by Bella Klaus
Satisfied rumbles reverberated across his chest, sounding halfway like purrs. Some of the tightness around my lungs loosened, and I slid my hands over the cotton of his uniform shirt. The flesh beneath my fingers yielded at my touch as I skimmed over the contours of his chest and the curve and dips of his tight abs. Valentine was magnificent, even in death.
Sending his soul a silent apology for what I was about to do with his body, I pulled the shirt from the waistband of his pants and slid my fingers over his abs.
“You feel so good,” I murmured.
By now, Valentine’s hands had slid to the top of my thighs, and he pulled me up to rise to my knees. His hands kneaded the globes of my ass, and he sucked the flesh around my jugular vein between his lips.
“Open your legs,” he growled. “I want to feel your arousal.”
I melted into his touch, parting my thighs a little further. Valentine’s fingers slid between my slick folds and glided the short path from my opening to my clit, which swelled and pulsed with need.
His fingers made tight circles over my sensitive bundle of nerves, and pleasure swirled around my core, making my muscles clench and twitch. I shuddered against his chest, wanting more, needing it, but I bit down on my bottom lip and whimpered.
For the next few moments, he pleasured my clit with touches light enough to stoke the flames of my desire but without the pressure to set me alight. I slid my hands beneath his shirt, over his abs and up his nipples, making him hiss in pleasure.
Those clever fingers continued to tease, squeeze, make me yearn for release until my core quivered and moans spilled from my lips. Never once did he increase the pressure, and he continued the sweet torture until moisture trickled down my inner thighs.
I rested my head against his shoulders, panting and quivering with a mix of frustration and pleasure. What was he doing to me? The Valentine I loved always gave me exactly what I needed. Apart from this one. Was he pushing me to offer my blood in exchange for relief?
“Valentine,” I said with a moan. “Please.”
“Tell me what you need,” he replied, his smoky voice curling within my core.
Warm triumph filtered through the frustration and inflated my chest. Despite everything, Valentine still held me as precious. Or maybe this slow pleasuring was just muscle memory and his predatory instincts would eventually rise.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I said through panting breaths, “Make love to me.” I licked my lips. “I need you, now.”
“How much?”
My hands slid down to his crotch, where a thick erection pulsed against my fingertips. I slid my fingers over the huge organ, swearing that it swelled even further under my touch. “I’m aching for you. I need you inside me right now.”
His laugh rumbled against my chest. “Be careful what you wish for, Morata.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the tearing of fabric filled the air, and the gown that he’d gathered around my hips fell off my shoulders. A draft swirled around my naked body.
Valentine’s gaze dropped to my nipples, and he ran the tip of his tongue over his fangs. “Those look good enough to bite.”
Alarm spiked through my chest. “Don’t bite—”
The air shifted, and I landed flat on my back, sinking into the mattress as Valentine delved between my folds. His growls rumbled over my trembling thighs, and I bit down on my lip, hoping he’d just been teasing.
His tongue delved into my core, traveled across my folds and over my clit, where it made circling motions that mirrored what he did earlier with his fingertips.
An onslaught of sensations swept my senses as he licked and sucked and flicked his tongue over my nub, pushing me toward a precipice of pleasure. I dug my heels into the mattress and shuddered. This wasn’t so scary. Actually, it was fantastic.
Valentine quickened his pace, treating my sex to a flurry of open-mouthed kisses that made my eyes roll to the back of my head. I bucked and shuddered under his touch, crying out for more.
“So delicious,” he murmured from between my legs. “So wet.”
Another moan slipped from my lips. “Please!”
He parted my legs as far as they would go, laying me completely bare. Valentine’s satisfied growl made my spine tingle, and the muscles of my core twitched with the need to be filled. He lapped up the moisture that had slid down my inner thighs until he’d licked me clean.
“So mine.” His fangs pierced my femoral artery.
Chapter Four
My eyes snapped open as the bite of his fangs set every nerve ending on fire, and a silent scream tore from my throat. I stared up into the canopy of the four-poster bed, quaking as though shocked by electricity.
Valentine’s fangs remained in my flesh, and he slipped his fingers through my folds and into my core, stretching me open. I sank further into the mattress, with my legs clamped around his head. My muscles quivered around the stiff digits, and as he delved deeper into me, my attention drifted from the sting of his bite.
Panting breaths rasped against my throat, drying all the membranes of my mouth. After doing everything I could to make him drink the contents of those blood packs, I couldn’t believe he would still be this ravenous.
“Stop this,” I rasped. “You’ll kill me.”
Valentine made an annoyed huff, as though I was in the wrong for spoiling his meal. His index and middle fingers eased into me at a painstakingly slow pace, twisting, scissoring, stretching until he’d fully encased himself to the knuckle. Each careful movement sent jolts of pleasure up my core, feeding a hungry furnace I hadn’t noticed until now.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shuddered against the rush of sensation. Somewhere through the boom of my frenzied pulse and the molten ecstasy building deep within my belly, the horror of my situation settled atop my heart like a boulder.
Valentine had not only bitten me but was feeding on my blood. After I’d asked him not to bite. After knowing that there was enough blood in that damned refrigerator to satisfy his thirst, he’d decided to take mine. I clenched my teeth. What did I expect from a preternatural under the control of Kresnik?
He hummed and gulped and slurped mouthfuls of my blood, while I lay on that mattress, trying to swim through a torrent of pleasure.
A little voice in the back of my head reminded me that I’d only specified not to bite my nipples. Another voice, which I think belonged to Coral, griped that Valentine would have bitten me anyway. My pulse pounded between my ears. None of this mattered because he was draining my blood and showing no signs of slowing.
I had to make him stop.
“Valentine.” I twisted my fingers in his silken hair and shoved my magic into their tips. When nothing happened, I pulled with every ounce of my strength.
His fingers rubbed a sensitive spot, and all the pleasure in my core concentrated into a ball of pressure so tight that it bordered on pain. Sweat broke out across my skin. The last time he’d bitten me, I had climaxed immediately. Was he slowing things on purpose, or had terror taken its hold?
Valentine continued worrying at that spot with the pads of his fingers, while gulping down mouthfuls of blood. The pressure expanded, pushing down on my diaphragm, my spine, my pelvis, until I thought something would rupture. Cries spilled from my lips, and I shook my head from side to side. It was too much, too intense.
Just when I thought I might suffocate from the sensations, something deep within me cracked, and I exploded into a climax that made my toes curl. Wave after wave of ecstasy flooded my core, and my muscles clamped and spasmed around his fingers.
Throughout the torrent, Valentine lavished me with deep, even strokes of his fingers, easing me down from the high. Every muscle in my body melted into the mattress, leaving me a pile of bones.
As the ringing in my ears ebbed away, and I filtered out the crackle and pop of the fireplace, I heard the gulp and slurp of Valentine’s feeding.
I tightened my fingers into his hair and tugged at him again. “Valentine,
snap out of it.”
Two drops of something cold seeped into my veins, and an even more powerful climax engulfed my body like a firestorm. Imaginary flames lapped at my taut nerves, and my muscles tightened around his fingers. The cold substance travelled through my insides, making me relax.
My lips parted to let out a moan.
Valentine pumped his fingers in and out of me as I rode out this second orgasm. I bucked against his mouth, jostling his incisors, but he held me steady and pressed my pelvis into the mattress.
When my breathing calmed, he pulled his fangs out of my thigh and lapped up the spilled blood, sealing the wound with his saliva.
By the time Valentine emerged from between my thighs, the color had returned to his cheeks, and a shaft of sunlight illuminated his bronze skin. He licked the blood off his lips and stared down at me as though he’d just had the most satisfying meal.
“You are exquisite,” he snarled.
I raised a trembling hand. “Please… I’ll die if you take any more.”
Valentine shook his head and grinned. “Why would I waste something so delectable?”
Shallow breaths wheezed in and out of my lungs. I wasn’t ready to believe he would show mercy on me in any way. Not with a huge erection standing flush against his stomach and streaming precum.
My traitorous core pulsed, hungering for him to plunge that thick organ inside me, but my prey instincts screamed at me to escape before he changed his mind.
I rolled to the side, edging off the mattress.
“Where are you going?” he drawled.
“You said you’ve finished. I need a shower.”
Valentine caught me around the waist and chuckled, the low, deep sound resonating against my back. “I said I wouldn’t waste you.” He pulled me into his warm best, nestling his erection between my ass cheeks. “That didn’t mean I’d finished.”
“Valentine,” I whispered.
“Hmmmm?” His hand snaked around my front and cupped a breast. He rolled my nipple between his thick fingers, sending pleasurable sparks to my awakening clit.
My fingers curled into the embroidered coverlet, trying to get some traction to haul myself out of his arms. It was futile and a waste of effort. “Just don’t kill me.”
“Never,” he growled.
The words gave me absolutely no comfort, as Valentine’s fangs slipped into my neck. At the same time, he slid into me with a deep thrust.
A cry escaped from my throat as the most intense pleasure coiled around my core and my muscles adjusted around his girth. When he filled me to the hilt, all my body felt was a bone-deep delight that contrasted with our dire predicament.
After sinking into me to the hilt, Valentine paused with a satisfied rumble. “I love how your pussy clutches at me.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. In all the three years we’d been together, he’d always been such a gentleman and never used such language. Even while we were in the penthouse together and he had spanked me, he had never used those terms.
Was Kresnik’s magic affecting Valentine’s judgment, or was it the fact that I’d been gifted to him and he could do or say whatever he wanted?
I didn’t have time to ponder any of this as he rocked back his hips and glided out of me with a movement that made my muscles clench around his length. His thick tip stretched my opening again before he thrust into me over and over.
The hand on my breast kept me in place, while the fingers of his other hand teased my already engorged clit. “Before I leave for my mission, you’re going to come twice around my cock.”
I shook my head. “It’s impossible. You’ve already wrung out so much pleasure. There’s no more.”
Valentine thrust into me harder, faster, deeper. “Again.”
My tongue darted out to lick my lips. “I can’t.”
A low growl resounded in his chest. Every fine hair on my body stood on end, and the spasming of my muscles quickened. The finger circling my clit continued those maddening strokes, filling me with enough pleasure to make me burst.
This was Valentine’s way of saying he could make me do whatever he wanted.
I panted shallow breaths as the sensations sharpened, and I clamped around the thick organ pumping in and out of my core. The thrust of his hips quickened, filling, stretching, pounding into me with hard strokes. Pleasure mounted, winding me tighter, and proving me wrong. I was so close…
“Valentine,” I said through panting breaths. “I think I can manage one more, but not twice—”
“You will climax when and how I command,” he snarled.
As though those words carried their own magic, the tight band around my core snapped, releasing a flurry of molten ecstasy.
I cried out as shockwaves of pleasure tore through my insides in a flurry of violent spasms. Sweat broke out across my skin as this orgasm took control. I jerked and spasmed, but Valentine held me steady around my waist and quickened his pace.
With a roar, he sank his fangs back into my neck, releasing more of that cold fluid. It spread through my veins and flooded my senses, making starbursts explode behind my closed eyelids.
A rush of euphoria more intense than any orgasm spread across my quivering form. It started in my scalp, and spread down my body until it quickened through my core, concentrating my existence into the thick organ thrusting in and out of my core and pushing me toward yet another climax.
Valentine roared through his own climax, filling me with jets and jets of warm fluid. By now, his body temperature had risen to match mine, feeling a little higher because of his frenzied thrusts.
I was too relaxed to think about what it meant, too content to care. My mind floated into a dreamlike state where trivial matters like Kresnik, supernatural wars, and stolen magic no longer mattered.
Valentine pulled his fangs out of me first, followed by his length, leaving me yearning for more.
He glided his warm hand over my belly, making me purr with satisfaction. “I’ve given you enough thrall to keep you out of trouble.”
Thrall? My brows drew together. “Valentine?”
“Shhhh.” He lifted off the bed and shifted about the covers, slipping me beneath their warmth.
I cracked an eye open. Pale sunlight streamed against Valentine’s back, making him look like an angel of death. “But—”
“Sleep, Innamorata.” His deep voice echoed through my ears. “When I return, I will give you exactly what you need.”
I pushed through the euphoria, wanting to tell him we had to leave this place while he still had his senses, but Valentine placed a large hand on my temple, drowning my consciousness in a whirlpool of fatigue. Every ounce of my being tried to swim against the current, but it overwhelmed my senses and pulled me under.
As the last of my consciousness ebbed away, his warm lips grazed my temple.
I drifted in and out of sleep, aware of the setting of the sun and its eventual rise, but Valentine didn’t return. The snap and pop of the fire filled the silence between my pounding heartbeats. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Valentine overwhelmed my senses with thrall, or even if he had returned to me while I’d slept.
Every muscle in my body felt like it was being tethered to the mattress with tiny ropes. I strained against my invisible bonds, but my strength failed. My eyes peeped open a crack to find the room flooded with moonlight. Maybe I would try again in a few minutes.
The thrall pulled me under again, making me float within a bed of clouds. Warmth surrounded my body, telling me I was safe. My mind drifted back to the palace steps, when I wore the white sundress and Valentine walked me to the car.
Shadows had consumed me back then and worked their way into my mind. I realized that now. With my mind free of my current worries, I could put together the pieces and realize that I’d been a pawn from the start. Hell, my troubles started before I was even born and around the time Kresnik had convinced Father Jude to steal the soul of a phoenix and stuff it in the body of an unborn child.
>
It was no wonder that shadow had plagued me for years—I’d been a seed they had planted in Aurora’s womb to reap. Now that they’d taken what they needed, I wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing. As soon as I got myself off that bed, I would find a way to fight back.
My thoughts shifted to my current predicament, and I clenched my teeth, trying to wrench myself off the mattress. Valentine had gone too far. It was bad enough that he’d drunk from me—twice, bad enough that he’d done so knowing there was plenty of blood for him in the refrigerator, but why did he have to inject me with thrall?
How would trapping me in a room within the enemy stronghold keep me safe?
Clenching my teeth, I shifted my carcass and rolled to the edge of the bed. Ragged breaths heaved in and out of my lungs, and a wave of fatigue tried to pull me back. Curling my hands into fists, I slammed a fist on the mattress.
“Bugger this,” I said from between clenched teeth. “I’ve. Got. To. Move!”
With another shove, I landed face-down on the rug. Shock exploded in my nose, radiating pain across my face. I drew a breath through my teeth, shuddering at the overwhelming agony, but it was better than the numb euphoria of thrall.
I lay face-down on the rug, panting from the effort of both the rolling and the fall. With my hands at my sides, it was near impossible to gather enough leverage to rise. “Rest,” I said to myself. “We’ll try again in a bit.”
Minutes passed, and I continued lying on that rug like a dead fish, my nose throbbing. It was possibly hours, because the pain in my nose faded to a dull throb. Clouds covered the moon, encasing me in semi-darkness. My only source of illumination was the reflected light of the fireplace.
As the thrall wore off, my first stirrings of rage rose to the surface. Bloody preternatural Valentine. If I ever got hold of that wanker—wanker was too weak a word to describe him after what he’d done. If I ever got hold of that bastard, I’d shove him in front of a magicless window during the day and see how he enjoyed being subject to the whims of a more powerful entity.