by Bella Klaus
“Next time, after you’ve thought about everything we’ve discussed.” He placed his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place on the mattress. “For now, I wish to make up for how I left you yesterday.”
A tingle of pleasure skittered down my spine as I remembered the spanking. “Wet and wanting?”
“Not when I’ve finished with you.” His fingertips grazed down my neck, making me gasp. Then he replaced the touch with gentle kisses that sent sparks of pleasure racing down to my tightening nipples.
Valentine nipped and sucked and licked the skin over my neck, making my blood roar with the need for his fangs. While he pleasured me with his mouth, he lowered a hand to my breast, massaging the sensitive flesh with his large hand.
I arched my back and moaned for more, then he rolled my nipples between his fingertips. My entire world coalesced into what he was doing to my neck with his mouth and the fingers that sent a conduit of pleasure from my nipples to my clit.
“Please,” I said between panting breaths. “I need you.”
A deep purr rumbled in Valentine’s chest. “Patience, Inamorata. I will not leave you unsatisfied.”
“Alright.” I settled back on the soft mattress, digging the pads of my fingers into Valentine’s broad shoulders.
In the three years we had been together, we might have only had full sex on that last day, but Valentine had taught me everything a man could do with a woman without penetration. He knew exactly where to touch me, kiss me, and where to slide his tongue to elicit the most intense response.
Even now, as his kisses trailed down my neck, and he ran his tongue down the dip between my neck and collarbone, I didn’t understand why Valentine had waited so long. After the three years, I had expected he would demand more in return, but he spent months—years—slowly introducing me to the pleasure. Perhaps as a vampire who had lived over eleven hundred years, he was in no hurry to rush the physical part of our relationship.
Valentine’s full lips grazed my collarbone, and sensations like static electricity sparked across my skin. My breath came in shallow pants as I tried to anticipate what he would do next.
As he traced a path over my skin with his tongue, the hand caressing my breast slid beneath my back and raised me off the mattress. Valentine trailed kisses down my chest, ending at the tips of my tightened and sensitive nipples.
I swallowed hard, and my mind conjured up memories of how much pleasure I used to feel under his attentions, but Valentine made me wait several heartbeats before the tip of his tongue swiped over my nipple. It was like sticking a wet hand in an electrical socket, a jolt of pleasure that spread across every nerve ending like lightning, setting my skin alight. The sensation travelled down to my clit, which twitched and pulsed and swelled.
A cry tore from my throat, and I threw my head back and parted my legs. I needed him there.
Valentine’s fingers trailed down my ribcage, over the slight swell of my belly and toward my red curls, but he merely skimmed the sensitive skin down there before sweeping his fingertips back up to my belly.
I bit down on my lip, forcing myself not to complain about the teasing. Drawing out the anticipation was just another tactic Valentine used to turn me into a babbling, incoherent mess. His tongue laved my nipple with up-and-down strokes that I swore I could feel as tiny flickers on my clit, and I bucked and shuddered under his ministrations. What was it about Valentine that sent me into a jumble of sensations?
“So exquisite,” he mumbled around his mouthful. “So mine.”
This time, I didn’t utter a word of rebuttal. Right now, I was completely his. Perhaps this was how it had always been between us. Even after I thought he had used and betrayed me, and I fled to London, Valentine still occupied my thoughts. No matter how much I had tried to distance myself from the memory of him, he appeared in my most erotic nightmares that would make me awaken a shuddering mess.
I could deny it no longer. Whether Valentine was dead or alive, supernatural or preternatural, I belonged to him.
And he belonged to me.
Valentine’s kisses travelled down my breasts, over my ribcage and toward my belly. Each press of those sensual lips spread a fresh bout of sensation across my skin, and the pressure around my core built to a deep ache. My clit pounded to the beat of my frantic pulse, and I squeezed my core muscles around nothing, yearning to be filled.
The closer he got to the juncture of my legs, the faster my pulse fluttered, and the hotter my core burned with need. As his hand slid over my hip and toward the tender skin of my inner thigh, he paused at my navel to dip his tongue in my belly button.
Pleasure surged through my core, feeling like he had penetrated me with his tongue. I moaned, “Valentine.”
“Nearly there,” he drawled.
I clenched his shoulders, trying to push him down, but he was too big, too heavy, too determined to draw out my need. Valentine always said the longer he made me wait, the more intense my orgasm would become. He was right, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the sweetest form of torture.
His large hands parted my thighs, and his kisses trailed down, down, down, over my belly, over my pubic hair, and toward my aching clit.
“You’re so wet.” His warm breath fanned against my folds, making my core clench with need. “So beautiful.”
“Please,” I moaned.
“What do you want, Morata?”
“Fingers, tongue…” I bit down on my lip. “Your dick.”
“Let’s start with the first two,” he said with an amused chuckle.
Valentine parted my legs further and pressed his lips onto my slit. A jolt of pleasure electrified my core, making me spasm.
“Do you know how long I have waited to savor your taste?” His warm breath heated my already molten core.
I shook my head, pushing away the knowledge that he was only this temperature because he had recently fed.
“Since the moment you stepped into that car.” He slid the tip of his tongue up the length of my slit, blazing a trail of fire that I felt down my inner thighs. “I love to hear your pleasure,” he moaned into my folds. “Love to hear the way your breath hitches and quickens at the slightest touch.”
I clenched my teeth. If my body was an instrument, Valentine would be a virtuoso. I slipped a leg over his shoulder and tilted my hips, silently urging him to continue. He ran the flat of his tongue down my clit, making me melt on the inside. My core muscles tightened as though anticipating a thick finger, but I knew Valentine well enough to know that he wanted to take his time tonight and would delay giving me what I wanted until he had wrung every last ounce of pleasure from my body.
“You taste better than blood,” he murmured, pressing his thumbs into the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs and parting my legs wider. “Look how you pulse under my touch.”
His tongue slid across my folds and down to my femoral artery—or was it the great saphenous vein? My breath quickened and anxiety rippled through my insides. I dug my nails into his hard shoulders and tensed. Was he going to bite me?
Valentine raised his head, meeting my gaze with blown eyes. His lips were glossy with my arousal and his fangs fully extended. He panted hard for a vampire who didn’t need to breathe, looking at me the way a cat might lock eyes with a plump bird.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Feeling the rush of your blood through your veins,” he rasped. “I swear that I won’t bite you.”
With a shuddering breath, I lowered myself back onto the mattress and closed my eyes, trying to keep myself from trembling. Valentine wouldn’t have risked capture to save me only to drain my body dry the moment I opened my thighs.
He returned his attention to my sex, and with one flick of his tongue over my clit, the tension and trepidation receded to the back of my mind.
This was the man who ended his own life to stop himself from ending mine.
I. Trusted. Valentine.
He lapped at my clit with the long, languid
strokes of his tongue, each moan and growl reverberating against the muscles of my core. It sent a wave of relaxation across my body that made me melt into his touch. See? Valentine could never hurt me.
The curtains seemed to shift, encasing us both in darkness, and my breaths quickened and shallowed as the pleasure built and spread down my inner thighs, up my belly and settled in my nipples.
I threaded my fingers into Valentine’s hair, urging him to go harder, faster, slip his fingers inside me, but Valentine kept up that slow, relentless, and maddening pace. Panting breaths whistled through my dry lips, and beads of sweat gathered across my brow. I was so close.
“Valentine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Please. I need you.”
He shifted between my legs, and one of his thick fingers slid down my slit and settled into my entrance. “This?” he murmured into my folds. “What do you want me to do with it?”
The capillaries on my cheeks roasted with embarrassment. I’d almost forgotten Valentine’s sly attempts to tease me into dirty talk. My tongue darted out to lick my dry lips, and I sucked in a deep breath. I was no longer the innocent little Neutral still dazzled under the brilliance of the handsome, important Vampire King. I’d heard enough of Beatrice’s juicy details to make my old self blush.
“Valentine,” I said, trying to sound like I talked dirty all the time. “Stick your fingers inside me, or better still, that thick, juicy erection.”
His dark chuckle sent a thrill of satisfaction through my insides. “As you command, my queen.”
Valentine pushed one finger inside my slippery core, and my muscles clamped around the digit, delighting me with ripples of pleasure.
“Two fingers,” I cried out, moving my hips to create more friction.
“You’re greedy today,” he murmured from between my legs.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this.” I gave his finger a tight squeeze.
With a growl, Valentine pulled out the finger and slipped in another, creating a stretch that made my eyes widen and my lips part with a gasp. Three years of no sex had made me… tighter. Valentine groaned, seeming to think the same, and he pulled back his fingers to give my muscles a rest.
He glanced up from between my legs, his red eyes glowing in the dark. “Are you alright?”
“I will be,” I murmured.
“You didn’t self-pleasure all this time?” he asked.
Heat flooded my cheeks. How did I explain that each time I tried to pleasure myself, my mind couldn’t conjure up anything but Valentine? Or how I would wake up in the midst of an orgasm after dreaming about him?
“A little,” I murmured. “But I mostly didn’t feel the urge.”
Valentine placed a kiss on my inner thigh. “I will make it up to you.”
“Mmmm…” My leg muscles relaxed, and he slid his fingers further inside me, creating the most delicious stretch.
Over the next few minutes, Valentine took his time getting my muscles acclimatized to his huge fingers. I jerked and spasmed under the pleasure, which continued to build as he teased and penetrated my core.
By the time those long, thick digits entered me to the knuckles, an invisible dam shattered. Wave upon wave of pleasure flooded my body, and I curled my fingers through his silken locks, bucking my hips against his fingers and tongue.
The orgasm lasted four times as long as anything I could achieve in my studio apartment while trying not to think about him, and it was four times as intense. Just as the spasms started to relent, Valentine drew out the climax with gentle licks of his tongue.
After teasing out the last vestiges of my climax, Valentine held me open with his large hands, lapping up every drop of my arousal and humming his pleasure. I lay back panting and spent, quite enjoying this endearing vampire peculiarity.
Valentine scooted up the bed and pulled me into his arms. His pants were missing, and he lay in his boxers with a hot, thick erection pushing against my belly.
I slid my hand down his hard chest and over his tight, six-pack abs, but as I reached the waistband of his silk boxers, Valentine wrapped his fingers around my wrist.
“No,” he said.
“Why?”
He chuckled. “Tonight is about pleasing you, and it will go away on its own.”
My brow furrowed. Valentine had never stopped me from touching him before, but I had never insulted him and called him a corpse. Surely after what we’d just done together, he would realize I had moved past that? A memory drifted into my mind of a vampire romance novel Beatrice had raved about where the hero had made a similar excuse.
“You need blood to climax, don’t you?” I raised myself off his chest and stared into Valentine’s red eyes.
His entire body stiffened, and his features turned blank. “This is my first time getting erect as a preternatural.”
“Second,” I said.
He stared down at me with his brows raised.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get excited by that spanking.”
Valentine turned his head away and exhaled a long breath. “Not fully.”
“Because you didn’t have enough blood?” I threaded my fingers through his thick, black hair. “You were about room temperature and not so deathly pale. After you left, you returned looking like your old self because you’d fed.”
His lips tightened around his elongated fangs. “Feeding is my nature now.”
I lowered myself onto his chest and wrapped my arms around his broad body. “There’s no need to downplay what you are, especially when you died to save me. If you need a little bit of blood to climax, maybe we could—”
“No.” He removed his arm from around my shoulder and pushed himself off the bed, standing with his back turned to me.
I stared up at the muscles tensing on his broad back. “Valentine—”
“Do you know how much effort it takes me not to bite you?” he snarled, his voice shaking with restraint. “Everything about your body calls to me, from that luscious red hair, to your arousal, to the way your pulse always flutters when our eyes meet.”
I sat up and reached out to Valentine to try to make him turn around, but he stepped through the curtains.
By the time I scrambled out of the bed and shoved the curtains open, there was no sign of the vampire. My shoulders sagged. Why did I have to insist that he bite me, when my blood had been the cause of his death and his resurrection?
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, I awoke to a familiar purring that warmed my heart. I cracked an eye open to find a leopard skin cat lying curled up at my side. He rested his head on his front paws with his hind quarters curled up toward his head. Although the fur covering his legs and tail seemed a little less vibrant than before, Macavity appeared to be unharmed.
Resentment tightened my skin as I thought of how Jonathan had tortured the poor cat for being curious. With all that smoke swirling around Jonathan’s body and making patterns, poor Macavity had become mesmerized. I wondered if he had managed to escape with his fire-wielding comrades, but when Macavity stopped purring, I brushed aside all thoughts of the man and took in my surroundings.
Light streamed in through the curtains of the four-poster bed, illuminating the other side of the mattress, which remained untouched. I exhaled a long breath, trying not to feel disappointed that Valentine hadn’t spent the night. The scent of chocolate and coffee hung in the air, making me wonder if I had cleaned up before setting out with Macavity the day before.
“Are you feeling better?” I placed a hand on Macavity’s furry little head.
He raised his head and stared out at me through sleepy green eyes. After nodding, he stretched himself out, pressing his paws into my side. “Prrrup?”
“That man didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied.
Macavity’s right ear twitched, indicating for me to elaborate.
I ran my hand down his warm, soft fur, waiting for him to flinch when I reached his back legs, b
ut the cat continued kneading his paws against my side. “After he left you burning on the ground, he dragged me up the stairs and forced me into the yellow jeep that was parked outside.”
It took a little explaining but I told Macavity the full story, explaining that a jeep was a large form of car, and then ending with the scene where Valentine rescued me from his bloodthirsty brothers.
The cat raised himself onto his paws and bumped his head against my arm. Then he stared up at me with slow blinking eyes.
Tilting my head to the side, I bit down on my bottom lip. In cat language, that was supposed to signal affection, but he wasn’t purring and I hadn’t just given him a treat. “What’s wrong?”
Macavity responded with an apologetic meow.
I ran my fingers down the tips of his pointed ears. “This was all Jonathan’s fault. Not yours. How were you supposed to know he’d be a maniac? It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was mine.” Valentine parted the curtain, holding a large tray. “If I hadn’t hunted that man, Macavity wouldn’t have been curious about his magic and led you downstairs to investigate.”
My brows furrowed. I didn’t remember telling Valentine what had led us down to the basement? Macavity made the same apologetic noise and stepped back as Valentine placed the tray down on the bed.
An assortment of items lay on its surface, including a small plate of sashimi, a bowl of chopped melon, a steaming cup of coffee, and two freshly baked croissants, but my gaze fixed on the bowl of champorado. Champorado was a chocolate rice pudding made by cooking sticky rice with brown sugar cacao powder. From the chunks of melting chocolate floating in the mix, it looked like this one contained the bars of dark chocolate in the cupboard. Next to the bowl was a jug of hot milk.
“You made this for me?” I asked.
“Macavity would probably enjoy the salmon,” Valentine said with a gentle smile.
“How do you two know each other?” I asked. “Aunt Arianna didn’t mention sending him.”
Valentine ran his hand over the cat’s furry head. “Hellcats make great companions for young children. Macavity was mine.”