by Dee Carney
“Please,” she moaned. “Inside. To your bed.”
His lips moved over hers. Insistent. “I won’t change your mind, will I?”
“Nope.” Said with a small shake of her head. She took a step back, immediately missing the warmth of his body and the shadow of his wings, which acted as a canopy for them both. Her clothes lay in tatters on the ground. “Life’s too short,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Live in the now.”
Sebastian followed her, dipping his head to kiss her over and over as she backed away from his amorous pursuit. It became a game of sorts. For every step she took, he stole a minute of blinding pleasure with a simple kiss.
“Are you sure you want me, Sebastian?” She kissed him hard. Another step took her over the threshold.
He growled low. “You have to ask?”
Her teasing had struck home. Licking her lips snapped his attention to her face, while at the same time Alice brushed a hand over the head of his cock. The grip tightened, sliding down his length before stroking up and over the head again. The vampire sucked in a breath, despite previously telling her they didn’t breathe, and she giggled.
She leaned toward him, her face coming so very close to his...before pivoting at a run and rushing toward his bedroom, perhaps the only room she hadn’t yet been in.
He let out a sound, a roar that should have been frightening but only fueled her amusement. And desire.
For a split second she wondered if he would stay behind, but the sounds coming from behind her gave him away. His tread seemed awkward, less sure than it had been only an hour earlier. A quick glance over her shoulder proved the wings unbalanced him. She would have gone to assist if she believed he’d accept the help.
Instead, she kept her eyes toward his bedroom, her steps seeming to take too long to complete. As she finally crossed its threshold, Alice pushed down the only material Sebastian had left on her body. There was an audible hiss from behind her as panties hit carpeted floor.
She turned to watch his approach. To revel in his masculinity.
The look on his face was of stark desire. He was striking and imposing. He’d managed to lift his wings from the floor, holding them aloft. She knew they weren’t the down-feathered type depicted on angels, but his wings were like the man. Formidable. Compelling.
A part of her wanted to explore his change more closely right now. To find its solution, if one was to be had. But whether they discovered the cause for this mutation now or an hour from now didn’t seem the difference between life and death. Still, she couldn’t help her indecision.
“Bast,” she called softly. “Are you...can you...”
He stood in the doorway, almost blocking all light coming in from behind. The result was an ethereal halo, surrounding him and highlighting the newly formed wings. “Yesterday, I didn’t have this.” His expression tightened as one wing ruffled. She could tell it took effort for him to control his new appendage. “By tomorrow I might be dead. Or I might be a god. No matter what’s intended for me, no universe could be so cruel as to deny me this time with you. Because neither of us knows what’s going to happen, I’m not going to waste another second on wondering. Afterward, yes. But not right now.”
Alice knew otherwise, but she bit her lip. The distant future for her was bleak, his merely uncertain. At this moment though, the immediate future seemed almost carved in stone. And she had to agree with him. They could either waste time or they could appreciate each other.
Decision held firmly in her mind, she waited for him to come to her.
With every step forward he took, she took another back. A waltz between partners who did not touch. Did not speak. Yet understood the rhythm of the dance.
Sebastian approached the bed, his face intensely serious. Alice held her breath, her heart swelling with so much emotion for him. She didn’t know this man fully yet, but what she did know made her ache with longing for him.
For once in her miserable life, something very good was on the cusp of dawning. Head tilted toward his, lips parted, she waited for his mouth to claim hers. Outside world, be damned.
Chapter Fifteen
He would never be able to get enough of her taste. His heart damn near did double-time every time he dipped his tongue into her mouth. And Christ, to feel the softness of her skin against his made his balls tighten with anticipation.
Bast wanted to touch her everywhere. To taste every little place. To find the secret spots that made her gasp or shudder. He wanted to come inside her. Mark her. Claim her. The worst of it was that he wanted to do all of these things at once.
Instead, Bast took his time. He caressed the shell of her ear, his fingers trailing down to the lobe. The pulse in her neck jumped delicately as he found its beat beneath slowly roaming fingertips. Alice turned into him, perhaps even unconsciously, as they kissed, giving him unspoken approval to learn her body. The faintest remnant from the last time he’d bitten her remained, and just the sight coaxed a low groan from him.
“You still wear my mark,” he murmured, lips brushing her goose-bumped skin.
She touched the bruise. “Yes, I feel it sometimes.”
Bast ran his hands over her shoulders, memorizing the curve. He brought his hands together at the dip in her lower neck, then slid further down. Alice inhaled deeply, her breasts and dark nipples rising to greet him. She gasped, a sweet, pretty sound, as his thumbs stroked over their tips. “Sensitive?” he asked.
Her smile rivaled the stars in its beauty. “There too.”
Alice opened her mouth, letting him delve inside as he teased those twin points. The sound she made was pure eroticism. Wrapping her arms around him, she stepped closer, their bodies molding together so well. Every one of her soft places pressed exquisitely where he was hard.
He could smell her body’s perfume, her readiness to be taken by him, but Bast refused to rush this. It would be near rapture to take her as she hovered on the edge of orgasm. In all his years of living, he knew this time with her would wash away the memory of his past.
His back still ached, the weight of his wings something he couldn’t forget. He’d almost been torn in his decision to focus on Alice instead of his change but in the end decided, what good would it have done him? It was only a matter of time before the Council discovered his affliction. At worst, they would destroy him; at best, shun him.
No...he would fight that good fight later. Just one hour was all he asked. Now, he wanted to lose himself with the human. His human. Alice.
He lowered her body to the bed as his lips traced over the heat of her skin. Bast inhaled deeply, taking in her rainwater scent as he came within millimeters of touching her. It was with slow, precise skill he didn’t allow himself to touch her, instead watching and finding extreme joy in hearing the hitches in her unsteady breathing.
She gave him silent encouragement, her fingers grazing over the skin of his face, stroking over a jaw that felt aflame from her touch. His eyes had become sensitive since his transformation, everything around him sun-brightened. With heightened vision, he watched the tremble in her hands, the way her throat bobbed as she swallowed. The way her nostrils flared as she tried to regulate her breathing. He caught every subtle change, every diminutive sign of her arousal.
Alice licked her lips, and Bast’s own thirst became evident. He said hoarsely, “What you do to me...”
He lowered his mouth to the tip of her breast, closing over the hardened nipple. She cried out as he tea
sed the point with his tongue, every taste of her a feast for his senses.
“Sebastian...” His name whispered from her lips was nothing short of worship. That wasn’t how it would be between them, though. He would give everything of himself to the woman who’d pulled him from the edge of madness time and time again.
He fit himself between the cradle of her thighs, so very, very tempted to push his cock deep inside her. To fill her until there was little doubt that he was part of her. Instead, Bast crossed to her other breast, loving it with the same force.
His fingers moved languidly over the curve of her belly, and he memorized the way she felt beneath fingertips sensitive to every part of her now. When he brushed the fine hair covering her mound, his dick hardened impossibly more. Even his new wings trembled with excitement.
The reminder of his change yanked him from a sexual haze. Bast clenched his jaw, fighting for control of his body. He tried to distract himself. “I would stop if you asked me, Alice. It would kill me but I would stop.”
She lifted her head and gifted him with a wry smile. “Stop, and I’ll be the one to kill you.”
Bast laughed, his heart no longer pounding in expectation of her refusal, but in jubilant freedom. Warm moisture greeted him when his fingers moved down a fraction, confirming that she indeed still wanted him. Alice’s legs parted wider, her hips tilting. She gave herself to him willingly, her body language encouraging his touch.
His wings folded behind him, finally tucking out of his way, and Bast dropped to the floor. From his kneeling position, the glistening folds of her pussy drew his attention. Nothing else in the room mattered but this woman and the pleasure he could bring her.
He leaned forward, his intent clear. The moment his mouth covered her lower lips, he let his eyelids flutter closed. Her taste was almost muted at first, warm and silken, but not nearly enough. Bast pushed his tongue into her body, lapping at the piquant tang.
His heart thudded loudly, almost as if it danced in his ears. He could have drowned beneath the sound if he weren’t so focused on tasting the most intimate part of her.
Above him, Alice didn’t seem to know whether she wanted to close her legs around his head or to widen them. Her body writhed beneath the way he kissed her, the rise and fall of her hips available to him only peripherally. No, what he focused on, what he wanted to study, was the way her belly undulated, the way the tips of her breasts peaked and then fell as she fought to breathe. The way her hands pushed into his hair, grasping his skull closer, made him growl low in his throat.
“Oh God!” Her whisper erupted into a cry and her cunt contracted wonderfully against his mouth.
She gasped for air and, with a wicked swell of pride, Bast decided to allow her the luxury. He lifted up, gaze taking in every erotic inch of her from his current position. “Sorry...am I not doing it right?” he asked. Knowing damn well he was.
“I’ve changed my mind. You’re going to kill me,” she complained. Her eyes were unfocused, her breathy statement almost unintelligible.
He ran his lips over the sensitive skin of her thighs. Alice twisted beneath his scorching touch, almost as if he branded her with his mouth, a moan spilling from her in approval.
“Would it be such a horrible way to die?”
Alice opened her arms, and Bast crawled toward her, his tongue skimming along the silky length of her stomach. When he reached her breasts, he placed a lingering kiss on each one before moving to the object of his intent.
“Not at all,” she whispered. Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer. Holding him as they kissed.
His lips touched down again and again, breathing in the scent of her all the while. Her taste. Her.
Pleasure rippled down his spine, spreading through his wings. He felt splendid. Languid. A sense of rightness almost overwhelming him.
He wondered if this is how it was meant to be between men and women. If soulless murderers like the warriors he’d chosen to become even knew feeling like this was possible. Of course women were there to be worshipped bodily, but surely not for this precise weaving that interlaced him with her. It went beyond lust and wanton need.
It humbled him how much he’d come to feel for Alice.
* * *
Her heart swelled for him. The man. The vampire. The mystery he’d become.
Bast had climbed into a soul driving on empty, lost in self-pity and without a future. She’d been living hour to hour, not even day to day. Without Richard to care for, she’d wondered if caring for herself was worth the time and effort. Yet something within must have known what was coming. It must have known there were men like Sebastian out in the real world. She only had to wait for just a little while longer. Take her pills just one more day. Do everything in her power to just be. Not to give in. And her reward would come in a package of brawn and beauty and strength.
And here he was. Kissing her. Touching her. Perhaps even caring for her.
It was too much. Too soon. What they were doing, this tentative introduction to a real relationship, made promises she’d never be able to keep. For her sanity and for his, she would have to maintain a distance. They could be lovers—would be—but no matter how close he tried to get to her, she would remember to take a deep breath and a step back.
Yet... The here and now. That was her mantra.
Sebastian’s hands slid down her breasts, stopping just long enough to send a spark of pleasure with a single flick of his thumb over nipples so tight they almost hurt. Her spine arched of its own volition, her hips rocking to hold him even closer. To lure him.
Her lips parted, ready to urge him to put her out of this misery of sensation zipping beneath her skin. She tightened her fingers on his strong forearms. Studied him from behind a dreamy gaze. “Yes.”
His lips curved into a mischievous grin. “I think I like you like this.” That decadent mouth brushed over hers then nuzzled her chin. “So wet. So...mine.”
“Oh?” Alice wasn’t so far gone that the arrogance of his words flew past her. “Who’s more ready?” she asked, hand sliding between them. She wrapped it around the spongy tip of his cock, gently squeezing as she did. As she expected, Sebastian’s hips involuntarily lowered, the rest of his body taut and on the verge of trembling.
His eyes went brilliant. Feral.
There was a sudden snap of his wings, a dark canopy spread wide to blanket their bodies. Hands that were devout in their exploration became possessive. Sharp sensation scraped over her breast, the tips of his fingers now honed to a fine edge. Alice almost looked down, the alteration to his anatomy not unnoticed, but Sebastian pushed one thigh higher, baring her wide open to him. He gripped beneath her hip, tilting her pelvis toward him.
The sudden scent of smoke saturated her senses, and Sebastian’s low growl sent a wild burst of exhilaration through her. Alice opened her mouth to question the change or maybe to talk down the primal compulsion, but the bittersweet push of his body into hers captured her words.
“My God,” she moaned, holding on to his shoulders. The bands of muscle became an anchor, keeping her from drowning beneath a torrential pleasure. Her eyes slipped closed as he filled her. Completed her.
Breath stuttered out of a chest rapidly rising and falling. Her heartbeat pounded wildly.
By the time he’d seated himself fully within her, every part of Alice’s body seemed hyperaware. His groin pressed against her clit, sending ecstasy bursting out of the sensitive nub. The tension hummi
ng beneath his muscles felt alive beneath her fingers. The heat of his gaze as Sebastian gazed down on her could set her aflame. And when he started to rock, the rhythmic push-pull of his body entering and leaving hers, Alice came undone.
Sebastian held her tightly as they fucked, his mouth raining kisses down on hers. She tasted the smoky-sweetness of his breath. He teased her with warm, sweet murmurings and a ravenous hunger that threatened to consume her. The contrast of sound, of sensation, of taste, of smells; it was both heaven and hell. A thing she craved.
A powerful rush filled her veins and Alice screamed as an orgasm buried her beneath its weight. Her body tightened, muscles locked and no longer under her control. It came out of nowhere, blinding her. Binding her to him. It spurred Sebastian, and he drove into her faster. Again and again.
“This is how I’ve needed you,” Sebastian murmured. His hot breath caressed her ear as he whispered. “Beneath me. Trembling. I belong here.”
“Yes!” she gasped, eyes rolling back. Lost. So lost to the way he felt inside her.
“You’ve saved me. Now, let me save you.”
“God, Sebastian...please...”
“This is how we were meant to be.”
“S—” His name almost slipped from her mouth again, but then there was a delicate stroke of his finger on her clit and the world brightened with luminescent starbursts. Alice’s back arched, her hips rolling. Chasing his touch.
She pulled him closer, tight nipples brushing against him. They were connected from chest to groin, his length blanketing her beneath warmth. Her fingers brushed against his wings, causing the rhythmic thrust of Sebastian’s body to falter briefly before he resumed again.