What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (16 page)

She smiled, circling his nipple with one finger. “Here?"

His lashes fell so that he stared through passion-drugged slits. “Yes."

She dipped her head.

Garrick's eyes snapped shut.

Her tongue darted, laving him.

Garrick wondered that the back of his skull didn't explode for the miracle of sensation she stirred in him. His blood roared. Pleasure teased his every nerve ending, and when her mouth settled on his nipple to gently suck, he tensed in helpless anticipation.
"Bite me, love. Please."

Her gaze shifted higher to meet his, her rosy lips a breath from his skin.
"So greedy."
Her mouth curved to a taunting bow that rocked him, but when her teeth scraped, then finally jabbed into him, the shallow pinpricks she made mocked his mounting need.

When she sipped the miserly drop she'd released, Garrick's control snapped.

A feral growl escaped his throat. His hands lunged from behind his back to her hips so that he could seat her firmly atop his cock. She rubbed against him, welcoming his hardness through the frustrating barrier of his trousers.

Garrick rolled on the floor, pushing her into the carpet beneath him. Kate licked and nipped at him unabated, squeezing her thighs around his hips. She lifted hers, thrusting her drenched pussy against him.

His mind spun.

His hands shook.

She wanted him. Almost as desperately as he wanted her, but it couldn't be all physical. The mind-melting passion that churned and pitched and boiled inside him—inside them both—had to run deeper.

"Kate."

She released his nipple, obeyed the low, rumbling command in his voice.

"Look at me."

When her gaze met his, passion glittered in her stare like stars on a moonless night, sharp and so pure she staggered him.

"I've dreamed about this, about you, for centuries. Let me love you. Trust me to care for you, protect you, keep you safe. My heart is yours. My life is yours. My body is yours. Choose me, Kate. Choose me."

She arched her back, offering herself to him. Her breasts brushed the heated skin of his chest, scalding him with her fire so that they both burned. Mindlessly burned.
"Yes."

Garrick took her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside to tangle and dance with hers. He tasted his blood on her, in her. Gluttonous pleasure at her eager lips, her welcoming body, the wonderful sounds she made in the back of her throat, they fed his desire, as he fanned hers.

Kate wrapped her arms around him, crushing her delicate body into his. Their lips molded. His mind reeled at the amazing softness of her breasts against his sensitized skin, the voracious play of her sweet, sweet lips. She kissed him as though she meant to consume him, mind, body, and soul. Her mouth devoured him, destroyed him, made his hands urgent and awkward when he tore her skirt away, desperate with the need to feel the smooth sweep of her bared thighs cradling his body in hers.

She mewled in protest when he tore his mouth away. “Rick."

"I have to—” Garrick bent his head to her breast, taking her nipple deep into his mouth. He slid his hand over the creamy stretch of skin his clumsy hands had revealed when he'd pushed the damned skirt away, loved the bunch of her flexing muscles when he licked and sucked her nipple.

But it wasn't enough.

When she groaned at the erotic attention his mouth and tongue rendered, he arrowed his fingers through the drenched nest of curls at the apex of her thighs. She bucked into his touch, crying out in stunned delight.

"I love you."
He squeezed a finger into her cunt, bit her breast so the hot splash of her blood filled his mouth. He sucked ravenously at her, sliding his finger in and out. Urgent. Hot. Demanding. She writhed against him, wanton and so sexy in her need that fierce wonder flooded him, made him shiver and shake.

She screamed when the first orgasm tore through her.

Garrick was far too hungry, his own vampyr roused to giddy, greedy life. Primitive instincts he couldn't control, didn't even want to, rose up inside him to greet hers, revel in the impatient response of her body to his and the mind-blowing pleasure he could wring from her. Bring to them both.

He eased another finger inside her.

She groaned his name. “Please."

He released her nipple to skate his lips down her belly, driving her up, relentlessly up once again. “I intend to. Please you. Quite thoroughly."

Garrick buried his mouth in her cunt, staggered by his first unbelievable taste. She buried her fingers in his hair to push his ravaging lips and rapacious tongue more deeply into her cloying heat. He sampled, tasted, and feasted on her clit while his fingers danced inside her. She bucked and writhed, alternately demanded and begged.

But in the end, she was his.

All his.

Kate's back bowed. Her nipples beaded to bright scarlet. Her swollen mouth widened to a shocked O. Her muscles dragged greedily at his invading fingers, tightening...tightening... She stiffened, her body clenching in the throes of exquisite release.

"That's it, love,” he murmured into her sensitive, quivering flesh. Intimately linked to her, he shared her intense joy, her mindless passion. “Give it all. Give me everything."

She lay boneless, still quaking with the force of her release when Garrick's lips lighted on the flat stretch of her stomach, the curve of her hip. “You see how good it will be between us? Your vampyr is nothing to fear, nothing to hate or resent. Your body demands this pleasure, and I give it,” he murmured against her skin, his fingers yet inside her. She tossed her head back on a low moan. “You feel better, yes? The craving has become more tolerable?"

She sighed, her body curling to better seek his. “I feel so empty."

He kissed her pussy, staggered by the sexy scent of her. “I'll fuck you once we're mated."

She angled her hips into his palm, sliding his fingers deeper inside her. “Fuck me now. I can feel how much you want me."

He sucked in his breath at the strength, the intensity of her vampyr. She might be momentarily pacified by the shattering release his mouth and hands could give her, but not for long. She needed more. She needed him, his cock slipping inside her and driving them both to madness. As did he. “Kate?"

"Yes,” she hissed, bewildered with desire, with their passion. Her hips writhed against his hand, seeking fulfillment once more.

Garrick knew she was far past reaching, as lost in the urgent lust her vampyr wrought inside her as he was. Kate's mind had given way to the new and awesome demands of her body. Her heart couldn't accept him to mate, not yet.

But her body would.

"We must share blood twice more, I from you and you from me,” he said, sliding his tongue along her thigh.

She groaned.

"There will be no more you, no more me.” His mouth found her pulse throbbing just beneath her satiny skin. “Only us. Just us,” he said and sank his teeth into her.

Ecstasy tightened her muscles as his fingers drove her higher. His mouth drew at the wound on her thigh with ruthless determination. She ground her hips into his palm and rode his fingers, seeking the mind-shattering release she knew his touch would give. As he sucked and pulled her life's essence from her, Garrick thrust his fingers into her wet heat, harder, faster. Her heart thundered, muscles contracting.

She shouted his name with the brutal slap of her climax.

Garrick eased his fingers out of her, stroking and petting her supple skin. Hers dived into his hair, holding him firmly to her as he fed.

And fed.

And fed.

Her blood beat sluggishly in her veins, tiring.

Weakening.

In her mind, sharing her thoughts, her stunned and reeling emotions, Garrick felt the sweet exhaustion of her pleasure washing through her first. He wondered, too, at her weary satisfaction, her awe at the heights to which she'd soared.

Her heart skipped a beat. Her limbs slackened, too tired even to support their weight. Her fingers, only moments before so strong in his hair, so demanding that he drink, loosened.

"Rick."
She called to him, afraid now of the ever-increasing drain on her body, the light-headed chill that invaded her senses as both passion and blood loss demanded their due.

The suckling draw of his mouth did not slow, did not falter.
"Trust me."

Her skin paled, the pink glow of health sapping from her. Her hands fell from his hair, too frail to maintain her light grasp on him.
"I'm dying."

"Yes. I know."

The waning whisper of her mind held no alarm, no surprise, just a stunned recognition and acceptance that made Garrick's blood run like molten heat in his veins.

She trusted him.

With her life.

Garrick fed at the wound, reveling in the taste of her.
"You are my miracle."
He immersed himself in her flavor, the feel of her soft body, the musky scent of her sex. Her heart fluttered, struggling for survival. Still, his mouth worked her flesh, demanding her blood, every dizzying drop.
"I love you, Kate."

Her breath hitched and slowly hissed from her parted lips.

Her chest didn't rise.

Her heart didn't pump.

Garrick lifted his head, staring at her dead eyes, her translucent skin, the limp weight of her body. Astonished joy flooded him.

And dread.

"Stay with me, love."

"Rick!"

He rose from the cradle of her thighs, and gathering her lifeless body to his, he sank against the chair. Fingers shaking, he slashed at his chest, just above his heart.
"Drink."
He rubbed his blood to her pale lips. Shifting his hand to her jaw, he settled her slack mouth to the wound. Stark, viscous red bathed her neck as their shared blood surged from his torn chest, precious little sliding down her throat.

"You killed me!"

Her sense of betrayal speared through his mind with such ferocity, panic crippled him. For one heart-stopping moment, he couldn't think, couldn't move. He could only feel, drown with her in her wounded grief. Her turmoil and the rabid chaos teeming inside her paralyzed him.

Fear lodged in his throat.

He couldn't breathe.

Without her, Garrick didn't want to.

He shook off the numb terror, nudged her mouth more firmly to the wound he'd made for her.
"Don't leave me, love. You have to try."

Too much blood trickled from his chest to hers, but a thin stream dripped down her throat.
"Your vampyr needs so little to restart your heart. Swallow for me, Kate. Live for me."

Her heart quivered. Embedded in her mind, he felt it shudder violently, then gather to pulse one frail beat.

That first punch of power hit Kate like a kick in the gut.

It knocked Garrick flat.

His teeth clenched.

His muscles coiled.

Her mouth sprang open to suck in her breath, and she choked instead on the blood pouring from his wounded chest.

"Your body will absorb oxygen from our shared blood. Don't try to breathe. Just drink."
His hand shook as he stroked her hair, urging her to swallow, weakly swallow, just a little more. His heart twisted at her fragility. It jumped at the gentle tug of her mouth on his skin and sang when she sipped at him.
"You are so beautiful—"

"You killed me!"

He threw his head back and laughed at the furious accusation of her voice in his mind. He didn't even care that she bit into him. The small cruelty thrilled him, for it meant her strength was restoring, their shared blood refilling her.
"Yes, I killed you, and you've my undying devotion that you returned to me."

"You—Luc—the both of you are psychopaths. This is insane. Don't ever do that again."
She sucked greedily at his chest, her vitality building. Her ashen skin flushed to a healthy glow. Her lax fingers abruptly sprang wide, then clutched at him. They dug into his side like talons. And her smell...

Garrick's body slumped. His breath left him in a wild rush at the heady scent intensifying around them. If she'd driven him mad with wanting before, Garrick knew there was no hope for him now. He'd never resist the subtle musk that perfumed the air around them. Or her.

Thank God he didn't have to try.

Humming low satisfaction, he threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing her mouth forward so that she gulped at him.

"You taste...different. Better. Why do you taste so good?"

Garrick smiled into her hair, woozy now from blood loss himself. She needed every drop, as much as he could give her, and he'd lost too much coaxing her unresponsive body to feed.

"It is the flavor of our mating, of our joined blood.” He let his eyes drift shut, let the ecstasy of her rapacious mouth take him. “You and I, our blood mingling, merging.” He made a hungry sound in the back of his throat though her pace slackened, her thirst finally easing. “That is what you taste: our mixed blood. By virtue of it, we essentially become one being. Blood mated."

She shivered in his arms.

"You were mortal only a few weeks ago, Kate. No matter all that's happened since, your mind remains very human. Give it time.” He gathered her close, enjoyed the soft weight of her in his arms. “The transition changed your body. Your thoughts, perceptions, how you understand the world, these adapt to suit your new nature more slowly. Blood-mating seems bizarre and barbaric to that human side of you, but your vampyr was ready. And eager."

He laughed when she glared at him. “It's completely natural for our kind, I promise."

She wiped at her ruddy chin, shuddered. “This is so not natural."

"For us, it is. Natural and necessary. Our longevity requires the deepest of unions between us. Total physical intimacy. The act of sex, of making love, is not enough. Our minds, our hearts, and our bodies must be as one."

"Flesh of one flesh,” she murmured, glance shifting away.

"
Bone of my bones
, Genesis 2:23.” The corners of his mouth curved to a tired smile. “The Scriptures speak of Eve's union with Adam, their marriage, as so. Humans aspire to attain it with sex alone, but vampyr have mated much more intimately for millennia."