Page 115 of Red Masquerade

I sighed as he moved. A moment later, he retreated, and I cried out at the absence of him. But with his unnatural strength he flipped me over so the cold was against my chest, pressing into my beaded nipples, my navel. My rear was exposed to the air. In a second, he was in me again, the new angle hitting more sensitive spots within me that had me suppressing a scream. My body was stuck between him and the stone, completely at his mercy.

He covered my mouth with his hand, his breaths hot against my ear, muffling the foul sounds that came out of me. He movedwith a frenzy, like he was reaching a peak, but couldn’t quite make that final climb.

I pressed the back of my skull against him, opening up my neck, eyes rolling back into my head.

He growled, a truly animalistic sound, and I felt him near the tender flesh of my throat. Anticipation just made me wetter, slickening my core, easing his movements.

“God,” he groaned, smelling sharply at my neck. “I can’t wait any longer.”

The beast took over. Suddenly, his teeth pierced the flesh of my throat, tearing right under my ear. I cried out, the pain like a knife, a slash. Hot and sharp, piercing deep into my skin.

Vince was a vampire, a creature meant tokillhumans. And he had his teeth in me.

I shattered immediately, my core spasming on his cock at the bite of pain and pleasure all at once. My orgasm came from nowhere, without any effort, like the puncture of his teeth was an aphrodisiac.

Quivering, my hands came to the stone in an attempt to push myself up, but I was wholly at his mercy as he came into me from behind, pinning me down with his mouth.

My heart fluttered, overwhelmed with the lovemaking and with fear, and I had the brief thought that he would kill me. Vince would kill me—and then what? What was all this for?

His thrusts became more vigorous, the skin of my hips scraping against the rough edge of the stone. And the pain, like a jagged hot knife at my neck, began to subside. The warmth subdued, turned to a comfortable, if pleasurable, sensation. His teeth still in me, his cock still rutting into me, he drank, and drank, his fingerslike claws against my mouth, holding me still. I couldn’t move, only succumb to his want and lust.

And the fear disappeared, as though I were drunk, and the warmth made me pliant. I ached, spent, and there was a comfort in letting go, in giving up control. My vision became fuzzy, the dark of the room growing.

He pulled away from my neck, the pain now nonexistent. I didn’t want him to leave me. I wanted to tell him to takemore. To drain me, to use all of me to strengthen himself.

“I can’t even begin to describe to you how you taste,” he growled in my ear, both hands finding my hips. The sound of his hips slapping against mine echoed in the stone room. He moved with such strength, and I was so weak, deliciously so, I couldn’t move. He had taken enough to leave me whole, alive, well, but also enough to nourish himself, to feed the animal in him. I was lightheaded, submissive to the sensations of him pistoning in and out.

When he came, he shuddered against me, and I felt his heart beating rapidly, faster than I’d ever felt from him. Like he was alive again. Wetness seeped down my thighs, mingling with the sweat between us, warmth against the cold of the stone.

I turned, my cheek smushed, my heart slow, still breathless. “You didn’t change me.”

I felt like I had offered all that I was and a god had deemed me worthy enough to accept.

He straightened, still hard within me, his hands against my spine to keep me down. The darkness of his eyes seemed satiated, the wildness dissipating. “I didn’t,” he said.

A pang of hurt tried to break through the ecstasy of my exhausted body. “You said—”

“I cannot Make you when I have only just tasted you.” He licked his lips, his elongated sharp teeth stained a deep red. He struggled to catch his breath, his chest still heaving, his body playing at being alive, as he’d been six years ago.

He pulled away from me then, his release dripping down my legs. I sighed, shutting my eyes at the sensation. His large but soft hands came to my shoulders.

“It will wear off,” he said, his voice lower than before. He inspected my face, as though to make sure I was alright.

“I don’t want it to wear off,” I sighed dreamily again. “I want you to bite me.”

He swallowed. A trail of red ran down his chin.Myblood.

He drank my blood.

“I will not kill you. If I drink too much from you, you will die.”

I turned, using all my strength to brush my lips against his. “Then you can Make me.”

He pressed his lips against mine firmly, and the tang of my blood spread on my tongue. I half-expected it to taste as ambrosial as he said, but I tasted only iron, like I’d bitten my lip too hard. He was careful not to graze his teeth against my lips, his kiss gentle, his animal fed and sated. Pressing his forehead to mine, he loosed a breath, his big hand caressing my cheek with a tenderness I hadn’t realized I missed.

“In time,” he whispered.

Thirty-Nine