Page 63 of Roses & Ruin

“I dunno,” Hayden says, his breath suddenly low and rough. “I’m pretty partial to the wedding night.” The look Hayden gives me right then is so full of heat and lust, I shove him back against my tombstone and climb into his lap. His eyes go wide, the black of his pupils swallowing the churning blue and purple, and his hands find my hips, squeezing.

“And this is another thing I find incredibly unfair,” I say, breathing hard. “The Roses before me, they know you. They know how to make you feel…good.”

“Good?” he echoes faintly, staring at my lips, brow furrowing. But then his eyes go wide with understanding, get impossibly hotter.

“Y-yeah, and…and I? I’ve never, um…” Oh my god, I want to die right now. Just vanish in the hot, horny burst of flame that’s confusing my body. I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ve never made anyone feel…good.”

A possessive fury flashes across Hayden’s face, and he unleashes an inhuman snarl. One that sends a terrifying thrill through me. His hands slide to my bottom, and he squeezes me, pulling me close.

“Yeah? Well. Good.” When his lips curl, his fangs are already extending. The mere sight of them makes my hips involuntarily jerk forward. He grunts, his hands sweeping up to my thighs, gripping them to stilling. “You’re mine.”

“But are you mine?” I whisper. “How can you be, if—if I don’t even know how to touch you?” Hayden surges forward, pressing the flat of his tongue to that spot on my neck that made me lose my mind last night.

“Oh, Rose,” he groans. “You wanna know the secret to making me feel good?” His hands shift beneath my shirt. They’re so cold, wet from snow, but against the heat of my skin, they make me shiver blissfully. I feel the electricity of his touch go straight to the aching points of my chest, the tightening heat below my belly button. “The secret”—he kisses my throat—“has always been”—his mouth finds my mine, and he drags his tongue along my bottom lip—“to make you feel good.”

As a punctuation, his hand goes to the button on my jeans.

“Rose,” he says, his voice all husk. “Can I—”

“Please,” I beg, and with a simple flex of his fingers, my button goes flying somewhere over his shoulder, the placket unzipped.

“Shit, sorry,” he grunts, a flash of worry in his eyes. But the pinch of fear at the show of his strength somehow makes everything hotter, the knowledge that I’m making him lose control too. I grab his hand and slide it down the front of my jeans. His eyelids flutter, and he releases a dark moan.

His deft fingers delicately trace the lace of my panties. I shiver, hypersensitive, trembling from just the gentle slide of his touch along the bottom of my stomach. I’m already losing it, writhing impatiently against him, my mouth dragging open, messy kisses along his neck, his cheek.

“Let me touch you too,” I say, half wild. “I want to feel you too, please. Wanna make you feel good.”

“You do. You are. And of course I want you to.” There’s a strained quality to his voice. “Let this be about you—” But I’m impatient, so I find the placket at his pants, unbutton it, and slip my hands down the front.

When my fingers find the cool velvet marble of him, bigger than I’d imagined—and I had imagined it, I can finally admit—I let out a rough, shocked gasp.

“Holy fucking—Rose,” Hayden gasps out when I touch him. The fingers he has against the skin of my stomach begin to tremble violently, and his fangs are impossibly long and sharp. “You have to— You don’t—”

“Show me,” I say fiercely, slowly curling my fingers around him. “Show me what you like.”

“This,” he snarls, rearing up suddenly to rip the collar of my shirt open with his teeth, revealing my bra. I lose my breath, frozen in anticipation and more arousal than I’ve ever felt in my life.

For a crystal-clear moment, I relish the cold bite of the wind against my bare neck, the sight of the skeletal silhouettes of trees surrounding us, the ocean behind Hayden’s snow-dusted hair. I feel a sense of belonging here, of connection to everything I’ve been searching for my entire life, here with Hayden on my grave, the dead bearing witness to our love.

“I like this.” Hayden’s eyes flash, a dark promise, and then his fangs rip the fabric of my bra, baring my chest to the open air for only a moment before his mouth and tongue cover my aching skin.

“Hayden,” I cry, arching against his mouth, the fingers around him going still, squeezing, and my other hand anchoring in his hair, holding on for dear life. He kisses and licks me, his tongue swirling in ways I never knew were possible. I’m making the most ungodly sounds. He’s pulling them from me with each suck of his mouth, each lap of his tongue.

I had no idea. No idea it could be like this.

“Hayden,” I groan. “Hayden, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Hayden raises his head, panting hard, blinking at me like I’ve just said the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Really?” he breathes, his voice ruined, and my god, is he serious? I bow forward, capture his mouth with mine, licking hard against the roof of his mouth, his tongue, boldly around his large, sharp fangs.

Hayden’s eyes get very dark and he slips the teasing hand in my jeans into my panties. He plunges them down until he finds me. He bares his fangs when his fingers feel the effect he’s had on me, how I’ve probably ruined not just my underwear but my jeans as well.

“Say it again,” he snarls. “Say it, Rose.”

“I love you,” I whine as his hands move exquisitely against me. “Put your mouth on me.” Hayden makes a hungry noise, lunges at my chest, continuing his urgent ministrations. “I…Oh god, I’ve never felt this good. It feels so good; you feel so good.” I don’t care what I’m saying, it’s all tumbling out, my body and mouth moving with a mind of their own.

I’m an instrument of pleasure played by a virtuoso, and Hayden’s smug smile is only making it hotter.