Haven (31 page)

I jumped at the sound of his voice. His neutral tone gave me no clue about his stance on us.

“Carina,” he whispered, when I didn’t respond.

Okay, that sounded a little better. A bit sultry. Sultry is good. We like sultry.

“What doesn’t have to be hard?” Must not turn around. Must not relax my guard. Wait for it, wait for it...

“Us.” He was closer now. I hadn’t heard him move.

“Is there an us?” Butterflies in my gut. A flutter of hope.

“There can be.” Behind me. Close, so close.

“Do you want there to be?”

“Do you?” he parried.

Yes, yes, good god, ad infinitum yes!
“I don’t know.”

“Liar.” His warm breath fanned the back of my neck, the hollow of my shoulder.

My core performed an excited come-and-get-me dance.

His hands slid over the bare skin at the small of my back. I released my death grip on my waist and leaned against him, open for more. But he kept his touch feather light, his breath continuing to caress my neck and shoulder, lips so close, almost there. I shivered from head to toe.

“How can you want this after what I did?”

He slipped his hands under mine, pressing against my belly
.

Butterfly
kisses on my neck. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“But—”

“Shh.” A graze of fang.

“Are you going to bite me?” Not like I’d say no. Penetration of any kind.
Please
.

He stilled. “Is that what you want?”

I tilted my head to give him a better angle, but he didn’t take the offer. Instead he turned me in his arms and it hit me, the hunger for me, clear in his eyes gone black like mine. I returned his hungry gaze, unable to take much more of this sexual build-up before I lost it and jumped him.

“Is that what you want?” he repeated, voice husky.

“Yes.” And hurry up!

He caressed my arms, making me shiver. “You aren’t food, Carina. It will bind us together in a way you cannot imagine.”

I watched his lips move, unable to grasp whatever he was telling me. Just wanted to devour that mouth, trace my tongue over those fangs. Draw a little blood and drink it down. Drink him down. I wanted him, any part of him, inside me. Now.

“What do you want, Carina?” He squeezed my arms when I didn’t answer him. It almost hurt.

I searched his face. What did I want? I wanted to stop talking already, wanted to rip off his clothes and do him on the floor or the desk or wherever, wanted to stop being afraid of what my gut insisted was the real deal and ‘just let go’ as Adrian had recommended not so long ago. I wanted to stop thinking so damn hard about every little thing and—I caressed his cheeks, recalling the damage I’d done to his face, all healed now, but still...

Remorse dampened my lust. I opened my mouth to apologize yet again, but he stopped me with a finger against my lips. “Shh.”

My hands fell away from his face.

His finger traced my lips. I took the tip into my mouth up to the first knuckle, held it between my teeth and circled it with my tongue. It tasted like the lavender hand soap from the bathroom, and underneath a hint of salt and copper. Alexander sucked in a breath and pulled out his finger while I grazed it with my teeth. He trailed it, wet now, along my lower lip, down my chin to my chest, down, down, stopping when he reached the hollow between my breasts.

“What do you want, Carina?”

One finger, just one finger touching me, and I was undone. I spoke the words my heart wanted to say. “I want...
Everything
.”

Our bodies collided. We kissed hard and fast, like the world was about to explode and this was our last gasp at feeling something, anything.

But it was only
the beginning.

I pulled at the buttons on his jacket. Off it went. I ripped off my fingerless gloves, freed the bottom of his shirt from the waistband of his pants and pushed inside. Finally, his chest under my hands. He pulled back from our kiss and devoured me with wild black eyes. A jab of excitement hit my gut. I pushed at his shirt. He took over and it was gone, off his body, every glorious inch of his chest exposed to my hungry gaze, a chest well-muscled but not overly
so, the skin smooth and hairless, the way I liked it. Tattoos on his upper arms and chest caught my attention, but I wanted my mouth on him again. Sex now, art appreciation, later.

Much later.

We kissed again, softer this time. I pressed myself against his delicious, bare chest but it wasn’t enough. My top was in the way. Alexander must’ve agreed because a second later my shirt was gone, followed by my bra. He gazed at my breasts, eyes wide and hungry. Then we were airborne. I landed on the couch with Alexander on his feet in front of me, his movement agile like a cat. I had a millisecond to catch my breath before he fell upon me in a blur of vampire speed and his mouth found my chest.

He worked one nipple with lips, teeth and tongue, sucking, licking, nibbling, his fangs close to piercing the tender flesh. He teased the other nipple between his forefinger and thumb, squeeze, pull, squeeze, roll, roll, repeat, repeat, repeat. I moaned and clawed at the smooth surface of the couch, arms stretched wide, seeking something to hang onto as the pleasure-pressure built between my legs.

I held my breath, body trembling with tension, head back, eyes closed. Alexander stilled. The wave threatening to engulf me receded.

“Don’t stop,” I panted. I was a quivering mass of nerve endings and they all wanted to be touched and adored.

Immediately.

When Alexander didn’t reply with word or action, I opened my eyes. That’s what he wanted. His fangs retracted. Once gone, his lips descended to the breast that hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting them, but instead of the fierce and fantastic onslaught the other had experienced, this one received the softest of kisses, a little lick, a gentle nip. Even so, the pressure came hurtling at me again and I threw back my head, ready to fall into that dark well of pleasure, but Alexander growled against my breast.

“No. Stay.”

For once in my life, I didn’t mind being told what to do. So I stayed, eyes open, attention on the man at my breast. He played there a moment longer then trailed light kisses down to my belly, pausing at my piercing. He took the barbell into his mouth, held it between his teeth and pulled hard enough to make me gasp and grab his head. His hands caught mine and pressed them to the couch.

He released the barbell and sat back on his knees. He stared at me for a moment before nudging my legs apart. My heart sped up. His hands trailed up my outer thighs and under my mini skirt. My turn to give him wild eyes. His fingers traced the edge of my panties slipping ever closer to my inner thighs and to that spot in between begging for his touch. His dark eyes glittered, like a cat stalking its prey, ready to pounce.

Any. Moment. Now.

“Do you truly want everything, Carina Tranquilli?” His husky voice sent a new round of shivers down my body.

I nodded. Off went the black panty. No barrier left now.

“Say it.” He squeezed my legs, his thumbs dragging little circles on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, close to other parts, other places dying for attention. One tiny move further in and his thumb would enter me. I shivered. He stopped the circles and pressed with his thumbs, so close to slipping inside. I let out a tiny sound somewhere between a squeak and a moan.

“Say it.”

“I want everything,” I panted, mouth dry.

But it wasn’t enough. “More,” he demanded. “Who am I?”

Confusion knit my brow. My brain could barely string even one coherent thought together, so overwhelmed by the sensations he elicited from my body, and he wanted to play twenty questions right now? Really? He pushed my legs further apart and with unnerving accuracy, his thumb found the sweet spot.

I bucked forward, but he pushed me down with one hand, pinning me to the couch, while the other continued to caress my folds and tease my sensitive nub. My legs trembled, muscles clenching. Two fingers slipped inside, curling up under my pubic bone, locating their target. I clutched at the hand on my chest and squeezed it, frantic, as the pressure built up inside me.

His fangs reappeared. “Who. Am. I?” His fingers moved faster and faster, until I came, shrieking the answer, screaming the truth.

“Mine. You’re mine!”

We hit the floor in a blur of speed.

I thought I heard him say, “I can’t enthrall you, this will hurt,” a moment before his fangs plunged into my neck.

Pain arched my body, stole my breath. His fingers slipped inside me once more, sliding in and out, again and again until another orgasm rocked me. I spasmed in his grasp and clawed at the air. The pain disappeared, wiped out by a tsunami of endorphins. And I wanted it to go on forever, the pull of his mouth at my neck, the thrust of his fingers inside my body. My blood filling him, making him mine.

His fingers slid out one last time, his hand wrapping around my waist, giving it a possessive squeeze. The pulling sensation at my neck intensified. I moaned and lay limp and twitching underneath him as he drank. He might kill me for all I cared. Maybe he would, if he took too much. I trusted him to stop, though, to know when enough was enough. I sure had no clue.

Alexander pulled back and let out a half groan, half growl. He gazed down at me, chin covered in my blood. I palmed his cheek, trailed my fingers down over his lips, through the blood below.

“With my blood, you’re mine,” I whispered, drowsy. My hand slipped from his face. Where had those words come from? Didn’t sound like something I’d say yet my gut said it was true.

I’ve used the Key. My Key.

My eyes fluttered shut, my body spent. But a sudden burst of energy hit me.
More
, my power purred,
more
.

Apparently, we weren’t finished.

Alexander stroked a finger down my cheek and my eyes opened. “Ah, there you are.”

He sat up and pulled me across his lap. I blinked up at his handsome face, wanting to lick the blood, my blood, from his crimson chin.

“By your blood, I am bound to you, Carina Tranquilli.” Alexander sliced his palm on his fangs. Blood pooled.

“With my blood...” he brought the bounty to my lips.

“I’m yours,” I finished in a soft voice.

I drank, lapping up the liquid like a thirsty kitten at a bowl of cream. When it was gone I licked the wound, but it healed all too soon under my tongue. I made a frustrated sound, willing his palm to open and give me more. My blood still decorated his chin. I shifted in his lap until I straddled him, cupped his face and licked it clean. He closed his eyes, a shudder rolling down his body. He bit his lip, cutting it with his fangs. The sight of yet more blood sped up my pulse. I tried to pounce, but he held me off.

“By my blood, you are bound to me.”

“I’m bound to you.” I kissed him, licked his lips, fed on the blood even as the cut healed under my tongue. “I’m yours, Alexander Wallace.”

He made a strangled sound. “I can’t hold it back any longer,” he rasped against my mouth.

“Then don’t.” I didn’t know or care what he was talking about.

He unleashed his power and it rolled over me like a tidal wave.

Okay, now I cared. I gasped, back arching, arms flailing. I would’ve pitched backwards off his lap, but he gripped my waist. The power suffocated me, making me gulp for air like a drowning victim hitting the surface of a stormy sea, only to sink again.

“Don’t fight it, Carina. Open to it. Let go.”

Again, I didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter because no sooner had he uttered those last two words, than my power flared to life, answering his call. It merged with his and they both engulfed us. We screamed as one, heads tossed back, bodies rigid.

Our combined energies skewered us like a flaming hot needle, stabbing us repeatedly, plunging through us, sewing us together with molten thread. Up and up it moved—stab, pull, repeat—jerking our bodies with every blow, until it reached our hearts. Our hearts pounding in unison. Again the needle plunged and pulled the hot thread taut, stitched us up good and tight, no more room to move.

No room to breathe.
A spark of panic and I raked my nails on Alexander’s back hard enough to draw blood.

I was half vampire, half
human
. Would this kill me?

The power rushed into my head, a white-hot poker through the forehead. My mind exploded in fireworks. Somewhere far away and separate now, my body was flying. Then it was gone, all gone and I sank into the eye of the power storm, falling deep into the chasm at the heart of it all, until I floated in the quiet center, the calm core and found peace.

~ * ~

“Carina.”

Quiet, I’m floating inside a comfy, fluffy cloud. It’s nice in here. Cozy.

“Carina, can you hear me? Wake up.”

Go away. I’m busy relaxing.

“Shit.”

Hand on my leg, shaking it.

Wait. I have a leg? My eyes snapped open and I jolted back to reality, gasping for air.

“Oh, thank god,” Alexander exclaimed, relief in his voice.

I stared at the ceiling for a moment getting reacquainted with my body and reminding it how to breathe. In, out, in, out, slow and steady, there ya go. My eyes lowered to spy Alexander near my feet, on all fours.

He gave me a faint smile. “Hi.”

“Ow,” I croaked in reply. My body hurt as if recently pummeled by a thousand kung fu fists. I shifted and checked in with the major muscle groups, wiggled my fingers, moved my head. Status—all there, all working, and—“Ouch.”

Alexander had the grace to look embarrassed. Good boy. I might forgive him. He stretched out next to me, head propped up on one arm.

I shifted my head in his direction and my neck crackled, eyes squeezing shut against the pain.

His large hand cupping my cheek startled me moments later. I battled with my heavy eyelids, trying to focus.