Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (27 page)

“You are so beautiful, Ara,” he said softly, his long, strong fingers moving down my body with his eyes, hooking around the tight string of my ruined undies and breaking them away. I felt the fabric pull awkwardly between my legs, and as the restraint eased away, allowing my legs to part wider over him, I reached back with one hand and drove it down the front of his jeans. He hardened against my fingertips and rolled his hips upward to plead for more.

In his mind, I saw him map out the next move—saw him take control—so I leaned down, my hair falling around us, my belly squashed slightly against his, and whispered in his ear, “This goes my way tonight.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Ara.” He shook his head, cupping my hips. “I do not submit.”

I felt my cheeks and lips move upward in a devilish grin, but that wasn’t my intention—it was an external reaction to my knowing thoughts.

With a quick hand I yanked downward on his jeans, ripping them open at the front, and spun around on his body, drawing his pants over his feet then tossing them away before he even realised I’d moved.

He laughed out his surprise, sweeping back his careless brown hair before offering me his hand. But I stayed put, poised by his feet like a predator, taking in his completely naked form. The darkness hid the contours of his body in shadow, but I knew what I was up against—I knew how strong and muscular he was despite his slim build—and I knew that what came next would take precision and skill, and a hell of a lot of strength.

He let out a hard gasp and his hands fixed against my skull as I appeared by his hip, bowing my body like a deer drinking from a stream, and wrapped my lips around the delicate sack between his legs. The Demon Huntress inside of me craved the blood of fear, but the loving wife held her back, sucking him softly and savouring each gentle stroke of the tongue like an ice-cream on a hot day.

“Ara,” he said, rolling up on one elbow, his strong hands gently cupping my face, trying to draw me upward. “That’s a very sensitive spot, my love.”

I flipped my hair back and looked up at him, my demon within grinning wildly.

“If you want to suck something, try this,” he added, moving my face and guiding himself gently inside my mouth. And as the solidity filled out my cheek and he laid back, trusting, I knew we had him. I knew exactly how to terrify him.

“David,” I whispered, gently kissing the head.

“Hm?” he hummed, hardly a breath leaving his lips.

“Would it hurt if I bit you here?”

“It’d hurt more if you bit me where you first started.”

“Then don’t scream,” I said, and I felt his body stiffen beneath me; his hand caught my shoulder in a feeble attempt to stop me, my teeth already having found the soft flesh between his thighs. I elevated my hips to allow room for my belly, burying my face in the warmth and the sweat. Fear flooded his body and set his limbs hard, making his hand clammy against my shoulder, but it also heated his blood a few degrees—giving it the sweet tangy smell I’d been craving.

I turned my head at the last second and bit his upper thigh instead, chewing past the hair and the beads of sweat until my razor fangs met with the fat, pulsing string I knew was his femoral.

But as the realisation set in for him that I wouldn’t bite where he most treasured, his blood cooled slightly, and I felt it. I tasted it.

It wouldn’t do.

The Huntress took control again, subduing my freewill with a hazy fog; the foe I once feared now acted as a friend, stealing from me the satisfaction I desired by any means.

David screamed, sitting bolt upright above me, but I didn’t really notice. I heard the scream, felt him move, heard him say my name, begging me to stop, but all I cared for, all I wanted, all I smelled was the fear. And it tasted like spinning in circles under a raging storm in an open field. So fresh and so clean and so pure my heart raced and the baby inside me did flips.

I drank his fear down like sugar water, only slightly aware that his leg had gone completely cold and clammy, that the fleshy sack in my palm was bleeding around my fingernails. I could feel the delicate ball inside it pulsing like a heart laying open in my palm.

An icy cold hand lifted my fog a little then, slipping along mine and cupping it gently, easing it away from the sack. I heard my name distantly, but this time the voice behind it connected with my thoughts. My ears pricked. I turned my head just slightly, keeping my tongue lazily against the wet, hairy flesh.

“Ara, please,” he begged, tugging me by the elbow.

When I met with his round eyes I relented, and as I knelt back he folded forward and wrapped himself around me, sweeping my spine against his chest as he went down on his back again. His arms cradled me lovingly, our bodies one—wet and hot, spine to chest—and I smiled at the ceiling, slowly coming back to the present, my arms weighted and limp with the ecstasy of his divine blood.

I didn’t care that my bottom was against his open wound, probably hurting him. I didn’t care that David was so sweaty that I nearly slid off him. I didn’t care that I could smell his tears beside my cheek. Nothing in the world felt or tasted like the sweet success of a feed. And I knew, as he spread his hand out against my belly and kissed my cheek from behind, that my next feed would be a kill. It would have to be.

“What have I done?” he whispered, kissing my ear, my cheek, the corner of brow as I turned my head. “I’ve ruined you.”

Breath finally re-entered my lungs. My limbs finally came back to life with the gentle tingle of David’s fear, and I rolled over, slowly freeing myself from his arms and sitting across his thighs. When I looked down at the sticky wet mess between my legs, I saw the blood pulsing from between David’s.

He coughed a few times, shaking slightly, his arms falling loosely out from his body.

I scooted back to get a better look at what I’d done to him, and my stomach dropped, nearly bringing the blood back up. Four deep half-moons exposed the solidity inside that sack, the flesh slightly peeled back where my index finger had been—the rich blood matting the dark hairs together between his thighs.

My eyes rounded in horror, but as they moved up his sweaty body, past the slight six pack around his belly button, and to the gentle smile on his lips, the guilt and fear in my bones rushed away for the devilish lust again.

David looked down at me with a suggestion behind those dark black eyes, so I slowly laid back in the soft, ruffled blankets, and slipped each hand under my bottom obediently, parting my legs.

“If you were anyone else but my wife—” he rose above me, shaking his head, his lips pale now with the loss of blood, “I would kill you for what you did.”

The innocent girl inside me wanted to say sorry, but in truth, I just wasn’t sorry. At all. Maybe I would be later; in fact, I was sure I would. But not now. And I could tell from the look on his face that he didn’t want me to be sorry.

“I’m not going to punish you,” he said. “I’m not even going to fuck you so hard you can’t walk tomorrow. But you are going to have to nourish me now, Ara.” He held his hand above me and nodded at the shaking.

I defiantly shut my legs.

He looked down at them and back to my eyes. “Do you deny me?”

“If you want it, you can fight for it.”

“Ara, you butchered my most sensitive man parts. I’m in
agony
.” His eyes widened as he spoke. “Ara.”

I bit my lip, looking the other way.

His forceful hands cupped both my knees and shoved them apart, exposing my warmth to the stormy night air, and he held them there, though I fought to close them, his eyes delving in where his fingers longed to be. “I need your blood, Ara—from your artery. If you fight me, I
will
unintentionally hurt you.”

My tongue poked out over my lips playfully. A challenge.

The shaking in his hands had moved up his arms now and the paleness spread from his lips to his cheeks. I could feel the blood gushing from his wounds, dripping against my foot, and a small sliver of concern dampened the resolve of my Huntress.

In my moment of weakness, David’s vampire stood to attention, forcing my legs open again. But his mouth aligned with mine instead of biting my thigh, as he shoved himself so hard and so fast inside of me that I had no time to stop him. He crushed my body into the blankets, cutting off my air supply as the bump between us was forced against my spine by his weight.

I put my hands on his ribs and pushed him upward to give myself more room, but the hunger made him relentless. His teeth tore open my flesh as mercilessly as he drove himself inside of me, and blood pumped out over my shoulder and down my arm faster than he could drink. I focused on the ecstasy of his blood still inside me; his body inside me, but it wasn’t enough to block out the pain of his knife-point fangs and the sting of their venom.

I rolled my spine and wrapped my arms around his ribs, angling my hand back up to grab his shoulder tightly, giving me something to hold myself in place so I wouldn’t shift away with the canter of his rhythm. My insides squeezed around him and I cried out as the cold agony and pulsing ecstasy battled within me for control, building up an orgasm so deep within my body that I buried my face into David’s skin.

When the vampire had his fill, David pulled back from my neck and licked the tender, swollen flesh, bringing his blood-covered lips to mine. He kissed me deeply and hungrily, sweeping the inside of my mouth with his warm, wet tongue. I felt the strength in his body again—felt the vampire I subdued earlier arise and awaken once more—taking control of me. And I let him. I wanted him to. I liked it better this way—the sex.

Time moved on without us, the storm raging and then stopping outside, the clouds moving away from the night and bringing day, and as the sun touched his hair and turned it red, I cupped his face and held him tight, kissing him like this would be our last.

In a moment between a breath and a kiss he pulled back enough to look down at me and whisper that he loved me, and I folded myself around him again, clenching my insides so we reached climax together—the essence of him filling me up as the ecstasy of the feed and the sex exploded in every one of my cells.

Breathless, laughing a little, he shuffled back and leaned down to kiss my belly. “Did I hurt her?”

“No.” My arms fell out to my sides, the afterglow moving through them, but as I replayed everything, my flesh suddenly went cold. “Do you hate me?”

“I have a bone to pick with you.” He turned my face so I was forced to look at him. “I know you’re still learning to be a vampire. I know you’ve only just met your monster, but you can’t torture me that way and then deny me blood—”

“It wasn’t me,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “You should know better than anyone that we don’t control our monsters—”

“We
do
, Ara.” He grabbed both sides of my face and brought his down so our noses touched. “You have to
learn
to control it—”

“Like
you
did? With Fanny and Georgia and—”

“Ara, you don’t need to make a point here,” he spoke over the top of me. “You’re not under attack.”

I stopped rattling off names. “I’m not?”

“No.”

“I thought you’d be mad.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I am mad. But not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

“Then why?”

“The first time I let my monster out it was pretty… disturbing.” He knelt up and looked down at the wounds I gave him. “But in all my years—after all the vampires I’ve slept with, none have ever been as brutal as you.”

I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t hold back my grin. As much as I wanted to, I still was not one bit sorry. Defensive, but not sorry.

David looked up from his damaged goods and his eyes shrunk when he saw me laughing. “You rotten little brat!”

I rolled onto my side, hiding my giggles with a hand.

“It was supposed to be loving.” He landed alongside me, his body to my spine. “That’s why I’m mad—because I wanted to make
love
to you tonight.”

I angled my shoulder back so I could look at him. “I wanted that too. But—”

“But you lost control,” he said with a singular nod. “I’ve been there. Many times.”

“But not as bad as me, right?”

“Actually, no.
Worse
.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I said I’d never
been with
anyone as bad as you, but that doesn’t mean I’m a saint, Ara. I’ve done a lot worse than what you just did.”

“Are you…” The smallest twang of guilt twisted a knot in my stomach. “Are you mad at me for hurting you?”

He shook his head, his eyes softening, before he said, “No, sweetheart. Not even a little bit.”

“Do you think I’m… a sadist?”

He laughed, sweeping a lock of hair off his face. “Yes, but I also think that’s a good thing.”

I looked away.

“Ara, my love, we’re vampires.” He leaned over my body to see my face. “We like fear. Death. The hunt. And I will teach you how to instil fear without injury, but a little bit of pain is… it makes it all more enjoyable for me. And to see you lose yourself completely—” he shook his head, smiling at the air, “—I will never forget that. As long as I live.”