Hunger (20 page)

Tor’s lips curved again. No one had ever treated him the way Eve did, standing in his corner and willing to take on the world if they dared to badmouth him. It was a strange sensation and one he wasn’t sure he would ever grow used to.

He turned his back on the moon, rested his elbows behind him on the stone banister, and studied her. She was beautiful bathed in pale light, washing the colour from her red lips, making them appear almost black and far more tempting.

“Ugh… I want to stab them all,” she muttered, her brow crinkling with her frown and lips pursing.

Tor reached out and smoothed his hand across her cheek. She fell silent, the air between them crackling as he held her with his touch and his gaze, staring deep into her eyes. Her chest rose and fell with each hard inhalation. They came quicker as she looked at him, desire beginning to chase the anger from her beguiling eyes.

He brushed his fingers along the line of her jaw, drawing her to him, and used his thumb to tilt her head back. He slowly lowered his mouth and gently kissed her, sweeping his lips across hers in a teasing way that almost undid him. Heat flowed through him as she pressed her palms against his chest and leaned into him, bringing their bodies into contact, pressing him back against the balustrade.

Tor wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him, and flicked a glance at the ballroom beyond her. The men moved around in it, raking their eyes over other women. Men who had wanted to claim Eve as their own.

Tor growled against her lips and crushed them in a fierce kiss. She gasped into his mouth and then met him, matching his ferocity, her tongue duelling with his. It wasn’t enough. He scooped her into his arms, stepped up onto the balustrade and leaped into the garden below. She clutched his shoulders as he landed in a crouch, not breaking the kiss, and he rose to his feet. He set her in front of him again, grasping her waist in a bruising grip, unable to be gentle with her when every instinct drove him to possess her.

He backed her into the shadows, against the wall of the house beyond the patio, where no one would see them. She panted between kisses, her fervour intoxicating him, driving his instincts, telling him that she welcomed this possession. She wanted to be his.

He snarled and shoved her back against the wall, ripping a husky moan from her lips. He swooped on them again and pushed her up the wall, grabbed her legs and forced her to wrap them around his waist. She rocked against him, her warm core scalding his aching cock through his jeans. He needed to be inside her.

Eve twisted her fingers in his hair, anchoring her to him, as if he would ever willingly give her up. She was his whether she liked it or not, and it was time she knew it.

He fought the layers of her dress as he kissed her, his frustration mounting as he kept finding another one and another blocking his way to her. When he finally broke through them all and pressed his palm to her, he groaned and shuddered. She was naked and wet against his flesh.

He drew back, breathing hard, needing to know why the hell she had been parading around other men with no underwear on.

She gave him a mischievous smile. “I was hoping you’d come down.”

Devil. He growled and took possession of her mouth again, driving her back against the wall as he fumbled with his jeans, coming close to ripping them open in order to free himself. When the last button gave, he shoved them down enough to release his cock, took hold of it, and rubbed it down the length of her. She moaned, the sound sweet and enticing, demanding he do it again.

He stroked her with the blunt head, fighting his need to be inside her, wanting to give her what she desired. He rubbed her swollen nub with it, his knees trembling at the feel of her against him, her slick wetness inviting him lower.

“Tor,” she murmured, desperately kissing him as she tugged at his hair.

He knew what she needed.

What he needed.

He slipped himself down to her core and nudged inside, and she sighed, her teeth tugging on his lower lip.

Tor grasped her hips beneath her dress, palming her backside, and snarled as he thrust home, burying himself in one powerful stroke. Her muffled cry drew another growl from him and he kissed her again, claiming her mouth as he claimed her body.

She clung to him as he pounded into her, driving her against the stone wall. Her fingers clasped the back of his head, her body writhing against his, maddening and shocking him. She responded beautifully to his savageness, meeting his roughness as if the same raw need pounded through her, controlling her actions like a madness that was too powerful to stop.

He couldn’t be gentle with her, no matter how fiercely he wanted to be and wanted to make love with her in the way that she deserved. This wasn’t making love. This was a claiming, and he couldn’t deny it.

Seeing her touched by those men had broken something inside him, allowing a primal and dangerous side of him to emerge, one that demanded he erase their mark on her and stamp his name on her soul. He needed to make her his, even when he knew they didn’t belong together, that she had loved a man who betrayed her and was destined for better things.

She was a star beyond his reach, but he couldn’t stop himself from wishing for her.

He pressed his fingers into her backside and thrust deeper, long strokes to make her feel all of him and know he was inside her, and she belonged to him now. As he belonged to her.

She moaned and clung to him, each flex and ripple of her body around his length tearing an answering groan from his throat. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling her sweetness as he plunged into her, taking her hard and fast, his pelvis slamming against her core with each deep thrust.

Eve peppered his throat with kisses and licks, sending shivers bolting through him, zinging between his neck and his balls. They drew up, his cock aching as release boiled at its base. Eve would be his. She would know it. When he climaxed with her, she would know that she belonged to him, and he would never allow her to belong to another.

No other male in this world would ever touch her like this.

He growled and pumped harder, lost in claiming her and stamping his mark on her.

Eve turned the tables and stamped her mark on him.

The feel of her fangs slicing into his throat sent him shooting into the stratosphere and jerking deep into her. His release came upon him so swiftly that his head spun, every pulse of his cock that sent jets of seed into her core sending a cascade of hot tingly shivers through his bones. She sucked on the wound and he grunted as her body quivered around his, throbbing and clutching, drawing a second release from him that had him grabbing the wall for support.

Eve moaned and wriggled, riding his still-hard cock, her pleasure blasting through him as she sucked down his blood, linking them for a brief insanely blissful moment.

She drank for a full minute, the assault on his body almost too much for him to bear as he clung to the wall and her, struggling to retain consciousness. He had never been bitten during sex. He hadn’t been prepared for the mind-blowing orgasm it would bring.

His fangs extended and he growled into her throat, the need to bite her almost overwhelming him. Eve tilted her head, still drinking from his throat, and moaned against him. She clutched the back of his head and pulled him down, forcing his mouth against the curve of her neck.

He breathed hard, fighting the urge to mark her, his heart and mind tearing him in two different directions. He couldn’t mark her like this. He didn’t deserve her. She deserved a better man than he could ever be.

What he felt she deserved and what she wanted seemed to be polar opposites though.

She released his neck, roughly licked the puncture wounds, sending another hot shiver chasing over his flesh, and growled into his ear, a warning in it. A command that spoke to his soul and drove him into action. She needed him to bite her. She wanted it.

Welcomed it.

Tor clutched her to him and closed his eyes, humbled by her offer and the depth of her desire for him. He eased his fangs into her throat, as gently as possible so as not to hurt her, knowing this was a huge step for her.

Her sweet blood burst on his tongue like a thousand fireworks and she cried into his throat, her body quivering around his again. She wrapped her mouth back around the wound on his neck and began drinking in time with him, forming an incredible connection between them. Tor lost himself in it, in all the memories that poured into him, visions of him through her eyes.

She had called him beautiful before.

She truly believed that about him.

Her warmth and affection for him, her deepest thoughts and feelings, became his to cherish, to know without a doubt. He thought she deserved better. Eve thought he was everything she desired and needed. Powerful. Intelligent. A hunter like her. Someone who understood her, protected her, and knew how to handle her. Someone she always wanted in her life.

Someone she wanted to be with.

Tor couldn’t take it. Overcome by the memories flowing into him, the beauty and light that was Eve, he removed his fangs from her throat and swept his tongue over the twin puncture marks. He held onto her, his hands shaking. Every inch of him trembling. His mind raced, hazy from her blood and his release, filling with too many thoughts and feelings for him to process.

Could she love him?

Eve finally released his throat and licked the wounds, her warm tongue sliding over his flesh making his softening cock twitch back to life.

She moaned and drew back, and he felt her eyes on him, drilling into the side of his face.

“Tor?” she whispered and he could only breathe hard in response, still struggling to pull himself back together.

He was no longer sure who had claimed whom and stamped their mark on them.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then his lips. He groaned at the taste of his blood on them and kissed her, pressing her back against the wall, keeping the pace slow this time, savouring the way she felt around him and in his arms.

“I could stay like this forever. I want to stay like this forever… with you, forever. Don’t you?” She pulled back again and smiled at him, a brilliant one that hit him square in the chest.

“I do,” he softly whispered, lost in her, drowning and unable to save himself. He would pledge himself to her forever right now if she asked it of him. He would hand his heart to her and expect nothing in return. “I want to be with you forever.”

Pain shot through his chest and Eve cried out at the same time, her hand leaving his hair to clutch at her breasts. He held her closer, sensing her incredible fear as pain ripped her apart inside. The same agony that beat at him, filling every molecule of his body until he wasn’t sure he could take any more.

“What’s wrong with me?” Eve said in a broken whisper and looked at him, her dark eyebrows furrowing and near-black eyes reflecting her pain. “What’s wrong with us?”

Tor’s breath left him in a rush as one possible answer came to him. “It can’t be… not with such words.”

The agony began to ebb away, leaving him numb, his senses still reeling from the assault.

“What do you mean?” She looked deep into his eyes and he caught the flicker of confusion in hers. She cupped his cheeks, her gaze searching his, no doubt seeing the feelings he combated in them. Vulnerability. Fear. Hope. “What happened? You know, don’t you?”

Tor nodded, pulled down a breath, and tried to think of a good way to break it to her. His mind and heart were now pulling him in so many directions he felt he would rip apart into a million pieces. She needed to know what had happened.

“We instigated a bond,” he said and her eyes flew wide. “It shouldn’t be possible with such words… without the right words.”

“A claiming?” Her eyes didn’t grow any smaller as she absorbed what he had told her. “I thought they entailed a ritual, not idle words.”

That lashed at him and he growled. “No words are idle if you mean them, heart and soul.”

Her palms pressed harder against his face and she shook her head. “I didn’t mean that… I mean… did you mean them?”

He closed his mouth hard, his lips pressing into a firm line, every instinct warning him not to answer, not to lay his heart on the line and let her crush it. He still wasn’t used to how Eve made him feel, still felt these emotions were alien and didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t be the one to admit they existed.

“Did you mean them?” he countered.

Her eyes instantly softened, warmth colouring them, and she stroked his cheeks. She understood him just as he understood her. This was alien to both of them, strange and unnerving.

Eve nodded. “I did, Tor. I meant that. Heart and soul. I want to be with you forever.”

Tor growled and kissed her again, claiming her mouth with fierce possession, in the same way she had claimed his heart. She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his fervour, moaning as she kissed him.

He couldn’t believe what they had done, but he knew he would never regret it.

Eve was his now.

The bond that had been placed between them with only a declaration of their desire to be together forever was proof that her feelings for him were strong, just as his were for her.

She drew back, a wide beautiful smile on her lips, showing her happiness to him even though he could feel a glimmer of it. Over the course of a few days, that ability to detect her emotions would grow and other abilities would develop too.

Her gaze danced to his neck and a flicker of guilt shone in her eyes. “I should have warned you, shouldn’t I?”

He nodded. “What did you see?”

She must have seen something because his guard had been down and he had been in no fit condition to bring it up at any point during her feeding. He hoped to the Devil she hadn’t seen anything bad that might shake her feelings for him.

She stroked the left side of his neck. “I saw the man who did this to you.”

She had seen his awakening, the earliest memory he had as a vampire.

He pulled out of her but held her in place, keeping their bodies pressed together.