“God,” I cry out, the feeling of air being pushed from my lungs, my body expanding around the size of him. My eyes are open wide, and my gaze catches his as he hovers over me. He watches me closely, his pupils turning his eyes black, his mouth open as he lets out a shuddering breath, trying to remain in control.
The length of him slides into me for what feels like eternity, until I have to close my eyes and give myself to him completely.
“Lenore,” he murmurs, the word choking in this throat. He puts his face to my neck, taking my earlobe in his teeth, tugging on it until his cock is pressed into the hilt. He’s filling me up more than I could have ever thought, making me realize how many carved out spaces there were inside of me, just waiting for him.
It’s good.
So good.
“Solon,” I whisper, my voice ragged as I run my fingers down his back, relishing the feel of his strength, loving the look of his body over mine. Fuck.
He moves his mouth away from my ear, his lips going to mine as he pulls his cock out before driving it back in again. I gasp into his mouth, the movement tearing a savage growl from the depths of him.
So, this is the animal, I think.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Solon says against my lips, his voice breaking a little, and when I move my head back to look at him, I see different versions of him coming across his feverish eyes.
Obsessed, savage, adoring.
I’d take any one of them.
Another low groan comes from the depths of him, his hand clasping tighter around my wrists, the other skimming over my breasts, and he’s pumping himself back inside of me with each thrust of his powerful hips. Over and over again, our cool, smooth skin brushing against each other until it’s like there’s nothing between us at all.
I cry out, my body a slave to every touch, thrust, lick, moan, and he’s working me, his pace building, stronger, faster, and then I realize that things are getting rough because he lets go of my wrists, starts pulling at my hair until I’m gasping.
Then he somehow moves us further back into the bed, until my upper back is propped up by the pillows and the headboard behind it. This is when I have a fleeting realization that perhaps sex with someone with immeasurable strength might be asking for trouble.
But there’s no turning back now, not when his cock drives in deeper, wringing all the pleasure out of me, not when I feel our bodies meld with each and every tight pump of his hips.
We’re just movements now.
My hands down at his ass, nails digging in, wanting more.
His hands in my hair, down over my breast, between my legs.
Our mouths meeting in violent kisses before breaking apart to breathe, to wreak havoc elsewhere.
The bed slams back against the wall, over and over again, a dizzying bass-driven beat at the bottom of my skull rising, taking over my world, his cock reaching parts of me I never thought possible.
“Fuck,” I cry out again, and this is intense, this is so intense, and I’m staring up at him, the way his brows are knitted together, the pleasure and the wildness in his eyes, lost, utterly lost to me, and I’m utterly lost to him.
My back arches, wanting him to take me completely, I want him so much more that it’s driving me wild, and I feel restless, aching, begging to be put out of my misery.
Fuck, I need to hold back, and that’s Solon’s voice in my head, thoughts he maybe doesn’t mean for me to hear.
“You’re not holding anything back,” I rasp, pulling him into the hilt, until I can’t breathe at all. “Fuck me, come inside me.”
His mouth drops open an inch as he stares at me.
Then his eyes go wide, go wild, go…lost.
He lets out a low growl I feel in the base of my spine and then he’s pounding into me like he’s trying to impale me right into the bed. The back of my head hits the headboard, and he’s bracing himself on the wall, fingers splayed above me, the muscles in his arms popping, straining.
“Fuck!” he bellows, the sound torn from his throat, his hair falling on his forehead. His neck is corded and I can see every vein and I’m aware of so much at once. His hips keep slamming into me at a punishing rate, bruising my skin.
Then deft fingers slip over my clit again, stealing my thoughts, my orgasm licking my skin, threatening to burn me alive.
I let go.
“Oh god, god!” I cry out, my body seizing so hard that I’m almost levitating off the bed, my chest rising, body shaking like an earthquake, and then it’s like I’m barely in the world at all. I’m in some other place, that’s black and gold, hot and cold, and stars are falling all around us.
Us.
Because Solon is here with me.
And he’s still fucking me with every ounce he has. Savagely shoving deeper inside me, until I start to feel him unravel, sense that he’s about to come.
Suddenly he lets out a desperate cry, so raw and primal that I swear it came from an animal, and then he’s biting my neck.
Hard.
Fangs sinking in.
I gasp in pain and he doesn’t let go, his bite deep in my skin, lockjaw, drinking my blood as he comes. His body shudders against mine, his hips driving himself in deep, deeper, and then they slow and he’s pouring himself inside me at the same time that he’s draining me of blood.
It’s an exchange.
That’s what he does best.
Then he’s trembling, muscles shaking, half-collapsing against my body, and only then does he pry his fangs off my neck. I feel the blood flow down into the bed, feel my heartbeat racing, and somehow his heartbeat too, like it’s living in mine. Maybe it always was.
He pulls his head back enough to look at me, rubbing his thumb over my lips, gazing at me with the kind of tenderness that pulls the rug out from under me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice raw. “I…shouldn’t have bitten you.”
I almost laugh. I reach up and place my hand against the cool skin of his face. “You’re a vampire, Solon. I expected nothing less.”
He puts his hand over mine, holding it against his cheek. “I don’t know what I expected but…that…” He clears his throat.
He doesn’t finish his sentence.
He doesn’t have to.
I know how he feels. At the very least, I know how I feel.
Like my ever-changing world changed once more.
I know now why Solon was so reluctant to sleep with me.
It wasn’t the beast, though I don’t doubt its existence.
It’s because it changes things.
Because right now he’s still inside me, still hard as steel, and I know everything between us has twisted. I’m not sure if it’s for good, but I think it might be forever.
If I wasn’t bound to Absolon before by blood, I am now, with every inch of my body and soul.
I swallow thickly, staring up at him.
“What have we done?”
Chapter Eighteen
I’m dreaming about men with no faces.
They circle me, curtains hanging from their hoods, but I feel like even if the curtains weren’t there, there would be no face at all.
Just teeth.
And there’s a man standing behind them.
At least, I think it’s a man, he’s in shadow so it’s hard to see.
He’s very tall, bone-thin, limbs unnaturally long, with claws for hands and what’s either shields at his back or giant folded wings.
“I know what he’s going to try and make you do, child,” says a slithering, insidious voice. “It won’t work.”
I stare at the creature, a sick sense of dread pulling down on my heart.
“He’ll use you, and then you’ll die,” he adds.
Then you’ll die.
Then you’ll die.
I roll over, tangled in sheets, gasping.
Awake.
I reach over, expecting Solon to be beside me, the last memories I have are of the two of us together in his bed. At t
he memory, my heart leaps in my chest, legs squeezing together, bringing me fully out of my slumber.
But when I open my eyes, I’m not in his bed, I’m in mine. Still in the haunted mansion.
I move onto my back, staring up at the lacey canopy. All the lights in the room are off, but there’s a slice of daylight cutting through the curtain, dust motes dancing in the air.
How did I get here?
I run my hands over my face, trying to rub some sense into me.
And that’s when it hits me.
Like a truck packed with ice and sorrow.
Elle.
Elle is dead.
That brief, beautiful moment between waking and now is forever erased, that moment where I thought everything was okay.
It is not okay.
Elle is dead.
I gasp, a sob ripping out of my throat, fingers clawing at the sheets. Tears automatically rush down my face, the rage and grief carving me out, leaving me hollow and empty, so much darkness spreading inside me.
What I had with Solon was just a brief respite, finding comfort in his arms, unleashing my lust and desire on him in order to feel something, to have him sweep me away in a wave of hands and lips and our bodies melding together.
It was savage and beautiful and now that it’s over, all the feelings I tried to escape from have come back ten-fold.
The tears never seem to stop.
I think I must pass out for a moment, because I hear a knocking at the door, and when I lift my head, I’m curled in the fetal position on top of the covers. My eyes are so puffy I can barely see through them.
“Come in?” I whisper, my throat hoarse.
I sit up just as Amethyst pokes her head in.
“Hi,” she says softly. “How are you feeling?”
She walks inside the room, carrying a tray. A cup of coffee, just the way I like it, with more of her mother’s cookies.
“I…” I begin, but I don’t have the words.
She places the tray down on the bedside table and gives me a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay. You’ve been sleeping for two days.”
“Two days!” I exclaim. “What happened to me?”
She supresses a smile. “You’ll have to discuss that with Solon. I don’t know the details.”
Ah, crap. Does everyone in the house know we slept together? I suppose we weren’t exactly quiet, and you don’t have to have a vampire’s hearing to know the walls here are thin.
“Anyway,” she says, clearing her throat, “whenever you’re ready, Solon would like to speak with you. He’ll be waiting in Dark Eyes.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Thanks.”
She gives me a quick smile and leaves the room.
My stomach twists on itself. Solon would like to speak with you. Why does it sound so formal, like I’m in trouble?
I drink back the coffee, but I ignore the cookies. Even if my nerves weren’t dancing too much to have an appetite, it’s stunted by my grief.
I get out of bed and decide to waste no time dwelling. I go to the closet, filled with the clothes that Amethyst and Solon bought for me. Since I don’t get as cold easily, I select a black sundress with red roses on it, smocked waist with poofy sleeves. Then I go to the drawers, finding the underwear. They’re all black satin, trimmed with lace, and honestly I can’t tell if which of them picked them out. They’re comfortable though, and I slip them on under my dress.
Then I head out into the hall, pausing by the dead roses on the high side table.
Bloom, I say in my head, concentrate the little energy I have toward the roses. Bloom alive with blood! Excelsior!
But the roses don’t move, even when I flick my fingers at them the way that Atlas Poe did when he came into my apartment with such ease.
At the thought of Atlas, I leave the roses alone and head down the many flights of stairs until I reach Dark Eyes.
I push open the doors and walk in.
The club is empty, but my nose tells me that Solon’s in the cigar lounge, lighting up. I take in a deep breath and walk over to it, peering through the glass door.
There you are, his voice says in my head, and my body is already coming alive from just the sound of him in my skull.
I open the door to the lounge and walk inside, the smoke in the room feeling familiar and calming now. Solon is sitting in a leather armchair, cigar between his svelte fingers, same fingers that brought me to ecstasy more than a few times by now. As usual, he looks impeccable, a dusky blue shirt slightly unbuttoned, black pants, a casual pose.
But his eyes are anything but casual.
They’re deep and dark, following my every move with cold precision.
“Nice dress,” he comments as I walk over to him.
“Thank you. A vampire bought it for me.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a human?”
“The roses,” I say, glancing down at them. “And the fact that I don’t have to wear a bra with it.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “I see.”
I clear my throat and sit down on the small sofa across from him, not quite getting the “come over here and kiss me” vibes from him. I fold my hands in my lap and glance at him warily. “I’m missing time again.”
He puffs on his cigar for a moment, eyes never leaving mine. Then he leans forward. “So am I,” he admits to my surprise. “I slept like the dead.”
“What happened?”
“Well, for you, you’ve been under so much emotional duress, that it’s no surprise you’ve been reluctant to wake up. Easier to stay in your dreams, I suppose.” He gives me a hint of a smile. “As for me, well, you tuckered me out, moonshine.”
“I thought vampires could go all night long?” I ask, not quite teasing.
“We can,” he says through another puff, the smoke falling seductively from his mouth. “And we did…you don’t remember?”
I frown. It’s a blur now of our bodies writhing on his bed, the feeling of his immense power, of total surrender to him, body and soul. There are flashes of him fucking me up against the wall, taking me from behind on the floor, the feel of his cock in my mouth. Good lord, why would my mind block the rest of our night out? My skin flushes from head to toe in response.
“I suppose I should feel insulted that I didn’t leave a lasting impression on you,” he adds ruefully. “But I think it’s to be expected.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, squeezing my thighs together as I adjust myself in the chair.
He inhales sharply, and I have no doubt he can detect what my body is doing.
“Let’s just say that…I can be a bit much.”
I raise my brow. “You? A bit much?” is my dry response.
“Our senses are naturally, or preternaturally, heightened. What happens when they get overloaded? We…short circuit, for lack of a better term. Takes a bit for our minds and bodies to adjust. That’s all.”
I blink down at my hands. So mind-blowing sex can actually blow your mind? Good to know.
I can feel him smiling at me. I glance up and he’s grinning like the cat that’s got the canary. In this case, the canary is me.
But then his smile fades, his jaw set.
“I’m truly sorry about Elle,” he says to me, his voice low and grave. “That never should have happened.”
My throat feels thick. “But it did.”
“You shouldn’t have gone home…”
“Because she’d still be alive,” I snap, the guilt smothering me. “I know! Don’t think that I don’t know that!”
“Easy, Lenore,” he says, gesturing with his cigar for me to calm down. “That’s not what I meant. At all. I meant that you put yourself at risk. You shouldn’t be going anywhere, you shouldn’t even be in that hotel. I told your parents as much, but they’re stubborn just like you.”
His words bring me out of my guilt, and I snap to attention. “What? You’ve talked to my parents?”
“I had to,” he says grimly.
I bli
nk at him, incredulous. The idea of him talking to my parents is insane. They are not friends, they are not on talking terms. “They tried to kill you.”
“I’m aware,” he says. “But they were protecting you. Regardless, when you were sleeping, I had to let them know you were okay. Wouldn’t have been very nice otherwise. I called your father. He’s a little easier to handle than your mother.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them what happened. The truth. About Atlas, about Elle. And I told them you’d be staying here with me.”
My eyes widen, imagining how they would have reacted to that. “That could not have gone down well.”
He sighs tiredly, tapping his cigar into the ashtray. “Not at first. They want to be there for you while you grieve.” My heart sinks, needing my mother’s arms around me in this moment. “But in the end, they know you’re safest with me. I know they hate the idea, and your father will keep the hotel room for you, to give you options, but they can’t help you anymore.”
“But you can?” I give him a pointed look.
“You know I can.” He sticks the cigar back in his mouth, fangs showing.
“So…what about Elle? Surely people wonder where she is?”
He nods. “She was reported missing by her roommate later that night. The whole city is looking for her. Ezra hacked both your Facebook accounts to erase any recent correspondence, including anything since you turned.”
I frown. “But that includes our lunch.”
“I’m sorry. Couldn’t let it stand. They’d then ask around at the restaurant and Hector would say we were there. Better to erase it then to have them sniffing around me as a murder suspect.”
“Well, I’m sure you could compel whoever investigated you.”
He gives me a wry look. “I could. But why invite complication into your life?”
“I don’t know. Seems like the moment I met you, my life’s been nothing but a complication.”
He gives me a brief smile. “They probably will contact you at some point though, I’m sure they’re going through all her friends. Be much easier if they already had a suspect.”
“We know who killed her.”
“We do. But Atlas has a dark history. He’s not sticking around here. His mother killed his father, she later killed herself, and his stepfather was found drowned in a lake in Seattle. Regardless of if what happened to Elle was an accident or not, he’s not stupid. At least we can rest a bit easier knowing he won’t step back into this city.”
Black Sunshine Page 25