Page 15 of Blood Red Rage

Viking stilled when I reached for him, eyes darkening as I tugged his shirt free, then his jacket, then everything else. He let me look, let me take him in.

He was so tall, broad, inked head to toe in black and shadowed lines that told stories I didn’t know yet. He looked exactly like what his name promised. A warrior carved out of myth and muscle and heat, a real Viking. The way he watched me watch him made my skin prickle.

“You see me,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” I breathed.

His hands framed my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with unexpected tenderness. “You’re mine,” he said again, lower now. “And I’m not gentle with what I want.”

My answer was to pull him back to me. After that, words dissolved into heat and movement and sensation. His voice was everywhere, rough and possessive, murmuring praise that made my knees weak. Every touch was deliberate, certain, like he knew exactly how to take control without ever making me feel small. I felt wanted, chosen.

When he finally drew me down with him, the world narrowed to nothing but the two of us, breath and heat and inevitability colliding.

And for the first time since this night began, I stopped running entirely because whatever this was, I was already in too deep to pretend otherwise. “You are mine, and from today you will know what that means.” I sigh as his words are followed by his fingers stroking down my neck, his beautiful eyes like embers burning a path down my body until I feel like I’m on fire.

“Viking…” I gasp as he lowers his head, his lips kissing where his touch had been. His breath has goosebumps rising on my skin. When his lips close around my nipple I gulp as all thought centres on his ministration, I want to plead, to scream for some kind of release, but I don’t as I also don’t want this to end.

I have been with two men before, but their touch was completely forgettable, from the moment they started. With Viking every stroke, every pinch is like a hot flame licking against my skin and setting me on fire.

“You are perfect…so beautiful.” He whispers as he moves to my other breast, his hand slowly moving down my torso to where I am dying to feel his touch. Looking down at his lowered head I raise my hand threading my fingers through his hair that has come loose from its confinement. The light brown, dark blond strands soft against my skin. When he lightly bites my nipple, I tug unconsciously at his hair which has a loud groan emanating from him.

“Fuck woman, I wanted to go slow, but my control only goes so far.” He growls as he moves down my body his hand stroking my pussy. “You’re so fucking wet for me,” his words have me blushing as I try to close my legs.

“No,” he snaps his eyes raising to my face as he pulls my legs apart as he moves between them. “Don’t ever hide from me, you are beautiful, your passion is driving me fucking crazy…I can’t wait any longer.”

Before I can reply or move, he has his hands lifting my hips as he plunges deep into my very depths.

“Ohhh” I cry as his impressive girth and size have all thought flirt away and only sensation and passion are left. “Vikinggg” I gasp as he starts to move. Long, deep thrusts that feel like they are penetrating my very soul.

My whole body is vibrating with sensation after sensation, when he lowers his head to my neck, his teeth grazing my neck until a sharp, explosive flash of lightening runs through my body from where his teeth have now penetrated my neck to my very core. “Vi..ki…” I scream as my body explodes into a thousand pieces of sensation.

Viking thrusts two more times before he is roaring his release, his essence filling my very depths with a scorching heat that has my body vibrating. “You’re mine, now and forever.”

Chapter 4

For centuries, I’d believed control was a virtue, a weapon. A discipline so sharp it could cut through anything. Layer by layer, scar by scar. I’d survived because I did not lose myself.

Then Bryn happened, and I learned the truth in a single night, that control isn’t something you possess, it’s something you’re allowed to keep…until fate decides you don’t deserve it anymore.

She lay beneath me, flushed and trembling, her scent saturating the air, clinging to my skin like a brand. The bite on her neck pulsed faintly under my mouth, her blood still singing through my veins. She wasn’t just marked she was claimed and now she is mine.

The bond locked tight as iron, wrapping itself around my ribs and squeezing until there was no room for anything else. I kissed her like I couldn’t stop, like if I let go for even a second, she’d vanish. My mouth took hers, deep and punishing, swallowing every shaky breath she tried to steal back. I pulled her against my chest, her bare skin warm and soft, her heartbeat frantic where it pressed to me. My mate, my miracle, my lifelong weakness.

Her fingers slipped into my hair, tugging lightly, and I growled low in my throat. Not at her, never at her but at the world. At the idea that the world existed at all when she was here.

She was still shaking when I finally forced myself to pull back enough to look at her. Her eyes were glossy, dazed, mouth swollen from my kisses. Beautiful didn’t cover it, nothing did.

“You’re staying with me,” I said, voice still rough with need and possession. “From now on.”

Her eyes sharpened instantly, like reality crashed back down on her all at once. “No.”

The single syllable was calm, but it hit me like a slap. I lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

She pushed at my chest half-hearted, but defiant. “This…this doesn’t mean you get to keep me.”

Keep her? As if she were some object I’d stollen, as if she weren’t my mate, as if I didn’t already feel her presence threaded through every nerve in my body. “Bryn,” I warned, teeth grinding together. “Don’t start.”

Her chin lifted. “Don’t start? You dragged me out of a club, told me vampires are real, bit me, and now you’re acting like I’m a handbag you bought and refuse to return.”