by Mara Leigh
I try to thrust, but it’s difficult from my awkward position—especially since she’s using all her newfound strength to pin me against the wall. Her body holds me still, my hips trapped between her knees, my cock in her tight pussy.
I try to shift my hips to create some friction between us, but even that proves impossible. She has me overpowered.
In barely a month, her strength has surpassed mine—at least when she’s got the upper hand.
“Who hurt you?” she asks me.
“If I recall, it was you who threw me into the wall.” Her insides tighten around me and I groan in pleasure—in pain.
“Do that again,” I croak out, “and I might forgive you.”
Her hips pulse, barely moving, but it creates so much ecstasy that for an instant I’m blind.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” She shifts up and puts her hands on my shoulders, changing the angle of how my cock impales her. Although…even though I’m the one inside her, it’s more like she’s the one impaling me.
“Why won’t you share your feelings with me?” She shifts slightly.
I gasp. “Maybe I’m sharing all the feelings I have.” She squeezes around me again. “And speaking of feelings…that, feels, fucking, good.”
She tips up my chin, but I keep my gaze focused lower.
“Look at me Gray.”
I do as she commands, and it’s like I had no choice in the matter. I didn’t. My love for her is so strong and deep it controls every part of me. My body parts are mere puppets to the emotional strings that she tugs.
Selina already knows how I feel about her, or at least she suspects it. And yet she won’t be satisfied until she hears me say the words. But I can’t.
“I know that you love me Gray.”
I look to the side.
“Please.” Her voice cracks, and I turn my gaze back to her, broken by the pain in her voice, in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “This is hard…”
She tightens around me as if the word ‘hard’ evokes an involuntary reaction inside her. It’s so difficult not to come.
“Tell me why. Please, Gray.” She rocks her hips slightly, and I have to close my eyes at the near-painful pleasure.
“I’m a selfish fool.” I shake my head. “It’s too late anyway.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to protect myself.”
She cups my face and lightly kisses my lips, and I feel her insides flutter around me. “Protect yourself from what?” she whispers. “From me?”
“From heartbreak.” My voice cracks. “From the pain of losing you.”
“But you won’t lose me Gray. Not ever. I promise.” She rocks against me, and it’s hard to concentrate on her words.
“You can’t promise that.” I try to still her hips. “I lose everyone I love.”
“Gray.” Hands on my shoulders, she lifts herself up until I’m almost outside of her, then she tugs my bum away from the wall, wraps her legs around my back and lowers herself again, until we’re pelvis to pelvis, me buried deep inside her. But now the rest of us is closer too. Her hard nipples brush over my shirt, and I hold her tightly against me and rock.
“Who have you lost?” She takes my head in her hands and looks into my eyes.
“Everyone.”
“Tell me. I want to know. I want to know everything about you. I hate that there’s distance between us.”
“Not much distance right now.” I use what leverage I have to thrust into her more deeply.
“Don’t change the subject.” She uses her heels to hold me tightly inside her, unable to move, and I feel her inner muscles clench.
Pleasure overwhelms me for a few seconds—pleasure so intense that it’s pushing its way toward pain—and then I realize that I really can’t move. Not a muscle. She has me trapped inside her in more ways than one.
My dick is captive deep in her pussy, and my heart is trapped by every other part of her.
“Her name was Meera,” I say softly.
Selina loosens her grip on my cock.
“We met at Cambridge. I loved her, so much. She was funny and smart and stubborn and even though she told me that she had to return to India after University, and that her parents would never let her marry an Englishman, I didn’t believe her. I thought our love was stronger than her duty to her parents, to tradition.”
Selina looks at me with so much compassion it’s like her eyes are drawing all the buried pain from my chest.
“On the day we graduated,” I continue, “Meera told me she was engaged to be married. She hadn’t even met the bloke.” I blink as the hurt and betrayal shudders through me anew, like I’m reliving it decades later.
“I’m sure it hurt her too,” Selina says, trying to comfort me. “Her parents forced her.”
I shake my head. “That’s the thing. It would have hurt less if she’d gone back to India kicking and screaming, if her parents had pressured her, but it wasn’t like that.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Meera loved me. I know that she loved me, just like I know that you love me, but that wasn’t enough. She called our love childish. She rejected all my arguments that our love would grow up along with us and develop into something even stronger.
“She turned my arguments around on me, said that she’d grow to love her husband, that it would be a more mature love than ours could ever be, a deeper love, because they had their families’ support and their respective parents had chosen them for each other. She said she couldn’t turn her back on her destiny.”
“Gray.” Selina kisses me softly. “I’m not going to leave you like Meera did. Not ever.” She rocks back and forth in my lap, gently, with the same speed and tenderness she might rock a child, except that I’m still inside her so the tender rocking has an entirely different dimension.
And she may not think that she’ll leave me, but just like Meera, Selina has a destiny—a duty that’s much higher than love. Once she understands, everything will be different.
There is no way we can ever be together. Even if I were a worthy mate for a queen, which I’m not, I am a knight who’s sworn to protect her. Any relationship between us is forbidden. I can’t take her for a Mate, I can’t take any Mate.
And this act between us now… I’m guilty of treason. I’m already risking my life with what we’ve done.
“Just because you were hurt once,” she says softly, “doesn’t mean it will happen again.”
Holding her, I try to still our rocking. “But it did happen again.”
“Oh, baby.” She strokes the side of my face.
“I was still getting over Meera when I went to Morocco.” I shake my head. “I lied to you before. Or at least I didn’t tell you the whole truth. My Maker, Faiza, I did love her. I loved her so much.
“When I begged her to make me a vampire, I wanted us to be together forever.” I look down unable to bear the sympathy in Selina’s eyes.
“Faiza told me she loved me, but she didn’t, at least not in the same way I loved her. When she recommended me to the Order, I thought that once my time at the Academy was complete, I’d return to her. That becoming a knight would make me worthy of such an auspicious Mate.” I close my eyes. “The day I found out that knights sign up for life, that we can never take Mates…”
I look down as I relive the pain of that realization. “Faiza sent me to the Academy to get rid of me…”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
I shake my head. “That’s how it felt. It felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest, and I swore I’d never let myself be in that position again.”
“Oh Gray.” She holds me tightly, but I need to get out from under the weight of her sympathy, no matter how comforting it feels.
I swallow it all down. “It’s all good.” I lean back and grin. “All that tragedy got me where I am now. My cock inside you, about to fuck your brains out as commanded.”
S
he shakes her head, trying to look serious, but I can tell she’s fighting a grin. “Thank you for sharing that. I get now why you set up walls, but baby—” she squeezes me with her strong vagina “—I will work for the rest of our lives to break those walls down.”
“Oh, princess.” I lick her neck, lingering over her pumping vein. “I admire your determination, but some people aren’t meant for long term relationships, and I’m one of those people.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You can beg all you want.” I grin the most evil grin I can muster. “But I’m still going to fuck you so hard that you’ll scream.”
“Promises, promises.” She grins as she starts moving again on my lap, increasing the friction between us as she slides along my rigid cock.
I fall in with her motion using my hips and hands, adding the occasional hard thrust just to mix things up and make her gasp.
I love that she believes that our love matters more than our respective duties, but she’s wrong. So wrong. And my heart feels like it’s been ripped in a thousand pieces. I need to ignore my heart and concentrate on the only part of me I can control right now.
Still seated inside her, with her legs wrapped tightly around me, I rise. She gasps in surprise, then I press her back against the wall.
Back in a position of control, I drive into her as hard and fast as I can, then realize the force might break her back, or at least bruise her on the wall that she threw me against, earlier.
I carry her to the end of the upholstered sofa, set her down on her feet and bend her forward over the arm. Quickly, I take her from behind, pulling back on her shoulders with each thrust and using my body weight and height to fully engulf her.
With her newfound power, Selina could throw me off and take me down if she wanted, but I relish how she’s letting me feel so powerful right now. As if she’s the one under my control, like she loves to be there.
She bucks her ass back against me, making each strike deeper, and I’m about to come, but she pushes off the sofa to straighten her body, and I slip out from inside her.
Moving to the velvet chaise longue near the window, she beckons for me to follow. Lying on her back, she spreads her legs wide, her pussy lips bright red from friction and slick with arousal.
I want to bury my face in her sex, but when I take aim for that, she urges me up, and quickly, I’m once again inside her, this time missionary style, face-to-face, and the sight of her flushed cheeks, her wide pupils, drives me wild.
I stretch over her, rutting as hard and as fast as I can, feeling like I’m going to drive her straight through the chaise, but it’s still not enough. I can never get enough of Selina.
My tongue laps her throat and I realize she’s doing the same to mine, tracing my vein, feeling my blood pumping just as I’m feeling hers through my tongue as we fuck.
My fangs release, and I close my mouth fighting my primal urge. I’ve already gone miles beyond where I ever should have with Selina, both for the sake of my heart and hers. There is no way I’m going to take this final step. Even if she’s already been there with Pike.
Jealousy rages through me at the thought of how much and how deeply they shared.
I slide one foot to the floor, kneeling the other beside her, and the new angle gives me more power to pound her, and a dark part of me wants to cause her pain, wants to punish her for loving me, hurt her for making me love her.
“Gray.” Her breaths come quickly as she whispers against my ear. “Can I feed from you?” Her fangs scrape my skin and it goads the deep desire inside me.
My vision turns red. I can’t think. I’m so full of lust and love and rage—and a deep hunger for what I can’t have. I can never have her fully, but right now…right now I am going to claim every fucking part of her that I can.
I plunge my fangs into her neck and gulp, as her blood flows hot and strong down my throat.
She cries out, her nails scraping over my back, drawing blood there I’m certain, and then her fangs plunge into my neck too. The surge of energy and pure lust as we drink and fuck is beyond the best thing I’ve ever imagined.
Her insides grip around me, tightening in time to my punishing thrusts, and if my thrusts are punishing, her squeezing is too.
I can no longer distinguish pain from pleasure as my balls tighten like rocks, as her nails dig trenches in the skin of my back, and her mouth continues to draw so much blood I wonder whether I’ve got more to give.
That doesn’t matter. She can drain me. Kill me. She can drink every drop of my blood then drive a stake through my heart. If she does, I’ll die happy. If I die, she can never be taken from me.
Chapter 21
Selina
I wake in the living room, instantly alert. Gray’s arm and leg are draped over me, and as much as I’d love to stay in his arms forever, my body is restless, energized, my mind even more so. Gray and I got very little sleep today, alternating between feeding and fucking and staring into each other’s eyes. And it’s all been so much better than I ever imagined.
But no matter how many times I’ve reassured Gray that I’ll never leave him, he’s not convinced. The damage done by his lost loves has left his emotions more scarred than Pike’s face and chest.
I slip my legs from under Gray’s. He stirs, but I slide from under his arm.
“Princess?” he murmurs. “Is it time for another round? What are we up to now? Round eleven? Twelve?”
“Shhh. Go back to sleep.” I stretch, loving the newfound power coursing through my veins. I feel like I could literally leap tall buildings—or fly. Maybe I can.
Supercharged, the last thing I need right now is caffeine, but coffee seems like a getting up thing to do, so after dressing I walk toward the kitchen, trying to remember where I left my phone.
I should check in on Colton, ask him to come over so we can talk—and depending on how that goes, maybe do more… My day of sex with Gray seems to have heightened, rather than quenched my desire for Colton.
My fear that he’ll go back to his old way of thinking chills me, but my faith in Colton is strong. And my desire for him too.
The sun has just disappeared, leaving the sky the same mauve as my hair.
The front door closes. I spin toward the sound, then rush outside. Pike is already halfway down the block and I run. I actually do feel like I’m flying, and I catch up with Pike in seconds.
“Where are you going?”
He startles at the sound of my voice, then shakes his head. “Go back inside.”
“Don’t do it!” I grab his arm. “If you go after Xavier alone you’ll be killed. You’re not alone anymore Pike. You don’t need to do everything all by yourself. You have me and the others. And FJS.”
He shakes his head. “Your friend Astrid and her team might have good intentions, but they don’t have a clue how to take down Xavier.”
“Okay. Then at least wait. Let’s talk about this.” My heart thumps so hard he must hear it. I can hear his.
“It has to be tonight,” he says. “Last night, when I went out, I overheard Astrid talking to her staff.”
“Overheard her? Where?”
“Okay. I was eavesdropping. I followed Astrid to work and kept tuned in to her voice.”
I nod. I need to ask him more about how that works and figure out if I can do it too. Everyone keeps talking about how strong I’ve become, but I still have so much to learn about being a vampire.
“FJS is breaking in,” he says, “early tomorrow morning. In about five hours. I need to get to Xavier first, or else your friend Astrid and her staff will die.”
The way he says this makes me believe him. Or at least I believe there is no way I can change his mind. “Okay, then I’m going with you.”
He stops and grabs my hands. “No, Lina. No.”
“What we talked about before. It will work,” I argue. “Xavier has no idea how strong I’ve become.” I leap a block down the street, and then onto the roof of a five-story apartmen
t building. From there I land back down at Pike’s side in one jump.
“Holy shit!” His eyes widen.
“I know, right?” My abilities shock even me, and make me wonder where the edges of my potential lie. There’s no better way to find out than to use my newfound power against Xavier. “Take me in as a hostage,” I say. “As soon as we get close, I’ll stake him.”
He breathes deeply, looking into my eyes.
I rub his arm. “You’re protective of me, and I love that. I feel the same way about you. We’ll protect each other. No one wants to see Xavier dead more than we do.”
“True.” He leans forward and kisses me softly. “But I’m counting on others hating him as well. I’m hoping some of his people—most of them—turn against him once he’s dead. Otherwise we might not get out alive.”
Fear races through me, but I push it aside. “It’s worth the risk,” I tell him. “We have to try.”
He nods.
We start walking again. “I’ve got some supplies.” He opens his jacket to show me. “Silver rope and cuffs, leather gloves to handle the silver. Wooden stakes.”
“Will we be able to get those weapons past the guards?”
“If we can get past the guards, so will the weapons.” His fingers brush mine. “And you’re right. Your coming will help. If they buy the hostage story they won’t search me.”
He looks me over and his gaze on my body is beyond delicious. “You should get different clothes though. Something sexy to distract Xavier, but with a place to store weapons.”
“Good idea.” I take his hand. “Let’s go shopping before the stores close.”
Chapter 22
Pike
Selina looks so fucking sexy I almost want to call off the attack so we can have sex right now and for the rest of the night, for the rest of our lives.
But my rage for Xavier brings me back to my senses. The things he did to her, had others do to her. Shame ripples through me.