Page 32 of Vacation with the Vampire
My chest tightened, warmth flooding through me. “Yeah,” I murmured. “Now that I believe. I love you too, Raoul. Crazy as this vacation has been so far, I wouldn’t change a thing.” His smile was tender, sexy, and held all kinds of promises.
The car pulled up, and the driver stepped out, composed but taking in the state of the surroundings with careful discretion. “Is everything in order, monsieur?” he asked tentatively, and for the first time his serene facade broke, giving way to a hint of nerves. Itwasimpressive,
Raoul met my gaze, something soft and knowing passing between us. “Yes,” he said. I slid into the car beside him, my hand finding his without thinking. Everything was insane. The world had turned out to be impossible and dangerous, but somehow, my place in it felt exactly right.
Epilogue
Susie
I woke slowly, the way one does when there is nowhere else they would rather be. Warmth pressed along my back, a steady, familiar presence that had become my favorite constant. The sheets were a soft tangle around my legs, sunlight filtering through tall Parisian windows in pale gold ribbons that stretched lazily across the bed. For a moment, I simply lay there, breathing it all in—the quiet, the warmth, the faint scent of him that clung to everything now: Raoul.
His arm tightened slightly around my waist as I shifted, like even in stillness he was aware of me. “Awake, ma chèrie?” His voice was low, threaded with sleep and something deeper, something that always curled warm and dangerous through my chest. He slept now, but only sometimes, and I cherished the mornings I woke to his voice, groggy with sleep.
“Mm,” I murmured, not opening my eyes yet. “Debating it.” A few weeks ago, I thought I was at the lowest point in my life: walking in on Logan in flagrante, stuck with a romantic trip to Paris alone, which was supposed to be about rekindling our flagging relationship. Now I was living in a magical home, literally, with a vampire who proclaimed he loved me every day. My soulmate. Sometimes, fairytales did come true.
A soft huff of amusement brushed the back of my neck. “A difficult decision, I am certain.” I smiled, finally turning in his arms, and found he was already watching me. Perhaps he hadn’t been as asleep as I’d thought. He probably hadn’t actually sleptso much as lingered in elegant stillness while I drooled on his shoulder. Still, there was something softer in his expression, something unguarded in the quiet of the morning light, that made my chest tighten in a way I was still getting used to.
“Good morning,” I said, my voice husky, not from sleep, but with the first stirrings of desire. He was gorgeous, leaning on one elbow at my side, pale blond waves of hair curling around his aristocratic face.
“That is an understatement,” he replied, his gaze tracing my face as if he were memorizing it all over again. “But I will accept it.” My smile was so wide it made my cheeks hurt, but I happened to agree. Every morning living with Raoul had been more than good.
I rolled my eyes lightly. “You would find something to pick at with anything, wouldn’t you?” I teased. He liked to be haughty, act like he always knew best, but I’d already discovered he valued my opinions when it mattered. The rest, that was just a game to him, a way to amuse himself when I jabbed back. Truth was, I liked the banter, liked it way too much.
His hand slid up my arm, slow, deliberate, leaving a trail of awareness in its wake. “You say that as though it is a flaw.” He exerted a gentle pressure that made my muscles melt beneath his touch.
“It is absolutely a flaw,” I said, though my voice had gone softer without my permission. It was a sure way to win any argument; he’d just petted me until I became nothing but goo in his hands. Was it unfair? Perhaps. Did I object to this tactic? Not a bit.
“Mm.” He leaned closer, brushing his lips against mine. “Then it is fortunate you seem so very fond of me regardless.” I kissed him back before I could think too hard about it, because thinking had never improved my decision-making where he was concerned.
It started soft, but it never stayed that way. Not when we had all morning and a bed that was secretly a cloud, wrangled into submission, at our disposal.
His hand slipped into my hair, tilting my head just so, deepening the kiss with that quiet, effortless control he had over everything; that included me. I made a small, traitorous sound and felt his smile against my mouth. “Incorrigible,” I muttered.
“Hopelessly,” he agreed amicably. The world narrowed to nothing but his touch. The press of his lips against mine, the scrape of fang against sensitive skin, and our tongues tangling the way the sheets already had. The sunlight, the room, the entire city beyond those walls, it all faded into something distant and irrelevant. There was just this. Just us.
His lips trailed from my mouth to my jaw, to my throat, and I felt the shift before it happened, that subtle, electric awareness that came every time he hovered there. “Raoul…” I breathed, not quite a protest.
“Only a taste,” he murmured, his voice velvet and promise. It drew goosebumps from my flesh, and pleasure pulsed between my thighs in anticipation.
I shivered, my hands tightening against him. “You always say that.” Not a protest, just a token objection. I knew where this was headed, because a taste always turned into more, much more.
“And I am always correct.” I huffed a soft laugh that dissolved into a gasp as his teeth grazed my skin, then pierced, quick and precise. It was warmth, sharp and bright, blooming outward into something dizzying and strange and intimate in a way I didn’t have words for. My breath caught, my fingers curling into his shoulders as the sensation pulsed through me, deeper than skin, deeper than sense.
When he eased back, he pressed a soft kiss over the mark, soothing and grounding all at once. His eyes glowed golden as he rose above me, and I knew we weren’t done. He was naked, his body a work of art as he hovered over me. His mouth followed where his eyes trailed, his touches igniting what the heat of his bite had started.
He rolled over me, and I relished the press of his body against mine. Our differences, his size, his strength; my softness, yielding. This was never going to get old. I moaned as he pressed his thigh between mine and teased him by slowly spreading my legs, silk sheets sliding against bare skin. The crisp hairs on his thigh teased my flesh.
I gasped when his mouth found my nipple, laving it, then gently scraping it with a fang. The slick, silky heat of his cock pressed against my thigh, and an answering slickness welled from my core. I might have moaned his name then, trembling beneath him, writhing against the bed.
It was all the invitation he needed. His hand found my hip, sliding lower to test my wetness. I shuddered at the press of his fingers against my sensitive clit, nearly coming apart. He held back at the last moment, and I silently cursed him. Lifting my thigh wider, he made space for himself, then teased me anew as his cock kissed my opening.
That had brushed against the swirls and foreign, faintly glowing markings on my hip—the soulmate mark that bound us together. He wore a mark just like it on his wrist now, and my eyes locked onto it as he sank deep. They were just swirls, but if you looked closely, I was certain I saw things that reminded me of the Catacombs, but also things that reminded me of bright daylight and sunshine, of him and me combined.
My body hummed with pleasure at the press of his cock, the way he filled me, stroking my walls with the steady rhythm of his thrusts. When I lifted my eyes from the mark dancing on his skin, they locked with his. A golden glow, inhuman, fangs descending, and pleasure riding high in the color on his cheeks.
I didn’t need to say I loved him, and he didn’t need to say it back. Our bodies told that story as we danced together. Combining, blending, as he sank deep and filled me. Each touch was pleasure that made me climb higher until, finally, I shattered. Screaming his name, I unraveled, but he was there to hold me.
His hips stuttered, the thrusts becoming erratic as he grew thicker. With a hoarse groan, he came with me, and we tumbled over the edge together. Clinging together, bodies entwined, our hearts beating in sync.
