by Tracy Tappan
He nodded.
“Do you truly think more waiting is going to help us build a marriage? We’ve already been circling each other for eight long months.”
“Probably not.”
“I know you’re trying to be good to me, and I appreciate that, but can it be enough that I want to trust you? And that I’d like to try and have relations with you which are…uh, special.”
A smile concentrated in his eyes.
“I need you to show me how to be, hubby. Cuddling isn’t going to do that.”
His lips curled silkily. “Well, hell, now you’ve made it a challenge.” He took both of her hands in his, kissed the tops of each, then helped her stand and led her over to the bed.
She sat down on the mattress and scooted to the middle, leaning back on her elbows.
His eyes changed color, darkening and deepening. He prowled onto the bed, climbing up her body and nudged her knees apart, his pelvis coming to rest between her thighs.
The weight of his body stirred her aggression awake, like the mythological Echidna roused from her cave. That was her, half-woman, half-snake monster… No. She forced the portrait Thomal had drawn of her to her mind’s eye, and checked herself. This isn’t an act of domination. He isn’t trying to make you vulnerable. He’s trying to make love to you. She drew in a full breath and looped her arms around his neck. This is Thomal, not an enemy, but an artist down to his very soul. She lifted her mouth to his, and he took the invitation, his lips exploring hers with lazy heat, his tongue making a silky journey along the line of her mouth, coaxing her lips apart. His tongue crept inside, and she met it with an easy swirl.
Groaning, he shifted on top of her. He had a lob on again…if he’d ever lost it entirely. His fingers crept beneath her shirt—his shirt—grazing up the side of her ribcage on a route toward her breast. His hand found her flesh and encircled it. He slowly broke their kiss, his lips peeling centimeter by centimeter away from hers, as if he couldn’t bear to leave, but had been called away to other, compulsory endeavors. Pushing the shirt up to her collar bone, he ducked down to her nipple and sucked it into the moist well of his mouth, his lips fastening onto the erect berry with exquisite care.
Her blood slowed to a sluggish crawl through her veins, her heart wavering. It’d been so long since she’d been touched by a man, and never like this. He was being so damnably gentle—something she hadn’t expected after all that talk of being horny as shit and crushing a woman against him with tongues going hard and wet. Could a man be gentle while bonking? Thrusting dobber, pounding hips…doubtful. That offered a measure of comfort. She gripped his perfectly formed buttocks and pulled him tightly against her, encouraging him to enter her.
Air rushed out of his nose and mouth, but he resisted her impatience. Tugging the shirt all the way off, he flung it aside and found her other nipple, his tongue swirling and lapping around the erect point.
She moaned. The man had the softest tongue ever.
“Okay,” he whispered. “This was actually a very good idea.” He left her breast to move down her body, placing kisses along her flesh to her waist, as he’d done before. And again, he hesitated.
She snapped her teeth shut. For crying out loud, not more of his—
“No questions,” he said in a gravelly voice, unbuttoning her jean shorts. He pushed them down her legs, along with her knickers. “Whoa,” he breathed out, peering at her nethers. “You have hair now.”
“Part of my new persona.” She twisted her ankles to slip her clothes the rest of the way off, then edged her thighs open a little wider. “You approve?”
His eyes lit. “Baby, I’m about to show you how much.” He bent his head and placed a kiss on her small patch of curls.
Damnation! She slammed her legs together, one of her knees clonking his chin.
“Ouch!” He lurched back. “What the hell, Pändra?!”
“Bugger off from down there, Thomal.”
His eyebrows scrunched together. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. I just don’t go in for that.”
His brows changed positions, ascending high on his forehead. “Do you mean no guy has ever gone down on you before?”
What did he truly think? That using sex to violently blow off steam entailed her lying like a sacrifice before a man, her legs flopped wide while his mouth fiddled with parts best left to her own self?
He laughed throatily. “My badass, half-Rău wife, the cunnilingus virgin.” He swept a hand across his chest. “I feel honored to be the one to change that.”
She held her thighs firmly shut. “Not on your Nellie, mucker.”
He shook his head at her, the look on his face intractable. “Pändra, you’re my bonded mate. I have to scent and taste you, or I’ll go crazy. And I mean that literally.” He set his chin on her closed knees and gazed down on her, his eyes glinting blue flames. “I’m Vârcolac, honey, so, you know, I’m very orally inclined.”
“Oh, piss.” She scowled at him.
His lips spread into the kind of broad, fangy grin that highlighted his handsomeness to a near heart-stopping degree.
Her belly went all squidgey. Hells bells, the bugger knew he was irresistible when he did that.
“Nothing bad, I promise.” He coaxed her legs apart. “All good.” His attention fastened keenly on her nethers as he mattress-jogged out of his blue jeans, his knees pumping to fling his trousers off. Sprawling between her thighs again, he pressed his face into her nascent pubic hair, nuzzling the curly nest.
She cursed, her legs instinctively jerking.
Thomal shot back into a crouch. “Okay, listen up.” He pointed a finger at her. “No more shutting your legs on me, you hear? No matter what. As strong as you are, you’ll pop my skull like a rotten grapefruit. We solid on that?”
She made a face at him. “Away and shite.”
“If you don’t like something I’m doing, tell me, and I’ll stop. Give me your word.”
“I can’t believe what a chuffing arse you’re being.”
A bold smile curved his lips. “You smell extremely good, by the way.”
She reddened. “All right, for crying out loud. Do your stupid thing.”
He dropped down onto his belly and pushed his hands against her inner thighs, spreading her legs wider.
Her stomach balled. She latched her eyes onto the ceiling, as if the spot of chipped paint up there could keep her from killing her husband between the vise-grip of her thighs.
The tips of his fingers found the inside of one of her knees. He sketched a figure eight there, then trailed his touch along the flesh of her inner thigh to brush near her feminine core.
She held her breath.
A single finger glided up the side of her opening, over the hood covering her clitoris, then back down the other side. Back up he went to the area just above her clitoris, where—she expelled her held breath—he stayed. His finger made little circles around her clitoris, around and around, skimming over her tight bundle of nerve endings, over and over.
Broken gasps escaped from between the barrier of her teeth as her nethers filled with a carnal heat. She tingled and shivered; her belly quaked; her pelvis grew heavy.
Thomal inhaled deeply, as if testing the air for a scent. Grunting once, he dipped his head down, and her womb quickened as his tongue probed into her sex. He shoved his tongue deeper into her hole and groaned in what sounded like sheer rapture. She clenched her toes into the bedsheets as he lapped at her opening, murmuring, “You taste so good,” between strokes, the exquisite feeling sending her heart into a wild staccato beat against her ribs. His tongue smoothed in an extra-slow path all the way up to her clitoris, and the game changed again.
A large breath escaped her as a flush of ecstasy coursed through her body. Thomal pressed his tongue against that button and held it there for several long seconds, the soft, focused pressure chasing away any lingering tension. Her thighs fell wide and the clench melted from her toes. Her mouth slacked
open around erratic pants as he made small, sliding movements against her, all energy, feeling, friction concentrated on this most sensitive part of her. Frissons of electricity plunged down her legs.
He added a finger to her torment, tucking it inside her, easily sliding on her wetness. He moved it in and out, all the while his tongue softly rubbing. A sound of pleasure slipped out of her, raspy and awestruck. Her hips surged to meet his strokes. Tension returned, but in a good way, a bound-up, anticipatory pull in her womb. Her inner muscles tightened as her husband’s tongue and finger worked in concert, and between one second and the next, she was coming, her spine lifting, her sheath squeezing and throbbing. She hissed, gasped, moaned.
As the shocks left her body, Thomal sat back on his heels, his eyes black with lust, his dobber standing erect as a Beefeater guard from the middle of his crotch.
Was it even bigger now?
“Want more of that,” he growled. Taking his dobber in his fist, he moved between her thighs, positioned himself at her entrance, and pushed inside her.
A groan rolled up from the pit of her chest as she felt her flesh close around him.
Thomal let out some kind of animalistic snarl. No more niceties now. He pummeled her with his thrusts, deep, hard, fast, nothing eloquent or expert, but with a passion so raw and real that inside her she felt places open that had been closed her whole life. She’d expected comforting familiarity to come with his aggressive passion, but instead her breathing took on a frantic tenor. What if he was lulling her into a false sense of security? That’s what you do best, isn’t it? Leave? She couldn’t lose this…
A guttural rasp broke past Thomal’s lips, the noise sounding like it’d been wrenched from deep within his soul. “Jesus, yeah,” he ground out. “Yeah.” Rising above her, he entwined his fingers with hers and pressed her hands to either side of her head, locking eyes with her in an intimate hold. His velvet shaft was an unrelenting force inside her. His gaze never wavered. This isn’t me rejecting you, Pändra. The total opposite.
Her vision fuzzed as another orgasm slammed through her, these shockwaves stronger than the last. “Thomal,” she whispered.
His muscle-ridged chest and taut belly crushed her into the mattress as he came down on top of her for his final strokes. “So fucking good,” he panted softly into her ear, then sank his fingers into her hair, grabbing up fistfuls of it as he captured her lips in a rough, devouring kiss. He rooted himself firmly against her, his butt muscles clenching tight, his length pulsing rhythmically as he filled her with his seed…filled up all her empty, lonely places. His ragged moan of completion poured into her mouth, then he collapsed on top of her, her name tumbling from his lips.
Panting, she hugged him close, all hot, steamy skin.
He sprawled boneless on top of her, gasping and sweating, his heart hammering as if it meant to scarper off from the cage of his ribs.
She caressed her hands down the cool scales of Thomal’s dragon tattoo, petting his creature as she waited for him to regain himself.
Thomal muffled a chuckle against her sweat-dampened throat, then, “Wow.” He straight-armed himself above her, a strange smile spreading across his face as he singsonged, “Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, fucking this cutie pie. Stuck in his thumb, made the bitch cum, and said, ‘Hell of a lad am I!’”
She laughed, openmouthed and with a full lung of air. “What the devil?”
A larger smile bloomed in his eyes. “I told you I’d combat your need to kick my ass with dorky jokes.”
“That was a limerick, you gonk.”
“How about this, then?” He settled down on his elbows, his chest caressing her breasts. “Tomorrow morning we head into Ţărână’s family neighborhood and pick out our house. Oh, and those kids you want to have. I’m totally on board with making it happen. Whenever you want. Soon.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “For crying out loud, stop. I’m not feeling the need to lace into you. Truth is…” She made a show of snuggling beneath him. “I’m feeling rather contented and satiated.”
“Hmm.” He pulled out of her, then rolled to her side, propping his head on his hand. “It was my sexual prowess, wasn’t it?”
She chuckled. “Dare I shovel more fodder onto your ego?” She dashed a hand over his soft hair. “But, aye, I never knew sex could be so smashing.”
His expression was one of pure pleasure. “Me either.” He traced a finger along the flesh of her arm.
She smiled. “What you just said, about the house and the nippers? Let’s do that.”
Making a sound in his chest, Thomal rolled back on top of her.
“What’s this? Ready to go again?”
“Just need a tiny bite,” he said, lowering his face to her throat. The pointed tip of a fang traced the path of her carotid artery.
They made love and slept, made love and slept, all through the night. The early hours of stupid o’clock had just arrived by the time they were finishing with their fifth go-’round…and were interrupted by a fist pounding at the bedroom door.
Panting on top of her, Thomal’s head bolted up from her neck, his fangs still elongated. “Somebody’s about to get killed. Go away!” he shouted at the door.
“Thomal.” It was Breen. “This is important, man. I wouldn’t be here disturbing you if it wasn’t.”
He grumbled. “All right. One second.” He kissed Pändra on the nose as he slid out of her. “Sorry, baby.” He hopped out of bed and grabbed his blue jeans, tugging them on.
Wrapping herself in the bed sheet, she climbed off the mattress, too. “It’s okay, love. My vadge could use the rest, anyway.”
He glanced askance at her as he pulled on his T-shirt. “Nuh, uh.” He crossed the room, and she followed. “What’s going on?” he asked as he opened the door.
Breen, who already leaned right heavily toward Pure-bred pale, was white as a corpse. “It’s Tonĩ.”
At the mention of her sister’s name in that dire tone, Pändra lost all feeling in her limbs. She must’ve made some kind of horrified sound, too, because Thomal’s arm instantly came around her shoulders.
Breen looked at the two of them through the long sweep of his black bangs. “She went into labor soon after Pändra got out of surgery. We didn’t want to bother you with the news, because Luvera said you guys were, um… But there were complications with the delivery, so now you need to know.” Breen’s throat appeared to be struggling with a swallow. “Tonĩ almost died and she’s in critical condition.”
Chapter Forty-four
Nỵko set the glass pitcher in the Bruns’ kitchen sink and poured iced tea into it, sloshing most of the liquid over the high rim. Darn it. His hand was shaking as badly as if he was a one-hundred-thirty-year-old, palsied man whose main claim to fame was not messing his Depends after his morning pureed prunes. Him in the kitchen was proving to be the proverbial bull in a china shop—the very reason he was using the sink for this iced tea chore, instead of the counter. It was also why he’d left brewing hot coffee to Beth Costache, who’d gone home to her kids a while back.
He’d broken two glasses early in the morning when they’d all first holed up here: one, two, right in a row—crrrr-ash.
The startling noise hadn’t earned much more than a dull stare from the two other men, Dev and Shọn, who were here with Nỵko to sit vigil with Jaċken. Everyone was too shell-shocked and grief-stricken to do anything but act spacey. Dev still had blood on his jeans: Tonĩ’s or the baby’s? Who could tell, so much had just…come out of her.
Nỵko pinched his eyes closed, his stomach lurching sickeningly. Bracing his palms on the edge of the sink, he leaned heavily on his hands as memories of the scene in Ţărână’s hospital dropped on top of him like jagged rocks: Jaċken, wild with panic, rushing into the waiting room for help; Dr. Jess, frantic over Jaċken’s stillborn baby; the sight of Tonĩ on the delivery table, white as paste and nearly unconscious, looking like she’d been through the wringer.
Which she had.
No woman brought a child into this world easily, but giving birth to a Vârcolac baby was a unique chore. Instead of contractions, the laboring woman went through what could only be described as sonic blasts. These were earthquake-like, the pulsations rolling off the womb strong enough to break windows, knock nearby people off their feet, and topple bookshelves. So as soon as a momma-to-be went into labor, she was locked into a belly container on the delivery table to protect the surroundings and the doctor. The container restricted movement, so the uncomfortable momma was made even more uncomfortable, and worse, no pain meds could be given for such a thing as sonic blasts. She had to suffer through it. The single upside was that delivery time for Vârcolac babies clocked in at much less than what it would be for a regular human kid. Vârcolac were birthed in anywhere from four to six hours. The rare woman went eight.
Tonĩ had gone ten hours by the time Jaċken came rushing into the waiting room.
For some unknown reason, Tonĩ never switched from the sonic phase into pushing mode. Her womb just kept blasting away, propelling Tonĩ toward a state of exhausted death. Dr. Jess finally decided to break protocol and have Tonĩ push even while she was blasting.
That’s when Nỵko, Dev, and Shọn had been called in from the waiting room and tasked with holding mattresses around Tonĩ in order to protect the hospital machinery and Dr. Jess. Nỵko had been the one to brace the mattress behind the doctor, stumbling and grunting as Jess got slammed back into the mattress again and again… Until finally, Jess had managed to extract the baby, limp, blue, and silent. Following that was more bad. Tonĩ’s final sonic blast catapulted the afterbirth out of her body along with a bucket’s worth of blood, which hit the floor and splatted all over Dev. Then she coded.
Paddles! Doc Jess had yelled, then sharply commanded the rest of them to Go! the last thing any of them hearing was Clear!
Jaċken lost it.
Stumbling out to the waiting room, a long, moaning growl rumbled out of him as he started to make the ugly shift into Rău.
Goosebumps raised along Nỵko’s flesh. If Jaċken changed to his beast side, with such stark emotions ruling him, there was no telling if he’d ever make it back out. “Jaċken!” Nỵko leapt forward and grabbed his brother. “Stop! I need you to stay focused—for Tonĩ!”