Beautiful Eternity (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 3)

by Alicia Deters

I dove in head first lacing my tongue with his. He felt the urgency in this kiss as I tugged at his shirt and yanked on his belt. He pulled back.

  “Lucy, you have no idea what kind of effort it takes to hold myself back from devouring every inch of your skin.” He trailed a hand up my side. “But it’s not just for our own safety. It’s for everyone else’s.”

  “Gavin. You won’t hurt anyone. I won’t let you. You can take that anger out on me. I can handle you.” I said it with a wink. “In fact, fighting is kind of my thing. It would be like foreplay after the act, so I guess it would be more like post-play. Either way, it would just turn into one endless cycle of fun times. If anything, I bet I can wear you out so much you’d be too drained to want to keep fighting.”

  Both eyebrows shot up. He cleared his throat, and I considered that the closest thing to making him blush, which was a huge victory for me after all the times he did the same to me.

  “And what about you?” he asked “You’re going to want blood afterwards.”

  I remembered the first time he made me, um, happy and how I spent hours in the cooler afterward draining the entire blood supply. That was then, though.

  “I won’t give in to it.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  He made a half hearted attempt to be sure I was ready. This had nothing to do with caution or the safety of others anymore. He’s already demonstrated how ready he was in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Because I used to not understand the cravings or how I would react to them. I always expected to become the monster.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I know me. I thought I was actually capable of murder then, but I never went through with it. I’m not the monster. Never was. And you’ve always been there to help me see that.”

  A funny expression crossed his face as he appraised me. “Lucy, I’ve always known you were good, and I have been waiting a long time for the moment you finally realized that.”

  He came closer, gripping my thighs and hoisting me up onto the dresser. My butt planted hard, but then his hands came to cradle my face. He leaned down to my level, looking me squarely in the eyes. “You are so fucking amazing, Lucille. I love you so much.”

  “Then, give me one of those human experiences you always wanted me to have.”

  “Lucy, nothing I do with you could ever be considered possible in the realm of human capabilities.” His eyes smoldered with unbridled desire, and I knew whatever happened next, he wasn’t going to stop.

  “I love you,” I breathed before my mouth crashed into his.

  His heat fueled kisses slowed to a smoldering burn as he pulled back to look into my eyes. My fingers worked through each button on his dress shirt swiftly, and he shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor. His hand smoothed over my ribs to my back. My bra was the next thing to hit the carpet with a deafening thud in the overt silence.

  The urge to cover myself faded as his appreciative gaze took in all of me. “Lucy,” he breathed reverently. “You are the most beautiful sight I’ve ever beheld.”

  Wrapping his arms around me, he pressed our chests together as he lifted me off the dresser and laid me across the center of the bed. With his eyes trained on mine the whole time, he carefully removed my shoes like they were made of glass. His hands worked the jeans down my legs, peeling them off.

  Deciding to be an active participant, I sat up with my legs hanging off the edge of the bed, brushing against his shins. Keeping eye contact, my hands found the button on his pants and worked it open, sliding the zipper down. I stood up, keeping my hands under his pants. Tracing the waistband of his black boxer briefs until my palms were at his hips, I coaxed his pants down, and they complied readily, anchored by the weight of his belt. He stepped out of them and kicked them aside.

  His warm hands found the edge of my boyshorts, and I felt his fingers burrow under the elastic band, gliding down my sides and around to my ass. He lifted me up to my tiptoes and kissed me thoroughly, while maintaining a handful of soft flesh. His tongue worked mine as his hands slid down, bringing my underwear with them. I shimmied with him to work them to the floor.

  When he pulled back to admire his handiwork, I resisted another urge to cover myself, but instead decided to level the playing field. I smiled evilly before hooking my fingers under his boxer briefs and yanked them down.

  If I thought a partially naked Gavin was something I could never prepare for, then a fully naked Gavin was life altering. He took advantage of my stunned gawking to pick me up and throw me back on the bed. I was well aware of his lustful gaze raking over every inch of me, but I was too distracted by my own visual exploration to be embarrassed.

  I couldn’t detect an ounce of fat, and every muscle was sculpted to Michelangelo statue standards. His body was the Holy Grail of the male physique. Women everywhere quested after its perfection. I felt lucky just to be in the vicinity of its magnificence.

  His eyes smiled along with his mouth. “I’m the one who feels lucky, Lucy.”

  Then, that body was on top of mine, and I could feel his bare skin pressed against mine. It tingled everywhere our bodies met. He kissed me deeply as he dragged me up to the top of the bed, gently settling me with my head on the fluffiest pillow it’s ever touched. He broke the kiss, squeezing his eyes shut against the darker parts of himself. I opened myself up to him, showing him nothing but my deep, unconditional love for him.

  When his lids cracked open, I saw the blackness receding from the whitened center. Shoving those dark clouds out of the way, he showed me the same love he had for me.

  “Lucy, are you sure? If we go any farther, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop. Tell me now if you don’t want to do this.”

  “What part of ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m ready’ didn’t you understand, Mr. West?”

  In a bold move, I flipped on to of him and planted my hands on his chest. Bending down, I trailed kisses from his navel up to his heart. I had been dying to get my mouth on those damned abs ever since the first glimpse of them teased me. And they did not disappoint. They contracted, pinching tightly together at first contact.

  He sucked in an unsteady breath, exhaling the sound of my name. This kind of power over him could go straight to a girl’s head, and I made a note to myself that I’d definitely be wielding it more in the future.

  His abs relaxed and flattened over his next breath, but he didn’t give me a chance to continue my oral journey of the Holy Grail. Flipping the script on me this time around, he rolled me onto my back and hovered over me.

  “What am I going to do with you, my stubborn as hell woman?”

  “Make love to me, my bossy as hell man.”

  He laughed once, and that was it.

  The next thing I felt was an intense pressure and sharp pain that made me gasp. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say it was… well, who was I kidding? This didn’t even register on my tolerance scale. With each new breath, came new sensations, and the pain was eventually replaced by pleasure.

  His body glided over mine, and our faces were so close together that our noses met at the tips with each movement. Our lips barely touched, only catching and dragging against each other in a near kiss, just enough to tempt and tease me with the thought of the real thing. We were so close, his exhale became my inhale as we breathed each other in.

  I closed my eyes with anticipation, and he knew exactly what I wanted. The light brush of his relaxed lips became a hard, insistent kiss that deepened as I took him into me. Our breathing became so heavy that my mouth broke the kiss unwillingly over a breathy moan. He answered with a deep, throaty groan that resembled an animalistic growl.

  This set fire to every cell in my body, and I felt my own inner animal clawing its way out from the carefully locked cage I kept it, deep down inside, probably in the same dark place where my soul was hiding.

  Any self doubt or self esteem issues I’ve ever had in my life slowly melted away, and I gave in to my feral nature. My body arched towar
d his, begging and screaming for more. He responded, driving forward, and I pushed back ferociously, aching for the intense pleasure he offered.

  As our breathing and bodies became more insistent against each other, I felt a light sweat breaking out, causing his skin to feel slightly sticky under my touch. My hands, which were grasping his wide, hard-muscled back began to curl with each sensation, and I felt my fingertips slide over the slick skin, searching for purchase but unable to find it. He sought the same thing, squeezing my thigh while pulling my leg up closer to his body. His other arm was wedged underneath my arched back.

  “Lucy,” he breathed reverently.

  I looked up into his eyes, and that’s when they hit me. I was so wrapped up in the physical pleasure, I hadn’t noticed the love, and the care, and the affection he conveyed. But these were all things I felt for him, so I could no longer tell if they were my feelings or his. But it didn’t matter, because in that moment, it truly felt like we became one soul.

  If I lost him, I really would be soulless. Without love, I would become a misguided weapon, no better than the monsters I faced night after night. It gave me something to fight for, to protect and cherish. He gave me that and so much more. He gave me life.

  We spent the whole night showing each other our love, and many hours later, I made good on my promise to wear him out. He slept soundly by my side, and even with the extra sleep I’ve gotten recently, I drifted off with him.

  †

  I was only out for about four hours, according to my phone. It was ten in the morning. I stretched my stiff muscles and waited for something to happen. After last night, I fully expected our beasts to be released, wreaking havoc on this sleepy Italian town.

  I waited… and waited, but my craving for blood was about the same as usual. I felt completely satisfied, until I turned to look at Gavin’s sleeping form beside me.

  A wholly new but equally dark craving took root, more powerful than any other. The beast in me growled and shifted targets, its goal something much more satisfying. How had my physical body been sustained for so long without this feeling, this feeling that now seemed as necessary for survival as water is to a fish?

  Like a fish out of water, I sought out my reason for being. Rolling over, closer to Gavin, I traced a fingertip up the hard planes of his well sculpted back.

  His eyes snapped opened on alert, an overly sensitized survival instinct, but when they collided with mine, the heat in them burned straight through everything else, hitting my heart like a sledgehammer. The act of love was so much more potent than any blood, so much more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined. It filled any cracks inside and softened my hardened parts, making blood a secondary need for survival.

  Several more hours later, we lay facing each other. He played with strands of my hair as I memorized the fine lines in his forehead and around his mouth, barely visible under the light stubble of his five ‘o clock shadow. Each fleck of blue crystal gleamed with his affection. I leaned over to plant a kiss on those plush lips.

  He smiled wider in response.

  “See. Nothing to worry about,” I pointed out.

  He laughed. “Yeah, except we’re going to be losing days at a time, because I’m never going to get enough of you after knowing what I do now.”

  “What do you know now?”

  “That the level of feelings you brought into my life are a hell of a lot stronger, and I’ll never be able to function normally without them.”

  He basically voiced what I had thought last night. Or was it this morning? What time was it?

  I rolled over to grab my phone and noticed I had sixteen texts from my friends, all wondering where I was. I told them we’d come up with our strategy today, and I was letting them down already. I sucked.

  “What’s wrong?” Gavin asked.

  “I promised them a plan.”

  “Hey, we will come up with one. Don’t worry. We’ll figure—”

  He was cut off by his generic default ringtone blaring on his nightstand. He reached over to silence it but cursed. “I have to take this.”

  He glanced over his shoulder with an apology on his lips.

  “Don’t. It’s okay. Just answer it.”

  He did, but it was in German. I found the foreign language sounded even better when he was in bed. Naked.

  I hovered over the arm that rested across his stomach and leaned down to press a sultry kiss against his peck. My elbow braced my weight as the other hand gripped his side, running up and down his oblique. He cleared his throat, and that free hand shot to my hip to squeeze it punishingly. I bit down on his chest, hard.

  The sound of his hard voice running a mile a minute in German only fueled my defiance. I brought my mouth to his neck and sucked, leaving a hickey that reddened his skin and disappeared in three seconds.

  He switched the call to speaker and set the phone on the nightstand.

  Oh, crap.

  I tried running, but it was too late. He caught me around my waist and tossed me backward. I landed sprawled out on my back, and he didn’t waste any time in capturing me by the wrists. He bent low to growl in my ear.

  “You’ll pay for that.”

  “I’m sure I’ll enjoy my punishment as much as you will,” I whispered.

  “Probably more.” His next words were louder and in German. A second later, the phone beeped with the ending of the call, and he was smiling wickedly.

  Dropping his head, he began an exploration of my skin. No. Not an exploration. A direct path down my chest, through the middle valley of my less toned abs, and lower he went, until I nearly choked over my sharp inhalation. My breath sputtered out of me like I was a car running out of gas on the highway.

  “Gavin,” I panted. My toes curled under and my hands fisted, balling up the sheets. I bit my lip, but my chest still heaved up and down with heavy breaths I didn’t need for the oxygen.

  “Gavin. I’m going… I… Oh, God, Gavin.”

  The most incredible sparks lit me up like fireworks from head to toe, fireworks that were still very new to me, but were becoming my life force.

  When the light show fizzled out, I drifted back down to earth and realized Gavin was looking up with a smug grin plastered across his mouth and awe lighting his eyes.

  I placed a hand on my heated face and dragged it through my disheveled waves, waiting on my heart to slow its pace. “I love you so much,” I rasped.

  He crawled up to rest by my side. “Love you too, gorgeous. That might have been the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ll have to repeat it all the time.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled broadly. “You’ll get no arguments from me.”

  “You mean there is something you won’t argue me on?”

  “Shut up.”

  He bent to plant a sweet kiss on my lips then straightened before getting out of bed to search for fresh clothes. I admired the view while he opted for dark jeans and a button down topped with a black sweater.

  Dipping into his bag again, he pulled out a black, long-sleeved thermal and tossed it to me. I laughed but reached over the side of the bed for my bra, hooking it quickly and shoving the thermal on over my head. I sat up and leaned against the headboard. A clean pair of black boyshorts flew toward me next, and I made light work of them.

  Satisfied with my state of dress, Gavin turned to me with business on his face. “That was Jakob on the phone. He’s—”

  “—The Helen of Germany. I remember.”

  “Right.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know yet. I need to call him back. Something’s up, but he’s afraid to come out and say it.”

  His phone was already lifted to his ear, and I heard ringing on the other end. I waited patiently for him to finish the call and translate it to me, but by the deepening frown, I could tell halfway through the conversation that it wasn’t good news.

  He ended the call and his helpless gaze met mine.

  “How bad is it?”

&n
bsp; “Bad. He just informed me that we lost a couple more members in the Munich area. He is dealing with rising numbers of vampires in Berlin right now and can’t aid the others. Apparently, they have assassins terrorizing their headquarters.”

  I sucked in a breath. “You have to go.”

  “I know, but Lucy, I really don’t want to leave you, and you need to stay with the others.”

  “I think I can handle myself quite well, thank you.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I don’t like the idea of us splitting up.”

  “Me either, but they need you there more than we do. We’ll be fine here. Go.”

  With a little more wavering and a whole lot of reluctance, I finally got him to agree to leave. He headed into the bathroom and returned with his toiletry bag. He tossed it into his small bag and came over to lean over the edge of the bed, giving me a sweet kiss.

  A rush of fear washed over me, and I couldn’t help the thought of never seeing him again from popping in my head. The poisonous fear clawed at my heart, and I began panicking over his sudden departure.

  I searched the room for something. Finally, I fished one of my boots off the floor and began unlacing it. As he explained he wouldn’t stay in Germany long, he eyed me peculiarly, but finished telling me his plans.

  “I’m just going to assure the Munich team everything will be fine, and I need to appoint someone capable to take over leadership for a while. I’ll check all their defenses, and fortify the weaknesses. Somehow, the assassins were able to slip through. I should only be gone three days max.”

  When he finished, he eyed me again and curiosity got the best of him. “What are you doing, Lucy?”

  I straightened from my task to peer into those icy depths. “If I asked you to do something for me, would you promise to do it without question?”

  “Probably not. Usually, when you ask me something it ends up putting you in danger.”

  “What if I assured you it wouldn’t harm me, first?”

  “Then, I would promise you anything you wanted.”

  I smiled. “Good.” It wasn’t a complete lie, maybe a half truth at the worst, but this would probably prove to be the most important part of my plan. I knew it in my gut that it would be.