Or somewhere similar, at least.”
I twisted in his arms to face him, smoothing back that naughty lock of hair that always fell over his forehead. “You have?” Not the direction I expected for our conversation.
A haunted look darkened his face. “When I was turned, it—” Lines creased his forehead. “It wasn’t pretty. I had nightmares for about a year. Maybe a bit longer.”
“Vampires dream?”
His lips quirked. “Yes. At least I do. Never thought to ask anyone else.”
Interesting. I propped myself up on an elbow, resting my head on my hand. “You want to talk about it?”
He mirrored my position. “I’ll share if you share.”
He had me there. Could I give a little without giving away too much and further threatening Faith and Kai’s safety? Alexander didn’t push, just waited for me to make the first move.
So I did. “Sometimes, I dream about killing that witch.”
“Tiffany.”
“Yeah, but mostly it’s about Dixon. I dream about what happened in the Deep Freeze.”
I didn’t need to elaborate. Alexander had been there. Unconscious some of the time, but he knew Dixon and Magnas The Dark One had abused me. I should have been more frightened of The Dark One. An ancient, bodiless, and body-inhabiting vampire, his power made all the more horrifying as he could be anywhere, anytime—could steal your own body, as he tried to steal my brother. Yet it was Dixon who haunted my nightmares, Dixon who had come back to torment me in person. Always Dixon.
Alexander snagged a lock of my hair and twirled it around his finger, giving it a light tug. “A therapist once told me if you talk about the details, it takes their power away.”
I shot him a skeptical look. “And you believe that?”
He smoothed the hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “I didn’t for a long time. Until he had me repeat my trigger story so many times, it made me damn angry and I almost ate him for dinner one night.”
I trapped his hand in mine, holding it between us. “I don’t think Doc Scott would appreciate you eating one of his employees.”
Alexander winked. “I didn’t. He was right, though. Talking helped.”
“Good.” I flopped down onto my pillow and pulled the sheet up to my chin. “I suppose you want me to try that.”
His earnest expression made me want to try, but I couldn’t. Not now. Too risky. I sucked at poker face, and the more I talked, the more I risked revealing too much of my current problem. The problem I had to take care of without my closest allies. Without my mate.
I shook my head. “I’m not ready for that.” At the disappointment in his eyes, I hastened to add, “Maybe you could tell me yours? Show me how it’s done.”
He looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. “Cliffs Notes version. Dawn is almost here.” He settled back against his pillow, sought my hand, and began his story.
“Twenty years ago, I was in a band with my cousins. Made a decent living at it. We were young, played hard. Partied harder. Until I got cancer. Tumor in a bad location in my brain. Inoperable. Then we partied even harder. My cousins wanted to turn me into one of them, but I refused. The party continued for a while until I started having multiple seizures every day and—”
I gasped and squeezed his hand, disliking the mental image of my man in so much agony.
He squeezed back. “As I neared the end, Connor decided to change me against my will.”
“He bit you?”
“It’s not like the movies, Carina. Takes more than a bite. Takes the magic of a full moon. A wolf witch. And blood.”
Blood. “Doesn’t it always.”
“They staked me to the ground in their back yard in Pacific Heights. Near you, actually.”
The wolves had been my neighbors? I wanted to pursue that info nugget but dawn neared and Alexander needed to finish his story. I’d go nuts if he succumbed to dawn before telling me everything.
“Cam and Con bit me repeatedly while the witch chanted and my blood spilled. I could feel the magic trying to change me, but I fought it with everything I had. I remember their howls hurt my ears when they realized it wasn’t working. They shifted to full wolf form and were about to try again when the vampires appeared, drawn by the magic and the scent of my blood. Thomas and the Contessa saved me. And she turned me.”
I’d already known Tessa turned him, and I’d been so angry at her about it. She hadn’t defended her actions, just told me it was his story to tell. “Did she give you a choice?”
“Yes. She cradled me in her arms, though I’m at least twice her size, and asked me if I wanted to live forever. I told her, ‘Sure, but not as a dog.’”
I smiled. “I bet that made her laugh.”
He nodded. “It did. Her fangs flashed, and I knew she was a vampire, knew what she was offering. I was mad at my cousins, and I wanted to live.” He lifted my hand and kissed it. “And here we are.”
Now I understood why he never once told me he had cousins. If anyone could understand dysfunctional family drama, it was me. I crawled on top of him, the sheet spilling to my waist with the move. “Here we are.”
His gaze shot to my breasts, and he licked his lower lip, his hands settling on my ass. I thought he would take our contact further, given the way his fingers dug into my flesh and his eyes locked on my chest.
Instead, he gave me serious face. “When you’re ready to share. I’m here.”
His sincerity, the support, the depth of love shining in his eyes just about loosened my tongue, but I opted for the light road. “It’s almost dawn. You’ll be asleep before I could tell you anything anyway.”
Hoping to silence any objections, I pressed my lips to his. He opened for me, letting me explore his mouth, then he explored mine in turn. It was a sweet moment, and my body melted on his but my mind circled back to my problems and the events at the club. I’d been so wrong about my soul mate. He hadn’t betrayed me at all. He’d been used and abused just as Dixon was abusing me.
“Alexander, I—” I bit my lip and stared down at my man, at his smoky blue eyes heavy with passion, lips red and full from our kiss. He gave my ass an encouraging pat and the words burst from me. “I’m so sorry about last night.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Glad he felt that way, but… “Well, yes and no on that one. It’s a long story, but I can’t tell you right now.”
“I know. Dawn is nearly here.” He yawned and closed his eyes.
Better he believe that excuse than the truth I couldn’t tell him until it was over. And when it was over I might actually be dead or…or worse, Dixon’s undead sex slave.
Sex slave.
My mind locked down on the words, and a horrible thought hit me.