Haunted by the King of Death (31 page)

Her belly heated, fire the temperature of a volcano’s molten core blazing there, and she strained for more, rocked her hips against his face and rode his tongue as he thrust it into her, mimicking sex, fuelling the fantasy building in her mind.

The desperate and wild need.

“Grave,” she murmured, voice throaty and deep, echoing that need.

He groaned and licked her harder, pressed his tongue against her nub and stroked it fiercely as it clenched and unclenched.

She twisted his hair tighter between her fingers and raised her hips, lost in the moment, consumed by her impending release, thrust beyond all control into a wild state where only feeling existed and the only thing that mattered was sating the need to climax.

Grave wrapped his lips around her bundle of nerves and gave a hard suck.

Isla cried out, hips jacking up. Stars sparkled and leaped through every inch of her, shattering her awareness of the world and replacing it with a swift blinding light and heat that travelled through her, flowing back and forth along her trembling limbs.

Dear gods.

She had been with males in her phantom form before, but none of them could compare with Grave. Being with him in her physical form had been exhilarating enough, but in her phantom form every inch of her was more sensitive, and as she sagged and struggled for air, she had the feeling he knew it and knew exactly how to take advantage of it to bring her to shattering releases that had her thinking twice about wanting a corporeal form again.

If Grave could make being a phantom this exciting and thrilling, could make her feel this much, then maybe she wouldn’t be sad if Elissa couldn’t find a way of making her corporeal again.

Grave kissed along her thigh and she wriggled as it tickled, just as it would if her form was solid.

If his form was solid.

That thought sobered her up, made the residual bliss from her climax fade away. It wasn’t only her body on the line. If Elissa couldn’t find the right spell, Grave would remain incorporeal too, and she still wasn’t one hundred percent certain that mating would stop them from eventually fading. She wanted to be certain, and that meant finding the spell, and gaining a physical form again, together with Grave.

He didn’t belong in her world.

Her beautiful, noble and deadly vampire belonged in his world, one where he led his Preux Chevaliers that were so important to him and could be part of his family again, the same as them. She wanted to go to that world with him. He was her family now, together with Frey.

Grave shattered all thoughts of other males as he kissed up her belly, his sides brushing between her thighs, and she moaned as he reached her breasts. He tugged the corset of her white dress down, exposing her nipples, just as he had back in the inn.

He stilled, lifted his head and frowned down at her. “What is wrong?”

She tried to smile. “I keep thinking about when we have been together in a more… physical way.”

His pale blue eyes softened, but the hunger steadily building in them didn’t go anywhere. It only grew as he raked his gaze over her, his pupils dilating as he took in her ghostly body.

“It does not feel any different to me.” He lifted his eyes back to her and the sincerity in them touched her.

She wanted to feel that way too, wanted to believe he didn’t care that he was a phantom now even when she knew that he found it strange and disconcerting.

“I miss the leather though,” he whispered and lowered his head, teased her breasts with his lips, his breath cool against her skin.

It was strange to feel that, to feel anything so strongly when in her phantom form. Maybe it was because it was Grave. She knew the feel of him so well, the way his breath felt on her skin, his lips on her flesh, and his body under her hands, that the memory was enough to boost what she felt in her phantom form, bringing it close to how it had been when she had been solid.

“At least your clothes do not change when you are phantom.” She tugged at his shirt, pulling him up to her so she could kiss him.

His lips claimed hers before she could seize them, and she moaned into his mouth as he kissed her, delved his tongue between her lips and battled hers for dominance.

Something else that was new. Normally when she did anything with males while in her phantom form, she was the one in control, always in control, taking what she needed from them and then discarding them.

Perhaps it was more than just how well she knew Grave that made it different this time. Maybe it was her time in a corporeal form that had changed her, had altered her to her very core, and was responsible for how differently she thought about things and approached them now. She wouldn’t dream of using a male as she had before now, wouldn’t be able to do such a thing, knowing that she was condemning them to a life as a phantom, using them and destroying their lives.

“Come back,” Grave whispered against her lips and she realised she had gone still beneath him. He sighed, smoothed his hand across her brow and over her hair, and rested on his other elbow, propping himself up above her. She looked up into his eyes and found them soft and warm, laced with the love she now knew for certain he held in his heart for her. “You keep drifting away.”

“I am sorry.” She smiled and pushed her sombre thoughts aside. “Thinking about my past… when I should be thinking about my future.”

He smiled back at her, and she couldn’t breathe as she looked up at him, caught up in how beautiful he was.

“Gods, I love you,” she whispered without thinking, the words escaping her lips before she could consider what she was saying.

She had never said those words to him before.

The soft look in his eyes turned to one of shock, and then something that resembled happiness, and his lips were back on hers, stealing her heart in a kiss that was so warm and tender that she wanted to cry.

She tore at his shirt, the desperate need that he had quelled building again as he kissed her, as she thought about how much she loved him and how much he wanted to be her mate again. She wanted that too. She needed it with all of her heart.

When the buttons of his ghostly shirt refused to give under her trembling fingers, she let loose a snarl of frustration and yanked the two sides apart, spraying buttons everywhere.

Grave arched an eyebrow at her. “That was my only shirt.”

“I will make it up to you.” She slid her hands between the two sides of his shirt and he groaned as she skimmed her palms over his hard pectorals and up to his shoulders, pushing the shirt off them. “Besides, it will be whole again by the time I am done with you. Phantom clothing repairs itself.”

Because it was the only damned thing they could wear. She had ripped her dress a thousand times, but it always became perfect again in a matter of hours, slowly repairing itself before her eyes. She hated her drab white dress with a fierce passion, but it was part of her and she couldn’t shed it or replace it with anything else, just as Grave’s clothes were a part of him now.

He sat back and shrugged off his shirt, and Isla followed him as her gaze caught on the pendant around his neck and sat up on the bed.

“Why did you keep it?” She took hold of the delicate silver knot and lightly brushed her thumb over it, feeling the pattern, every intricate line of it, a ribbon of love and protection that had no end, was infinite, just like her feelings for the male she had given it to.

He looked down at the pendant, the hunger that had been building in his eyes abating again as he studied the knot, and then up into her eyes. “Because I love you.”

Those were the words she had needed to hear. They melted her heart, the one that belonged to him, and she slid her hands over his muscular shoulders and drew him to her again, caught his lips in a kiss she hoped conveyed just how much those words meant to her.

How much he meant to her.

When he leaned into the kiss, she used his position against him, easily rolling him onto his back when his weight was off centre. He grunted as he landed on his back beneath her, but didn’t fight her as she kissed him, her tongue tangling with his before she stroked his fangs with it, running the tip down the length of one.

He shuddered and moaned, clutched her backside through her dress and gripped it tightly.

Isla kept up her teasing, mercilessly driving him to the edge of reason, to the point where she knew he would lose control again. When he was close to it, she eased off and kissed down his jaw, following the strong line to his neck and from there charting a familiar path down his throat to his shoulder.

He moaned as she kissed a trail across his hard pectorals, following the line of one scar as it darted from the top of his pectoral near his right shoulder across the valley between them, to end near his left nipple. When she reached it, she swirled her tongue around the small bud, teasing it to hardness, and then gave it a brief, hard suck. He grunted again, fisted his hands in the material of her skirt and trembled.

She loved it when her powerful, deadly vampire shook as he was now, at her mercy, compliant when he was usually defiant, a slave when he normally ruled.

Her King of Death.

He shuddered, another moan escaping him as she trailed her lips lower, over the ridges of his stomach to the sensual dip of his navel. She looked up the length of him and couldn’t stop herself from trembling too.

Her vampire had been sculpted by the gods, carved from the finest marble, honed to perfection.

She wriggled her hips, squeezed her thighs as best she could with his legs between them, and moaned at the thought of kissing every inch of him.

The darkness entering his eyes, devouring his pale blue irises, warned he didn’t have the patience for such a leisurely and torturous exploration. He needed her. She could feel it drumming in his blood, the same way that it quickened hers.

Isla shifted further south, shuffling her knees down so they were closer to his, and he huffed as her backside slipped beyond the reach of his hands. That frustration faded as she lowered her mouth and followed the dusting of hair that led down from his navel, and her hands found the waist of his trousers.

She popped the button and then tackled the others, slowly eased his fly apart, and he was swift to lift his hips enough that she could tug the tight material over his backside and down his thighs. She slowed the pace as she walked her fingers along the waist of his trunks, kissing up the ridge of muscle over his right hip at the same time.

Grave snarled down at her, a commanding edge to it, one that had her smiling secretly against his cool skin. She did love to tease and see how far she could push him. Her vampire had never had much patience. He always got what he wanted, when he wanted it, but gods, she loved to make him wait as long as she could before giving in to him.

She hooked her fingers into the elastic waist of his trunks and slowly edged them downwards, her lips following to explore the skin she exposed, drifting back towards the trail of hair.

Grave lifted his hips again, his breath coming a little quicker, soft pants that mingled with hers in the tense silence.

She raised her head and eased his trunks over his cock, setting it free. Her eyes immediately darted down to it, a breathless moan escaping her as she took in the rigid shaft, from the thick base, up the ridge on the underside to the darker blunt tip. He trembled as she stroked her hand down it, feeling the velvet and steel combination that had always made her ache for him, had always sent whatever thrill she had been feeling shooting high into the stratosphere until she was close to begging him to fill her.

As she eased her hand down, she revealed more of the lush dark head of his cock, and she couldn’t resist the temptation. She lowered her head and tongued his slit, savoured his grunt and the following groan of pleasure as she teased him, drawing a bead of moisture from him. His right hip shook beneath her other hand as she planted it against it, holding him place, and wrapped her lips around the sensitive head.

“Isla,” he barked and moaned as he tensed beneath her, hips thrusting up towards her as his backside clenched. “Gods.”

She moaned in time with him and took him deep into her mouth, intent on driving him as wild as he had driven her, torturing her with bliss and pleasure so intense her climax had almost blinded her.

Her right hand closed around his shaft and she held him firm as she sucked him, taking him so deep he touched the back of her throat before rolling up his length until he popped free of her lips.

Grave writhed beneath her, but in this form, she was stronger, easily able to keep him in place and at her mercy.

She devoured his moans as she devoured his cock, ignored his whispered pleas for mercy and the delicious way he begged for release in a broken way. She kept up with her torture, taking him so deep she could almost swallow around him, and his hands shot to her shoulders, gripped her fiercely enough that it hurt, but she didn’t care.

All that mattered was making her mate wild, giving him a release he would never forget.

Isla lowered her right hand to his balls and tugged on them before rubbing the spot below them. Grave’s hips jacked up, thrusting his cock deep into her mouth, and she moaned as she swallowed it, sucked and teased it, and he grunted and groaned again, began pumping into her mouth in a desperate way, lost to his need for release, overwhelmed by it.

When she felt his balls draw up, could sense he was on the brink of climaxing, she eased back and released his cock as she sat up.

He growled at her, flashing fangs.

Her wicked and wild male.

She had him exactly where she wanted him, where she needed him in order to make this mating happen.

She needed him so lost to his need that he wouldn’t care about what they had to do to form a bond between them again, exactly as he had been when they had first bound themselves to each other a century ago.

Back then, he hadn’t known what he had been doing, because he hadn’t known what she was or what he had become. She had triggered the bond by stealing a piece of his soul through a kiss and his phantom instincts had responded, and he had taken a piece of hers into him without ever knowing it.