Sliding his arm free, he inched his hands to my knees and used a burst of speed to spread them.
He lowered his face.
“I won’t be able to get through this without entering the fourth exchange,” Kyros rasped against my thigh.
Counting on it. But perhaps some effort on our part would help with King Julius damage control afterward. In a haze, I slid my phone free.
“What?” Deirdre snapped down the line three rings later. “I don’t like technology.”
“Kyros and I are about to bite each other. You all better come back. No promises on what you’ll see.” I squirmed, trying to push closer to Kyros’s face, but he held me still.
I hung up on his sister.
The air left me in a rush as Kyros flipped me, pressing me into the glass table.
“We can’t have kids, right?” I blurted.
“No,” he snarled. He drew down my dress zipper to the top of my ass.
“I’m clean,” I added, seeing as he didn’t seem too worried about the tiny details.
“I can smell that you’re clean, and Vissimo can’t contract sexual diseases.”
Okay, then.
I gasped as he whirled me back, setting me on my feet to slide the dress from my shoulders, like I was nothing more than a doll in his hands.
The low-cut dress fell away to reveal my lacy half-cup bra and matching thong.
Kyros gazed upon me like I held all the answers, like I alone could decide his fate. When he looked at me like that, I was tricked into believing I could. His hands squeezed my sides, caressing upward until his thumbs rested on the underside of my bra. He pushed my breasts up, lowering his head to drag his extended fangs over the swell.
I was wetter than I’d ever been in my life. “Kyros…”
He met my gaze.
“I’m so fucking angry at you,” I admitted.
His eyes glittered. “I know, my beauty. And I’m sorry.”
My hands fumbled for his shirt, yanking. Buttons popped off, and I shoved it off his shoulders. Usually, I liked to joke in the bedroom and that would have had me snorting.
Neither of us were laughing.
His hand swept over the curves of my stomach and he ripped my panties off.
Finally.
His finger lodged inside me without warning, and I screamed at the contact. He paused for the bare second it probably took to feel that my scream wasn’t the pained kind.
Then he moved.
At Vissimo speed. I think he added another finger. A thumb on my clit? So much was happening. So fast. My senses were overwhelmed with slippery ecstasy. It felt like three sets of hands were on me, but that was impossible.
It was impossible.
I—
The doors opened on an inferno, and I had no time to process the fire about to consume me. My eyes were wide on his face, and I inhaled my scream, my entire body tightening around his fingers.
He watched me, fangs lengthened, rage etched over his face.
Not at me.
He was about to claim me.
“Come, mate,” Kyros rumbled.
I choked on a pitiful sound as a heavy languidness filled me from head to toe. Flames rolled through me, eviscerating awareness of myself.
He picked me up, laying me on the table. I shuddered at the cold glass, merely adding to the shaking of my limbs as aftershock after aftershock hit me.
“Inside,” I rasped.
His clothes were gone.
Kyros whirled away, giving me a glorious view of his ass. His shoulders heaved and he covered his mouth, snarls ripping from him.
“Bite me,” I said dreamily. “I don’t care. But you better fuck me without delay. And that’s an order.”
He approached the table, and I shimmied my ass down to the edge.
Kyros positioned himself at my entrance.
Gripping both of my hips, he pulled me onto his erection. My eyes rounded and my insides clenched in warning at the size of him.
The vampire didn’t stop sliding me toward him until I was situated all the way on his cock.
“Fucking perfect,” he said, nearly too rapidly to make out the words.
I’d never been filled so completely. I wanted so much all at once. Gathering the feeling, I shoved it at him as he drew his hips back.
His answering growl was terrible. He slammed into me and I saw fucking stars.
Holy fu—
Again.
I had no chance of matching his strength and speed, but my body knew I needed this more than breathing right now. My hips strained to meet his.
We found our rhythm.
I clutched onto his shoulders as he lifted me, his hips pumping below. My cries intertwined with his pained moans.
He couldn’t hold on much longer. And I had no illusion about just what he was holding onto.
Swallowing a scream as he adjusted to piston deeper, I kissed him gently and let my head fall to one side, my hair slithering across my back.
Snap.
I felt the restraint detonate within him. His fangs cut into my neck. This time, the uncomfortable sensation of blood being drawn only spurred me to greater heights, the small hurt catapulting me to animalistic.
He spun, shoving my back against a wall. I shoved at him, raking my nails down his arms as he drank.
Kyros yanked away and roared, my blood dripping from his mouth.
The wall behind me cracked and shattered and he ripped me away, lowering me to the carpeted floor. He tore at his wrist.
All I could focus on was him inside me. I needed more.
More.
He clamped his bleeding wrist over my mouth, and I swallowed the thick blood without thought, occupied entirely with chasing the hot bliss low in my stomach. Kyros tilted my hips forward so my back arched and slowly slid until his erection hovered at my entrance.
Kyros locked onto my gaze as he slammed all the way home.
My mouth rounded as I catapulted down a narrow tunnel, my being imploding to an impossible, tiny point. His roar echoed around me, through me. His blood dripped from my mouth. I rose higher.
Higher.
As the desperate fire of the thrall slammed into me, I came undone.
Undone.
24
I stretched in the bed and was stopped by a blanket cocoon of my own making. “Butterfly.”
Kicking, I managed to find a loose edge and throw the prison open. Cool air washed over me, and I sighed, stretching my arms above my head and eliciting a delicious shudder.
I sat bolt upright. “Fuck.”
“We did.”
Clutching my throat, I blew out an annoyed breath when I spotted Kyros on the round sofa. I inhaled, blinking as his man scent filled my senses. An earthy musk—patchouli? The warm aroma was punctuated by citrus, maybe lime.
“Did you just shower?” I asked, inhaling again.
His face was shadowed. “No. Your senses changed with the fourth exchange.”
Wait. “Is the thrall over?”
“It is.”
What the fuck? I had no memory of it. I searched my mind. None. “I blacked out? What happened? Was the sex that good?”
He shifted. “You were unconscious for the first day of our thrall.”
Really? “Was it the sex then?” For all I knew, it could be.
Kyros’s lips crooked. “Safina wondered if your state was due to the huge changes your body was undergoing. Regardless, my siblings thought it best to keep us separated again once you woke.” He paused. “You don’t remember the rest?”
“Nothing.” That freaked me out. Big time. What did I divulge?
I inhaled again, and this time screwed my face. “Yuck. What’s that smell—”
Half turning, I stared at the wall behind me.
No.
No!
Kyros’s amusement speared me, and I clambered off the bed. My head spun and I wobbled before sitting on the edge of the bed.
“The changes to your ears
will take the most to get used to,” the vampire murmured. “That’s where your balance system is contained.”
The dizziness died away, and I stood carefully, inching to view what could only be my artwork.
I’d painted the wall behind his bed fucking purple.
Not a soft hue that might have suited the grey and white tones of the room—a garish, primary-school purple. I hadn’t stopped there. Two stick figures were holding hands in the middle. There were little stick figures around them. And what could be a dog or cat.
There was a house in the background.
A sun.
Grass.
Flowers.
My cheeks burned. “I’ll fix it. I’m so sorry. Your sisters should have stopped me.”
Kyros approached me from behind. “No one tells a woman in thrall what to do. As long as she’s safe, she is allowed whatever her heart desires.”
“My heart currently desires that they’d stopped me.”
“They did stop you from cutting your hair.”
My jaw dropped as I spun to face him. I kept going sideways, the floor slanted.
Kyros gripped my arms, steadying me.
I didn’t wait for the dizziness to fade. “No way. Why was I doing that?”
“You’d just announced you were vegan.”
What— “You’re kidding.”
But he wasn’t.
Groaning, I let my head drop into my hands. Maybe I’d curl into a ball and die. “I can’t remember anything.”
Kyros forced my hands down. “You did my sister’s hair and make-up. Tried your best to start a charity. Safina was able to stop you from depositing over a billion dollars in the venture. She hid your phone after that. Which was a shame because I was enjoying the naked pictures.”
Heat flooded my face. I placed a hand on his chest. “Enough. No more.”
A lump rose up through my throat as I glanced down and saw I was dressed in one of his suits. The air-force blue one that Deirdre chucked out. Clearly she had the incentive to find it during the last three days.
“You’re upset,” Kyros said, sounding mystified.
I ignored that statement. “I don’t suppose any of my clothes are here?”
“Your Vissimo brought some. You put them in my bottom drawer.” His eyes tracked my careful movements across the room.
Of course I fucking did.
I moved right on in and detailed my plans for a house, family, and miscellaneous animal in a painting on the fucking wall.
Yanking open the bottom drawer and ignoring Kyros’s rampant bafflement, I pulled out black leggings and a loose off-the-shoulder long tee.
I wobbled to the bathroom like Bambi on skates. My toiletries were in the shower.
I love you, Laurel.
Turning the water to scalding, I grimaced at the thundering pour of the water as it hit the graphite. Reaching in, I pushed down the handle until the streaming water was halved, and my ears could handle the volume.
Shit. I really, really hoped that I didn’t blab anything to his sisters. If they knew something about my grandmother’s work, they would have already told their eldest brother though. I couldn’t sense anything but confusion and lingering amusement from his emotions. Not a trace of the oily throbbing associated with concealment lurked within him.
Relaxing somewhat, I shucked Kyros’s suit, draping it over a towel rack before inching my way under the jets. I yelped at the boiling contact, leaping back.
The floor slanted again and I fell heavily on my ass.
“Ouch,” I wheezed as the door crashed open.
Pulling my knees into my chest, I held my sopping hair away as I glared up at him.
“Why are you glaring at me?” he asked. “I didn’t make you fall.”
The vampire was playing with fire.
Crouching just outside the shower, he made no effort to touch me. Clever man.
“You weren’t kidding about the off-balance thing,” I grumbled, a definite bite in my voice.
Adoration. Amusement.
“Don’t laugh at me.” It might have sounded ferocious if my voice hadn’t caught.
“Let me help you,” he said softly, inching closer.
I hiccupped. “I’m n-not a monkey.”
The thrall was over, right?
Why did I feel so out of sorts?
“The sensitivity of your skin is heightened. Most vampires take cold showers. I didn’t think to warn you. This is new to me as well. I apologise.”
I stared at him. “I like hot showers though.”
Fully suited up, Kyros entered the shower and grabbed my body wash. I eyed him warily, knees still hugged to my chest.
He grabbed my arm and lathered the lemon myrtle blend onto my arms. I tensed at the current bouncing between us everywhere he touched. That’s new. The current was a step up from the itch of the third exchange. Not unpleasant. Warm. Almost vibrating. Focusing on anything else when he touched me was difficult.
Shaking my head in a failed attempt to shake my brains back into gear, I fixed my gaze on him. The vampire ignored me, foaming the wash and working up over my shoulders.
“In our culture,” Kyros started in a quiet voice, “the actions of females and males in thrall is not an embarrassment. It is looked upon with great fondness by Vissimo—more so because it is rare for two people to enter such an agreement in this age.”
My body rocked in rhythm to his ministrations and the deep melody of his words. His voice had levels I hadn’t noticed before, a velvety layer over the gravel that soothed and reassured.
My chest tightened. Kyros’s voice was beautiful. The vibrating current between us made me squirm and tense, but the timbre of his voice eased and relaxed.
He continued. “The thrall takes a male to his base animalistic nature. It takes a woman to the root of her character. Why are you embarrassed for my sisters to see that you are caring, assertive, and inventive?”
I didn’t answer immediately. “That’s not what it looks like to me. Those were the actions of someone who decided to dabble in ecstasy followed by cocaine.”
The conversation was becoming too personal. My scars were as rampant as the next person. Talking about the dislike I held for myself in moments like this wasn’t high on my to-do list.
I felt his intense focus.
“You have a glorious heart,” Kyros said, water dripping from strands of his toffee hair, “sharp intelligence, courage, and a husky laugh that echoes in my dreams. Your body drives me to insanity.”
The thing about feeling his emotions? I knew that he meant every word.
I fidgeted, not liking the new territory he was pushing us into. “What happened after we had sex?”
Sex didn’t seem an adequate term to describe the heights he’d taken me to.
“That wasn’t sex,” Kyros said, a growl beneath his voice. “That was perfection.”
Glad to know I met Vissimo standards. Seriously. I was nowhere near as strong or fast. Who knew what those women could do?
“Thank you…” I trailed off awkwardly and instead sent him my emotions of awe and remembered pleasure.
He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “We broke the office. Again.”
“I didn’t break it first time,” I murmured.
“Your phone call with the human triggered it.”
Ricky Pikar had been demoted to the human. “What kind of damage are we talking?”
“The table, inner and outer walls.”
I stopped his hands. “The outer wall?”
The wall protecting us from thin air and a sixty-six-storey high tumble to death? I remembered a cracking sound and moving to the carpet.
Fuck.
Kyros frowned. “Outer walls are inconvenient to fix.”
Me and my petty human death concerns. “Your siblings interrupted us, right?”
His throat worked. “Uh, yes.”
I didn’t want to know. “They separated us?”
I felt his affirmation.
Why was I worried about his siblings? Gasping, I rose to my knees, gripping his shoulders. “Your father.”
The warm water washed away the suds and he circled my hips, hands settling half on my back, half on my ass. “I’ve spoken to my father.”
“And?”
“I was able to convince him of the wisdom of the fourth exchange.”
“He was okay with it?” I wasn’t buying that.
His hands slipped lower and the current between us radiated outward from my belly. My toes curled.
Kyros eyed my closest nipple like a cat eyeing a mouse. “Not even close. He particularly disliked the part where I intended to call for permission but forgot because of the calling of my phallus.”
Phallus. Gross.
I had a feeling that was the least offensive thing King Julius said. “You’re downplaying things. A lot.”
A quick study of his emotions confirmed it.
“Tell me straight, are things okay? I don’t want any nasty surprises. He was pretty deathly adamant that the fourth exchange wasn’t happening.”
“There’s always room for negotiation, vixen. Last time he was angry at me, so I had to wait before showing my hand,” Kyros said. “He was calmer at the dinner last weekend, and I decided to make my move. However, though he agreed to the fourth exchange for security reasons, he does not anticipate further exchanges will occur.”
Right. Damn. “That’s a relief.”
Water pounded down on us, and my chest began to rise and fall as Kyros’s hands roamed. How was it possible that I wanted him more? I’d known this feeling was coming, but how did the want keep expanding? When he touched me, I felt so settled. Instantly calm. And then my body just wanted to fit itself around him—on him—and never leave. It was beginning to feel like—
“Possessiveness,” I whispered.
My nipple still held Kyros hypnotised. “Hmm?” he murmured.
The fourth exchange hadn’t been anywhere near the mercurial impersonal swap I’d imagined when forming my plan to secure the Indebted. I had feelings for Kyros that I suspected were no longer mindless infatuation.
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 30