Love is Fear

by Caroline Hanson

  She felt the strain in his muscles and in her own as they lingered in that moment before they did something irrevocable. He pushed against her gently, giving her time to get used to his width.

  He kissed her again, and then said, lips still on her mouth, “I want to bury myself in you. One hard thrust and sink home, so you know that you are mine.”

  His nostrils flared as he worked his way into her slowly. Too slowly. She wrapped her legs around his waist and drove her hips up to meet him, felt him lodge tight within her, and then he was moving, fast and hard, his forehead pressed to hers. He kissed her jaw, down the column of her throat, her collarbone. He moved faster, harder into her as she felt his breath on her pulse.

  Val squeezed her thighs tight around his hips, clinging to him. She felt his lips kiss the flutter of her neck, his tongue lick her, and then he stopped, leaned back as though he was about to get off of her.

  “No, stay,” she said, and it felt like black smoke coiling through her as she shut her eyes in pleasure and expectation. That part of her—what she thought of as the Empath part of her reached outwards—needing him to bite her.

  Eager for him to take her inside of him. Claim him just like he’d been claiming her. She tried to compel him with her body, moving under him, wanting to drive him higher, force him to do it.

  She twisted her head, bared her neck to him. Slowly, so slowly, he descended that final inch, lips against her neck, a sound of the deepest pain coming from deep in his throat. His hair fell against her cheek.

  The press of his lips on her neck affected her, making her beg him in a broken whisper, “Please, please. Bite me. Take me. Why can’t I be in you, too? Come on. Come on.”

  And then the world turned around as he flipped them. She was on top, straddling him while he lay below her, eyes closed, head turned away, gathering himself. His stomach muscles bunched and released as he breathed.

  She leaned down, her nipples grazing his chest, then kissed him hard, almost angrily—part of her unhappy that he still had that much control left, that he wouldn’t give her what she wanted on a primal level. But more than that, the Empath in her wanted it. He was denying her, controlling himself and this—every move, kiss and release would be at his direction. Val wanted to give up, give in, let him position her, touch her and bring her anyway he wanted, but then what? If he controlled this too, there would be nothing left of her, for her.

  He looked back at her, voice soft and intimate, slightly ragged, features as soft as they were ever going to be, passion making his skin flushed. Almost, but never quite human. “I could hurt you?” The words were slow, a question, like he couldn’t remember the reason for not biting her either. “You think it’s because I don’t want you. I do. Heaven help us, I do.”

  He brought his hands up to her breasts, cupping them gently, thumbs sliding over the hardened peaks. She rose up on her knees, so his shaft was almost out of her completely. His hips lifted, chasing the wet heat of her body, pulling her back down as he pumped into her.

  She shook her head and lifted up again. “You tell me I’m your weakness, but you’re not weak.”

  “You can have anything else you want. I cannot let us do that.” His hand slipped between her legs, finding her wet and hot, soaking. He flicked her, stroked her, worked on bringing her again.

  His voice was a low scrape of sound, a vulgar whisper in the dark. “I know why you want it. I want that too. I want to drink you down and feel you burn through me. Then I could make you mine in every way. Have you here with my cock.” He pulled her down onto him, sinking deep, and she cried out at the pleasure, writhing against him. “And here.” His hand came up, cupping her neck, his thumb brushing her collarbone. “I want to mark you, take you. It is not only you that feels denied. There is an emptiness in me, too, and you could fill it.”

  He licked his lips. “The Others have always been thieves—vampires take lives, the Fey take happiness, Witches take from the elements. But an Empath takes emotion. That is their delight and torment. To take pleasure and pain, all the variations therein, and play with them.” His eyes were on her neck again.

  He shook his head almost sadly, and then he held her face gently in his hands as he moved under her, grinding the base of his cock against her core. “But you can tell me.” He smiled at her, no teeth, a scornful smile. The smile of a villain. “Tell me what would happen to me if I drank you down.”

  She rocked forward, and he groaned, eyes closing and flashing open to hers. Her fingers sought his, twining with them. “I’d own you,” she breathed, pressing her breasts flush to his chest, enjoying the rightness of the words.

  Lucas laughed, an unfamiliar and peculiarly happy sound. Then he looked at her steadily. “That is something I will never deny.”

  “I want more.” Val said, eyes already tracing his body, feeling wet, ready and expectant.

  He smiled.

  Chapter 15

  His lips felt numb and his whole body was slightly…off. He licked his lips, felt how she watched him. Her gaze snapping to his mouth. It made his heart pound, sent blood rushing to his cock. Her expression changed from satisfaction to hunger. Lucas closed his eyes, needed a moment. He could still hear her cries echoing in his ears, still felt the slight tremors of her body milking his shaft.

  Every piece of him felt different. His heart seemed to beat differently, every nerve is his body was warm. And his skin…he felt the bed sheets in places that he never had before. The way it wrapped around his leg, brushing the back of his knee. How had he never noticed?

  Lucas wondered if he should tell her that even her kisses affected him. She thought she was getting nothing from him, that he was not compromising. But every kiss and lick, every fuck, every time he tasted her, part of her seeped into him.

  It wasn’t a lot. Like trying to survive on raindrops in the jungle—it prolonged the inevitable.

  A slower way to die.

  But it had been so long since he had felt anything that the slightest difference was near to overwhelming. Should he tell her? His Valkyrie would like that. She would like to know she impacted him. Had power over him.

  Valhalla. He needed time. Time to think. He heard her make the slightest noise, like a purr, and then she was up on her elbow looking down at him. Her lips were swollen from kissing, her face flushed, her sweet pulse jack-hammering under her skin. Want slammed into him. Want that was worse than before. Every time he saw her, it was worse.

  “I’m not done. I want more,” she said, and her hand slid down his body, grabbed his cock. The smell of her and sex…They would never be done. Her fingers wrapped around him, and he thrust lightly into her palm. He was still wet from her come and his. She began to stroke him, up and down with a firm grip, the slide easy and warm.

  She was rubbing herself into him. And even that would alter him. Her fingers swept over the tip of his cock and he jerked her over him, settling her on top of him, chest to chest, her sex open, surrounding him. He exhaled sharply wondered if she felt the slight tremor in his limbs. Would she know how foreign it was for him to want, no, need, anything this badly? He could go long periods without food, sleep, even companionship. And now he needed something. The slick heat of her body and the taste of her mouth, her soft flesh twined around his.

  He murmured something, hands on her ass as he slid her silken flesh against him. That wasn’t enough. Lucas rolled her over, desperate to be inside of her and in control. He wrapped his hand around his cock, nudged at her almost blindly. He needed to wait, had to slow down. And then the head of his shaft sank inside of her.

  “Yes,” he groaned and began to move within her. Hard strokes, pounding into her so hard she threw her hands above her head and braced herself on the wall. Was he insane? How mortifying. But he couldn’t stop pumping into her. Instead he moved his arm, wedging his forearm behind her head and stopping their momentum with his arm.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

  She opened her eyes, seemed to have no idea
what he was talking about. What he would be apologizing for. Because this is not the plan. The plan is to make you come so hard, and for so long, that you do not leave. You go nowhere else. Something sharp and jagged knifed through him, but he had no idea what the emotion might be. Jealousy? Possessiveness? That desperate feeling when one knows loss is looming before them?

  Unchangeable and unavoidable.

  Her thighs were like satin. He pulled her wider, lifting her leg so that her ankle rested on his shoulders, thrusting home, seeking an extra fraction of an inch, wanting to be deeper inside of her.

  Deeper, more. No man would ever take her so deeply. No one but me. She tilted her hips, and there it was. His cock ached and he felt the climax there, ready to overwhelm him.

  Her fingers gripped his ass, hard, like she wanted him to be deeper, too, and that was it. With a hoarse cry, he came, pumping into her endlessly. She kept moving, seeking her own release. His cock was so sensitive it hurt. Irrelevant. He would keep going, get her there. He had wanted her to come first. How had he gotten so distracted from his purpose?

  This is sex for a reason, to bind her to me.

  He pulled free from her and slid down her body, keeping her legs wide open and took her swollen clit into his mouth, tonguing it, sealing his lips around the flesh, giving just the right amount of suction to bring her hard and fast.

  She screamed in pleasure, her body rigid. He felt her contractions on his tongue and felt a satisfaction, a smugness in knowing that he could bring her so quickly. She undid him, unmanned him. But he would take her with him.

  “Don’t stop,” she said.

  Never

  He had made her spend over and over again. And yet she still needed more. He wanted to press her down into the bed, pin her, hold her still with his hand in her hair, his fangs in her neck, his cock in her core. Make her take it. He had made her come, would make her come all night, and he knew she was feeling that emptiness still.

  Because she was an Empath. She would not be satisfied until he drank her blood.

  He had been with enough empaths over the centuries to know that, no matter how satisfied she was, without blood she would still want more. He grinded his teeth together and flipped her over, pulling her ass into the air, plunging into her slick heat from behind. Taking her like a savage. Her fingers clawed into the mattress. On a moan she begged him to take her harder, little sobs of pleasure coming from her. He bent closer, weight on one arm while he used his other hand to stroke her in tight, fast circles.

  “Oh god, I’m going to come,” she whispered, and then she did. He felt it in his cock, and he came again, his movements disjointed as he lost his rhythm.

  Thirsty. He was so unbelievably thirsty. He wanted her blood. Nothing else would do. But he could not. He must not do that. He turned her back over, and she made a small oomph as her back hit the sheets—again. They were both covered in sweat, a small bead of it at the hollow of her throat.

  Do not, he commanded himself, even as his head lowered to her throat, sucking that drop of moisture off of her with an open-mouthed kiss. It burned him, ratcheting up his need higher.

  She threw a leg over his thigh, then ground against him like she felt it, too. What if she had? What if there was just enough of her in him, that she could feel his desperation? He could not think. How many times had he tasted her and kissed her? Her lips, her core, her sweat, every inch of her body.

  He would kiss her again, take her one more time, and that was it. “You will need my blood,” he said, the impact of the words racing through him, dragging his balls up tight to his body.

  “You will be sore if you do not.” Time had passed. It could have been hours, days, weeks. He didn’t know. Enough time so that he was a different creature than he had been before they entered this room.

  She shook her head, touched his jaw with the palm of her hand. “No, keep going. I won’t.” Her words were slurred. She had no idea what this was, that her Empathic side would keep going, keep wanting until she had his blood. But she was tired. So tired, he could see it on her face. One more orgasm, and she would sleep. Her desire to have her blood within him would be manageable in the morning. One last time and then, if he had to, he would compel her to sleep.

  Her eyes flashed open suddenly, languid need gone as her body tensed—not in arousal but more.

  Dangerous. The thought skidded through his mind, beating through the lust and the haze. He pushed back on his arms, away from her, getting off the bed and holding a hand out. She didn’t take it. Cocked her head to the side in question. “Shower. Then food,” he said, noticing his words were fast.

  “For who? For me or you?” she said, sounding intoxicated.

  “We need a break. This is…time has passed.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “Is this how it is? With a vampire,” she asked, voice slow, words slow, eyes half-lidded.

  He didn’t know what to say. How much to tell her. Would the day ever come where he wouldn’t think through all the ramifications of what to tell her? She slid her foot up his thigh, leg open, his gaze instantly focused on how wet she was.

  “You need blood and food,” he said.

  She looked at him for a very long moment, the words having an impact on her that he didn’t understand. But all the things they had done, the small licks and tastes of her that he’d had, coiled through him, made his veins feel hot, like they flowed with lava. He looked at his hand—it was fisted. Every part of him was rigid with tension. He blinked, took a deep breath, released it and heard it. The faintest sound of shakiness, of stress, coursing through his body.

  He felt panicked, like he needed to get up and move. He needed blood. He wanted hers. But more than anything, he wanted to go and find a room full of humans to slaughter. Twenty, maybe thirty of them, fill himself so full of blood that every hint of her that was inside of him would get crowded out. Bring back his cold, emotionless existence.

  Really? That is what you want? Lie.

  Lying to oneself was dangerous. Led to death and over-estimation of one’s self. The truth of what he wanted was enough to make him weep or cower in fear. The image of his desire was perfectly clear in his mind: He would scrape his fangs over her pulse, pierce her lovely neck and have her feed him, remake him into someone else. His heart would beat for her and his existence would revolve around her and the feelings she gave him.

  He wanted to slide down her body, lock his lips on the inside of her thigh that wasslick with passion and experience the taste of her blood mixed with the taste of their bodies as he fed from her.

  He needed to end this before he did something stupid. Fear skidded up his spine. Fear that he might make a wrong decision after all the care he had taken with her. What care? He had left her to her own devices for years, just to avoid this moment. The moment where he lost control and made mistakes.

  Five hundred years of numbness was being chipped away. Emotions hammered at him, only one of them clear as the night sky—fear. He pushed back from her, jerked his gaze away. Helplessly, looked back.

  She had a smile on her face. The thought came again: Dangerous. He was unstable. She was determined. This interlude needed to end immediately.

  “What are you going to give me, Lucas? This isn’t normal, is it? This want. This ache. It’s not just sex. It’s sexual, but it’s more and it’s worse. The ache is everywhere inside of me. You need to fix it. You have to help me.”

  “My blood will calm you. You will eat, and then I can compel you to sleep. In the morning, when the hunger has left you, we will discuss this like rational beings.”

  “I don’t want to take your blood. You know what I want. I need it to happen,” she said, staring at his mouth. He pressed his lips into a flat line.

  She laughed and rolled up on the bed, her look making him hard. A look that said she wouldn’t stop, wasn’t going to relent, and that she knew him better than he knew himself.

  He doubted that.

  He knew what he was capable
of. For her, this was a game. He gave an ugly laugh, and she cocked her head at him, surprised.

  “It’s funny? Lucas, you can’t just give, you have to take, as well. I’m me and I’m an Empath. That’s what this is about. That’s why I can’t stop, isn’t it? How much of me do you want? Just half of me? Just the easy part, and then you’ll leave me frustrated and wanting…magic unfulfilled?” Anger crept into her voice, and it raised his own, like a tinny echo.

  “You play with things you do not understand,” he said, low and hard. But not harder than him.

  She reached out a hand, twining their fingers together, pressing her palm flush against his. Val gave a light tug, pulling him back to the bed. She may as well have been tugging on his shaft, the way he gave in. He returned to the bed, one knee on it.

  “Sit down,” she said, and he did, giving her his back, feet on the floor. His hands were flat on his thighs.

  Get out of this.

  And then she was in front of him, standing between his legs, arms twining around his neck. She reeked of sex, and he tried to close down, reached for that dark hole inside of him that ate every scrap of light in the universe and tried to become that.

  And nothing more.

  Tonight, there was nothing but chaos inside of him. His hands lifted, settled on her thighs and he pulled her on him, over him, her warm folds sliding over the head of his cock, and he moaned hoarsely at the contact. He had tried to find his internal strength, but there was nothing left inside of him beyond desire. The need to take her again. To become nothing more than sex. So it was all he’d taste, smell and feel.

  His cock ached, his heart hurt. In her, just get inside of her. Come in her so hard, youempty everything out. All emotion and every thought.

  His hands swept along her body from her breasts, which he cupped and lifted, and then down, dragging his fingers down her waist and cutting in towards the vee of her legs. It felt like he was dragging her emotions, even her desire, to her sex.