This Time Tomorrow

by Tessa Bailey

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Breathe.

  Do not set the goddamn place on fire.

  He’d been repeating that same command to himself since boarding the private plane from Moscow, worried he’d inadvertently turn the aircraft into an inferno. Fear for his mate held him hostage and he’d yet to get his new abilities under control. They’d first begun to rear their head when he came across her bloody and beaten in that Moscow street. Blistering hot fire had streaked through his veins, traveling through the gutters like a match dropped on a trail of kerosene.

  And he’d been trying to calm the furnace inside himself ever since.

  Finding Roksana curled in a ball in the bathtub, her skin ghostly white, was doing nothing to keep the melting heat inside him from escalating, turning dangerous.

  Elias strode into the bedroom with a dripping wet Roksana in his arms, the heart she’d awoken hammering painfully in his chest. Dammit, she’d tried to overcome her injuries too soon. It had only been a matter of days since he’d found her bruised and unconscious. Fighting fae and traveling back the States must have taken a toll. She might be fierce and strong, but she was still human, and that fact was never more obvious.

  “I never should have let you leave me,” he whispered jaggedly. “I never should have let you out of my sight.”

  Christ, he’d been a man possessed when it came to her safety before drinking her blood. Now, though…this clawing sense of desperation riddled him. It came screaming from the deepest pit of his soul, demanding she be made safe and happy. And he was beginning to suspect that the incessant burning inside of him had been there since the moment he met Roksana. Waiting in the wings. Hadn’t he been aware all along of the demanding draw between them?

  Mate, my mate, my mate.

  He hated himself for hungering for her body and blood when she was suffering in his arms. But having her near made his throat constrict, made his thirst urgent, painful. Extreme. But his concern for her far outweighed his own discomfort. He’d live with it as long as possible. Forever if she required it.

  Elias made a hoarse sound and turned in a circle. What was wrong with him? He knew how to care for her, but the possibility of not caring for her well enough shook him to the core.

  “I don’t feel so good, vampire,” Roksana whispered into his neck—and he almost fucking lost it right there. Almost erupted into flames and burned down the whole vampire stronghold.

  “I know, baby. I know,” he managed raggedly, sitting down on the edge of the bed with Roksana lengthways across his lap. His hands felt clumsy while unzipping the back of her leather dress. “We’re going to talk about the fact that you rode on a commercial airplane in this outfit.”

  “Nyet.” Her head lolled against his shoulder. “We will not.”

  Keep her talking. He needed her conscious, not only for her health, but his sanity. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I set things on fire now. This dress is next on the list.”

  “I have to admit, the fire thing is pretty badass—” She broke off on a wheeze, her left hand twisting in the collar of his shirt. “Oh God, oh God it hurts.”

  Helplessness and distress whipped up inside of Elias and the lights snapped and sizzled in the room, his distressed bellow cutting through the noise. “What the hell is wrong, Roksana? Have you eaten…” Understanding struck him, tightening every tendon in his body and throwing the final ingredients into the stew of his possessiveness. Could it be?

  Vampires and humans were rarely mated, but on the rare occasion it happened, one mate could feel the other’s pain. Jonas and Ginny had gone through it and Elias could now understand the utter agony of knowing your woman suffered because of you. His body’s misery stemmed from hunger for Roksana’s blood and it refused to abate. It ground against his bones, his brain, his jugular. That she could be experiencing anything resembling this was unacceptable. A crime.

  “You are not suffering from your injuries. This is something else. You are my mate and I am yours.”

  A weak snort. “You wish.”

  “Christ, I can’t bear knowing you feel an ounce of this hunger.” He finally succeeded in removing the skin-tight dress and quickly stripped off his own shirt, praying his damnably low body temperature helped in some small way to warm her. Not enough. Even as he rocked her in his arms, he scanned the room for a blanket. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  A deep groove formed between her brows. “You are feeling this, too?”

  “Don’t you dare worry about me.”

  “Maybe I’ll just kill you and the pain will go away,” she gasped.

  “I thought of that already,” he said truthfully, turning and ripping the comforter off the bed, wrapping it around them. “But then I’d no longer be alive to protect you.”

  The distress that kindled in her expression told Elias she’d only been joking—and his response had been too telling. But another wave of pain distracted her, bowing her back and making her tremble. He couldn’t stand another second of the agony.

  With her bare body pressed to his, the bedclothes surrounding them in a cloud, he turned and laid her down on the mattress, unable to stop himself from kissing her shoulders, her cheeks, her forehead, the contact soothing some of his restlessness. “I don’t know if I can do this when you’re weak,” he said thickly. “It feels wrong.”

  Roksana’s hand lifted, her palm conforming the back of his head, and she pulled him down, tilting her head to one side and exposing her neck. “Maybe I don’t want you to die just yet, vampire,” she whispered, not looking at him. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  This close to her fluttering pulse, Elias’s fangs descended with a vengeance. She alone sustained him. Made his existence possible. And he infused every ounce of his utter hero worship into the bite, brushing her hair back once, twice, before puncturing her skin with a moan and allowing the flow of life to spread through his limbs.

  Her taste couldn’t be believed. It was singular. With no description because the flavor existed to him alone. The gnawing hunger in his stomach shrieked with victory, then slowly started to ebb, allowing the rest of Elias to regain sensation. Beneath him, Roksana’s body was still, but their connection allowed him to feel the gradual loss of tension in her muscles, to feel her relief. Here was the proof.

  I am her mate. She is mine.

  I can’t live without her and she can’t live without me.

  Jesus, he was caught between triumph so heady he couldn’t bear the weight and utter devastation on her behalf. Just when he thought he couldn’t make her life any worse, he was tethering this woman to him as long as they both walked the earth. And goddammit, Elias hated himself for wanting that. Wanting Roksana with him forever more than he wanted his own humanity back.

  A shiver passed through Roksana and her nipples peaked against his chest. Heat bloomed along her flesh and he could hear her lungs expanding with oxygen.

  Thank God. Thank God.

  There was an unruly beast inside of Elias demanding he continue to drink. To drink until there was nothing left. The taste of her was that magnificent. That fucking essential. But once a vampire drained a human of their liquid life force, it caused something beastly to awaken inside the immortal, bringing forth the venom that could Silence a human. The process had been illegal so long that it had gone unperfected, though. It was a risk. Even if Roksana agreed to become like him—which she never would—he didn’t take chances with her.

  Elias forced himself to release his hold on her neck, his eyes roaming over her greedily to make sure his senses hadn’t deceived him and she was truly healed.

  Miracle of miracle, she was.

  By my bite.

  Those three words whispering through his mind made Elias’s cock throb. Her skin glowed like a beacon, her breath warming his shoulder, pulse delicate. Her lithe body was pinned beneath his on the bed, and without his fangs preventing her from moving, Roksana’s legs seemed to lift instinctively around his hips, her pussy cushioning the
strained fly of his jeans.

  Was it an invitation or did she seek comfort?

  Though it nearly killed him, the lack of clarity she was able to provide forced Elias to climb off her sweet body, wincing when her thigh brushed against the uncomfortable swell trapped inside his pants. “Are you well now, mate?” he choked out.

  For several beats, she said nothing. But just before he could start to worry, she shocked him to the very core by rolling up against his chest. Her face pressed into the hollow of his throat, her arms creeping around his neck slowly. She clung to him, her embrace tightening gradually. Not letting go.

  And after years of being confined to hell, he was allowed to roam free in heaven.

  Roksana trusted him enough to hold her in his arms.

  Savor it.

  “Rest,” he managed around the lump in his throat. “There is no safer place than where you are right now.”

  Just before her breath turned even, he felt a drop of moisture fall from her eye and travel down the center of his chest, and he pulled her closer.

  Roksana woke up winded.

  Her hair follicles stood on end, vim whipping in her blood.

  An ache pulsated between her thighs so severely that she immediately reached for it, not sure if the pain came by way of an injury or something else. A gasp popped her lips open when, in their downward journey, the back of her knuckles brushed smooth, hard, hair-covered flesh. The lower she got, the denser the hair became until she could sift her fingers through it and the ache heightened all the more, nearly making her dizzy.

  Cool fingertips trailed along the slope of her shoulder, massaging her tense, fevered skin and the possessiveness, the familiarity of that caress brought awareness crashing to the fore.

  Elias.

  She was in bed with Elias. In every sense.

  They weren’t just sharing the space for comfort, either. The hard ridge of his erection was wedged between their bellies, nothing but a worn-in layer of denim between them, and Roksana’s hand was paused in animation just above that distended male part. There was no way to reach her own discomfited flesh without touching Elias there, and if she hadn’t woken up, there was no doubt it would be wrapped in her fist by now.

  In other words, she kind of wished she hadn’t woken up.

  Now she had to think, instead of just act—which would have been a lot more convenient.

  They both lay on their sides in the center of the bed, facing each other, but they were pressed together so tightly, they might as well be one entity. Her open mouth was already rubbing side to side on Elias’s collarbone and his hand—God, his huge hand—was already skimming down her spine to palm her backside.

  Awake.

  Of course he’s awake, idiot, he’s a vampire.

  They slept only occasionally and in the safest conditions. And safe conditions were the opposite of sharing a bedroom with a vampire slayer.

  Like, in theory, okay?

  Elias drew Roksana from her thoughts when he kneaded her left buttock roughly, his mouth moving in her hair. “It’s just the two of us here, Roksana, and we both need me inside you.” He used his hold on her bottom to grind her core against his lap and she was powerless to do anything but sling her thigh over his big body, allowing his hips to crowd closer, both of them groaning at the added friction. “Let me inside you.”

  An image drifted through her conscious, making her cling to him more fiercely. Elias kneeling in front of the door in the chapel, guarding her from the violent mayhem, his face a mask of sorrow and misery and protectiveness. The memory of it moved her body in ways her mind never would have dared—until now. Until tonight.

  She slipped her fingers into his dark hair and brought his mouth down for a kiss wrapped in confusion and gratitude and desperation, refusing to examine any of those emotions too closely but unable to do anything but give. Give to him. All of the turmoil housed inside of her, knowing he would receive it and keep it safe. Keep her safe.

  Elias’s mouth greeted the kiss with caution, care, as if he needed to pinpoint the origin point of her passion, but finally he gave a surrendering groan and licked his tongue deeply into her mouth, employing his grip on her butt to drag her higher against his chest, making it easier for them to devour one another. She kissed Elias as if the sun would rise one final time and take him away. That comparison ran too closely to reality and made her whimper brokenly against his mouth. Give to him. Give him everything. Desperate to obey the urges of her body, head and heart, she pushed the powerful vampire onto his back and straddled his hips, never coming up for air, their tongues delving and twisting, lips slanting and taking.

  She’d never been more grateful to be naked, because the press of their flesh was glorious, her bare breasts flattened on the thick slab of his pecs, his abs flexing beneath her soft stomach, the smooth drag of skin turning her femininity damp, pliant. Equally powerful and powerless at the same moment, she rubbed against the peaks and ridges of his muscle, her sex easing down on his bulge, hips bucking—

  “Roksana,” Elias growled, breaking away—and his fangs descended into view with a vengeance, sharp and white. “You’ve been rubbing those tits against me for hours. I’m too hot for foreplay.”

  Being on top made her feel sexy, exultant. Luxuriating in that feeling, she stuck out her lower lip and ground her hips against him in two quick circles. “Aw, can’t you deal with a little more? For me?”

  His palms slid up the outsides of her thighs, his right hand delivering a harsh slap to her upturned ass. “You seem to have forgotten I’m a monster who has only claimed his mate once. And she was the perfect little fit,” Elias rasped, amber eyes flashing. “I want her again now.”

  “I want you, too,” she breathed, crawling backward down his body, her tongue licking a path over his left nipple, then crossing to the right, nipping it lightly. Worshipping him. Some deeply rooted part of her couldn’t face another moment of living without cherishing this vampire, maybe even apologizing for her false, long-held beliefs about him. “Please, Elias. I have to show you how much.”

  Elias’s sudden scrutiny was too dangerous, too exposing, so she focused on circling the ridges of his tattooed stomach with her wet, open mouth, her tongue delving into his belly button, eliciting a back arch and a growl from Elias. Nimbly, her fingers unfastened his jeans, her mouth breathing hot air on the wicked curve of his arousal while lowering the zipper. He sprang out and she caught his thickness with her mouth, his texture and flavor striking her like a mallet to a metal stake.

  Mate.

  It was useless to deny it. She drew on his shaft hungrily, her hands working in twisting strokes, her every movement ruled by instinct—and his shouted encouragement.

  “Suck it. Suck me so fucking hard, baby. Oh God, yes. Oh my God.” His fingers rifled through her hair, his hips pumping upward, his grunts jagged. “You trying to make me come? Huh? You want me to come, keep that up. You’re the only one that can, Roksana. You’re the only one who can suck it out for me. It only wants you, baby, baby, don’t you know that? Fuck, you’ve got me so hard.”

  The ache between her legs intensified, squeezing her legs together, and she wailed around his swollen sex. Her nipples peaked and throbbed in a devastating rhythm, leaving her no choice but to rub them on his hair-covered thighs. Arousal pitched inside of her like a storm, tossing her senses on a wild ocean and all she could do was pleasure him, riding her mouth up and down the engorged stalk of his manhood and—

  Elias’s hands scooped beneath Roksana’s armpits, dragging her slowly up every inked, sinful inch of his body, stopping only when their mouths met, pressing together with a mutual moan, his eyes scrutinizing her with dark sensuality. “As much as I love you worshipping my cock like it’s your new lord and savior, I know when my mate needs to be fucked.”

  Roksana’s gasp was still hanging in the air a second later when she came face to face with the headboard, her panting mouth leaving condensation on the polished wood. Elias was not ge
ntle about arranging her body on hands and knees, cheek to the pillow, knees wide. And until Roksana was in the subservient position, she had no idea how much she’d been craving it. Being laid bare and vulnerable for this man, her body the only one able to give him relief.

  “Do you need to feed from me?” Roksana whispered, almost distressed in her overwhelming desire to be needed. She buried her face in the mattress and chanted nonsense, tilting her hips and offering her sex for the taking, willing it to be amply wet for him. “Do you, please, do you? Need to feed? Do you…”

  “I will always need to feed from you, Roksana,” he said, raking his tongue up the side of her neck. “But my need for you is not always about blood. Understand?” He kissed his way down her spine, his mouth moving with relish, stopping to rake his fangs from the small of her back to the spot where the divide of her backside began. “Sometimes it’s about protecting you. Holding you. Having your eyes on me. Feeding you. Your voice in my ear.” His tongue slid down between the split of her backside, the flat of it resting on the pucker of her back entrance. At the same time, Elias’s long middle finger tucked inside of her womanhood, pressing deep and making her gasp. “And sometimes it’s all about this tight pussy.”

  A spasm shook Roksana, constricting her femininity with such intensity that she buried her teeth in the mattress, biting down hard on a sob. Elias caught her hips in his hands, yanking her bottom up into his lap and she started to tremble, the inner walls of her core already milking him, anticipating him, even though he wasn’t inside of her yet. “Please, please…”

  His hardness prodded her, right at the precipice of where she needed him, but stopped short of thrusting home. “I was rough last time,” he said, voice deep and dark, his chest coming to rest on her back, his lips moving against her ear. “Did you like that?”

  “Yes,” she panted, rubbing her bottom brazenly in his lap. “Yes, I loved it.”