Page 71 of Bought for Blood

Then I lift her onto the bed and put my mouth on her breast, sucking the nipple hard between my lips while my tongue works the tip. Her back comes up off the sheet. My gums are aching. The fangs push down, and I hold them seated. My jaw aches all the way to the hinge, and the ache is welcome; it’s something to do that isn’t tearing into her.

“You’re being careful again,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Don’t be.”

She has no idea what she’s asking me for. Every instinct in me is to sink my teeth into her and never stop drinking. So I hold it down and put my mind on her instead.

I slide my hand between her legs, and she’s already wet enough that my fingers go into her with no work at all, sliding deep into slick heat.

“Bastien!” Her nails dig into my forearm as she sucks in a gasp. I stay there, watching her face as I work her, until her eyes are glazed and she’s tossing her head, cheeks flushed pink. Then I go down her body and slide my mouth over her mound, tongue parting her folds to lap at the wet center, then circling her swollen clit. The heat of her comes up on my tongue. I’m coldthrough, and she’s hot. I work my tongue over her clit slowly while she tries to get her hips off the bed, grinding against my face. I hold her down with my forearm across her belly.

My fingers keep moving in her, pumping and curling into places that make her jolt. When her knees come in against my head, I push them back open and don’t stop, sucking her clit between my lips while I pump three fingers deep.

“Bastien! Right there. Don’t—” Her hand comes down and grips my forearm, and she gets no further with the sentence.

She comes with her nails dug hard into my arm, her whole body pulling tight around my fingers and tongue, then letting go all at once. She’s shaking under me when I come up over her.

“Now,” she says. “I want you inside me now.”

I push into her. She’s tight and hot, and I go in by degrees, the walls gripping every inch. It takes everything I have. My arms lock. A shake starts in the left one, and I drop my weight down into it to steady it. She presses her palm to my chest, over the place where a heartbeat should be, and holds it there.

“Hard,” she says. “Take me hard.”

“Give me a moment.” At this rate, I’m not going to last long.

“No.” She wraps her legs around me and pulls, and I go all the way in, flush against her.

Then I move. Her heartbeat is thunderous. I feel it in my skin, under my hands, everywhere I’m touching her, hammering faster because of what I’m doing to it.

“Oh! Just like that...” Her nails come down my back, scoring skin. I find the pace she wants and hold it there, thrusting hard and steady, and she meets me every time, hips lifting to take me deeper.

“Yes.” She’s saying it into my hair, over and over. “Yes— Bastien...take it—” and her hand comes up and pulls my mouth down onto her throat.

I sink my teeth into her flesh.

The first pull comes up loaded, and her taste arrives and goes, the way it always goes. I’ve never kept it past the swallow. So I pull again to get it back, and it goes again, and I pull again, and all the while I keep moving inside her, and she keeps meeting me.

Ten. Ten is the number. Ten deep swallows since the first night in that room with the fire, whatever her condition, whatever her body was doing to keep me there.

One. Two. She’s working under me, her legs tightening around my waist.

I’m not cold anymore. She’s put her heat all through me, her body under mine and her blood going down, up my arms and into my chest, and none of it is mine, and I don’t care.

Three. Four. Her hand is on my neck, keeping me at her throat.

Five. Six. Seven.

I always know when to stop. I always know.

I don’t stop.

Eight. Nine.

I get my mouth off her, and her grip tightens on my neck. “More.” Her breath is hot against my cheek. “I want to feel more...”

The part of me that has always measured every mouthful stops measuring, and what’s left is her taste arriving and vanishing and my hips driving into her. I come with my teeth in her throat and my fist in the sheet, spilling deep while I keep drinking.