Bite Me: A Vampire Anthology

by Cain, Addison

  “You are breathtaking,” he whispered, and she just stared at him. Not afraid, but… cautious. There was something timorous inside her, and he was sure he looked as feral as he felt. She didn’t know about his self-control, the strength it took to hold himself back as she floated on the pleasure he’d created.

  “You remind me of…”

  “What?” he prompted when she trailed off in that soft voice.

  “A dream,” she whispered, her brow furrowing as she looked up at him. He couldn’t help but chuckle, and the humor helped push the beast back a little further.

  “You think you dreamed of me?”

  The wrinkle in her forehead didn’t go away, and she looked serious as she reached up and stroked her hand across his cheek, thumb trailing over his lips. It was a more intimate touch than he’d ever allowed even before his prison, but from her it felt wonderful. He leaned into her hand, hummed his satisfaction as she repeated the pass of her thumb just below his lip.

  “What is it, plehara? What did you dream?”

  “There were so many men…” she mumbled, and he almost sighed. Not a great start. “Chains, a stone table, and a stone monster. But it wasn’t really stone, it was alive.”

  Monster.

  It hurt to hear that word on her delicate lips, but he tried to understand. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the beast inside, the one that fought for him when he needed it, had destroyed villages for him when he was starving. It was the other half of himself, the pure vampire half, the piece unable to fully merge with the human part. A strange part, a foreign part, yes… but still a part of him. Steeling himself, he turned and placed a kiss against the flickering pulse at her wrist. “And what did you think of the monster in your dream?”

  “I was afraid,” she whispered.

  “And are you afraid now?”

  Grace looked up at him, her eyes narrowing slightly as she focused, her hand still warm against his cheek… then her other hand came up. With a gentle touch, she pulled him down until his lips met hers, and he couldn’t bite back the moan that buzzed out as her tongue parted the seam of his lips and delved inside.

  Brave vixen.

  She pricked her tongue on his teeth as she explored, and the intoxicating taste of her blood almost burned him. His sanity held on by a thread, fingers digging tears in the sheet at her sides as she continued to kiss him. Merciless, unaware of the danger, which meant he had to pull back. Now. Right now.

  But then her legs closed around his hips, her heels touching the backs of his thighs, and he couldn’t bear the thought of not feeling her skin against his. Their bodies met, sweat-slicked skin sealing them together as his cock nudged at her core, and the wicked girl actually rolled her hips.

  Growling, he pulled back, forcing himself to breathe, wishing he had wine to wash the taste of her off his tongue. She tugged on him and he snapped, “Don’t.”

  There was the fear, just the slightest hint of it, changing the scent of her. Still, Grace touched his cheek again, stroking across his cheekbone, just below where his eyes were clenched tight. “What is it?” she asked, and he almost laughed.

  A harsh sound escaped him as his muscles trembled, fighting against himself. “You are… damn tempting.”

  “Was it you?” she asked, and that drew his eyes open. Damnation. She was flushed pink and her lips were pouty, her hair a chaotic halo around her head on the dark gray sheets. Utterly perfect, and all he wanted to do was sink his teeth into her at the same time he drove his cock inside her.

  “What?” he asked, unable to focus as the thump of the pulse just under her jaw taunted him.

  So hungry.

  “Was it you? In the statue,” she whispered, and he both loved and hated the scent of fear on her skin. Two halves of himself merged into one body, but he had to answer — couldn’t ignore the question, couldn’t avoid the answer.

  “Yes.” The word came out on a harsh breath, and he wasn’t sure if he’d pin her down and take her… or let her up… if she rejected him.

  “It was real?” There was surprise in her voice, and an edge of panic, and he didn’t know what to tell her. Comforting mortals had never exactly been in his repertoire even when he’d been one, but he found he wanted to comfort her. Wanted to erase the lines of worry on her brow, wanted to bring back the shivering, moaning mess she’d been but a few moments before.

  “Yes,” he whispered, forcing his eyes to stay open, to watch the confusing mix of emotions as they flitted over her expression, her pretty blue eyes flicking back and forth between his. If he wanted, he could reach in, read those rapid thoughts, listen to the chaos, but it was always muddled, confusing. Only easy to catch when someone was focused, intent… and Grace was definitely not that.

  “You freed me,” he reminded her, feeling a strange constriction in his chest as he waited for her judgment. Her hate. Her disgusted rebuke.

  Instead, she slid her hand down his cheek and rolled her thumb over his lips, pressing just a bit over one of his elongated canines. “You haven’t bitten me.”

  “No,” he said on a bitter laugh. “But I need to. Soon.”

  “Why?” she asked, and he tightened his grip on the shredded fabric under his palms.

  “Because I don’t want to lose control with you, plehara. You’re too precious to me… but I’m hungry.” His eyes drifted to her neck and he swallowed through a sandpaper throat as he forced them back to her gaze. “Very hungry, and to make you mine I must.”

  Was he asking her permission?

  So many new things. A whole world of new things, of modern miracles, scientific advancements, and marvels of engineering — and the only thing he cared about was her. He could take her, could make her want it, want him. Could make her come as he fed on her just like he had at the coffee shop… but it would be… wrong? Was that possible?

  The bond of a plehara was destined, impossible to deny, but somehow he knew he’d keep the beast at bay if she denied him. With his sanity fraying at the edges, and her core so dangerously close to the tip of his cock, he felt his body shudder… and hold.

  “Grace,” he croaked, finding her eyes so she could hear him. “Please.”

  After a moment, she dropped her hand from his cheek, and he prepared to launch himself away from her, to run, but then she bared her throat to him, brushed her hair away and closed her eyes tight.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  There was so much fear, it added a sharp tang to her scent that at almost any other time he would have reveled in, but he didn’t want it here — not now. Steeling himself, he rocked against her and pressed a kiss to her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth just as a gasp left her lips.

  So sensitive, she bucked, lifted her hips, and he reached between them to line up his cock. Every inch of him throbbed from neglect, but as he eased the first inch inside her it was a whole new level of need. He released her nipple from his mouth so he could avoid the urge to bite. Saliva pooled under his tongue, a haze blurring his vision until he shook his head and focused on her.

  Grace. Plehara. His perfect match.

  Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her.

  Nic repeated the mantra as he thrust, entering her halfway, and he couldn’t help but smile when she let out a loud, breathy moan. Grace was more than he deserved, more than he could have tried to dream even if he’d tried. When he twitched his hips, teasing, her hands found his back and she dug in her nails, dragging them in stinging stripes as she pulled him closer — wanting him. It was decadent, almost delusionally good as he pulled back and thrust deeper.

  Then, with one upward flick of her hips, he was seated inside her completely, balls resting against her ass, and the way her body squeezed him made him growl.

  “Nic,” she whispered, fingers weaving into his hair, tugging him closer, and he clenched his teeth as she pulled him to her bared throat. He’d spent an entire day toying with her, treating her like a plaything, an end goal… but she was so much more. />
  She was his destiny, and she was offering a vein.

  “Grace,” he managed to force her name through clenched teeth, and she wrapped her legs behind his ass and bucked under him.

  Tantalizing little nymph.

  She was playing with things she didn’t even understand, but as his mouth watered and the flicker of her pulse sounded like a heady drumbeat in his ears… he couldn’t hold back.

  “Thank you,” he whispered just before he cupped the back of her head, poured in all the pleasure he found in her, and bit down. That first pierce of her skin was sinfully sweet, the rush of her into his mouth was devastating, and he lost himself to the riotous whirlwind of Grace flooding his tongue.

  Chapter 9

  Grace

  She’d prepared for pain. Even with his cock buried inside her, stretching her perfectly… she’d expected pain. Instead, she’d orgasmed.

  The world had inverted, because with his next thrust she’d felt the thrust from two directions. There was the absolutely perfect friction of him driving deep inside her, stretching her, filling her — and the slick, hot grip of her body around his cock. If anything was destined to break her mind, it was that, but instead of going insane, she’d had the most explosive orgasm of her entire life. Every nerve ending turned to vibrant light, her eyes had rolled into the black, and everything had faded from existence for a moment only to roar back with pure bliss. Utter ecstasy as she cried out his name, held on, and tried to ride the suffocating waves that rocked her with each new thrust.

  This… whatever this was… it was dangerous as fuck — addictive and a potential heart attack rolled into one.

  That dreamy haze filled in the gaps of her awareness, narrowing down to the feel of his body against hers. Warm and powerful, hard muscle moving in perfect sync with each snap of his hips, and some part of her was aware of his lips sealed to her skin. Still, there was no pain, just another crushing wave of pleasure. Even as her head swam and the world tilted, he continued to thrust, building her to a new height.

  This wasn’t a nightmare — this was her best fantasy on steroids.

  If Nic really was the stone monster, then he was one complicated vampire. Not that she knew that many vampires, or any actually, but there was more to him than the smooth talker in the suit and the terrifying monster she’d thought had tried to kill her in her dream. He was probably somewhere in between, but most importantly he’d given her a choice. He’d said please, even though she could feel the way he’d struggled to hold himself back.

  That had made the decision easy, and this would make the decision even easier the next time.

  Every brutal thrust was so fucking good that she didn’t care about the way it made her hips ache, didn’t care about how it felt like he was stretching her further, driving deeper, because with each new pain came a new flood of pleasure.

  And, occasionally, there would be a new heady rush and then for a flash she’d feel what he felt at the same time she experienced it herself. A thrust became a multifaceted array of luminous ecstasy, a tilt of her hips magnified and expanded until she was coming again. Shattering into light and breathy cries as she held on, took the next slam of his hips with a whine and a gasped plea for him to wait, and for more — always more. Greedy, greedy Grace.

  After another two or five of those mind-blowing orgasms, she gasped, and everything stuttered. Flickered. Nic pulled up, his lip marred by her blood, and the sight of it made her dizzy. The realities of fucking a vampire… her friends would never believe her.

  Just as the world dipped again, he kissed her, and she tasted copper and something more. A layer over it that was like swallowing fire, drinking sunlight, breathing in air after a century under water. It was powerful, it was life, and she kissed him back to seek more.

  A sharp twinge between her thighs had her whining into the kiss as he eased back, and thrust hard again, but this time the pain disappeared. Replaced by that eerie feeling of her body wrapped around his cock, squeezing tight. Then there was a blinding shot of ecstasy racing down her spine, suffusing her bones, melting them and her into suffocating bliss. The world went white, and she heard Nic shout before everything became too perfect… and then went black.

  * * *

  “Grace.”

  Her name floated somewhere above her, and she reached for it, missed, sank under again. But Nic wasn’t taking that. He kissed her and she tasted fire and light and joy just before she gasped against his mouth and woke.

  She opened her eyes to the sparkling lights glittering around the bed. Everything seemed to glow, and when she finally managed to focus on Nic’s smiling face, she couldn’t help but grin. “Your eyes are brown.”

  A neat arch of his eyebrow appeared just before he grinned down at her, shifting his hips between her thighs, and she felt the pleasurable ache.

  “Just now noticed?”

  “They looked black before,” she mumbled, distracted by the intricate pattern of the fabric on the curtains — so many tiny threads weaving in and out, in and out, in and out.

  “Grace,” Nic said on a laugh, turning her chin back toward him. “You okay?”

  “I feel… good? Maybe?” It was hard to describe. She felt like she might laugh but was also so easily distracted, she wondered if that childhood ADHD was kicking back in with some kind of post-multi-orgasmic-high. “Possibly fantastic.”

  “That’s… good,” he finished, still looking down at her like he was vaguely concerned. “You passed out for a minute there.”

  “I wonder why,” she joked, finally letting that laugh out, and as her body squeezed, she looked down between to find— holy fuck. “You’re huge.”

  Nicomachus was grinning like the fucking devil when she finally managed to tear her eyes from the thick shaft that was still inside her with inches to spare. He leaned down and pressed a crimson-stained kiss to her lips. “You seemed to like it.”

  “It won’t even fit,” she argued, wiggling, but he stopped her with a low groan as he grabbed onto her hip.

  “It did before, but you were prepared for it, and I still had to heal you.” Leaning closer, he nipped her lip and then sucked it into his mouth. When he let go, the sting in her lip was gone. She was going to ask about that, but a more important question sprang to mind.

  “Wait, those men… you needed them to do that? To prepare me? To get free?” Grace almost immediately regretted the question, because the expression on his face was terrifying as he pulled out of her. It stung a bit, but she didn’t dare make a peep as he sat up between her thighs and then shifted to sit on the bed. Lots of gorgeous muscle on display, but she limited her ogling considering he looked like he might rip someone’s spine out.

  “Yes… I did. The ritual needed you to be stimulated, open to me, to need me enough to call out for me.” He stared at the wall of his bedroom, and she sat up, ignoring the aches. “I am sorry for that. You deserved better.”

  Frowning, she tried to remember the hazy snippets of the dream-that-was-not-a-dream. It was pornographic, but from everything she remembered the only pain she’d felt had been when he had eventually fucked her. In monster form.

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “What?” he snapped, turning on her, and her eyes went wide. Muttering under his breath in a language she didn’t know, he turned away for a moment and then looked at her again, looking slightly less murder-y. “You liked that?” he asked, but there was still judgment in his tone.

  Leaning back on her hands, she shrugged. “And if I did?”

  “Well, then I’m glad I slaughtered all of them so you can’t request a repeat.”

  If she thought her eyes had gone wide before, that was nothing to the saucers they’d become with that comment. “You… what? Slaughtered?”

  It was Nic’s turn to shrug. “I may have needed them to fuck you to help lift the curse on me, so that you’d accept me… but they still touched you. Unforgiveable.”

  “So, you’re not into sharing?” she asked, a
nd then burst into laughter when he rounded on her like he might start shouting. “It was a joke, Nic!”

  “By the darkness, your sharp tongue is going to kill me,” he grumbled before dramatically falling back on the bed, his arm over his eyes.

  Crawling over, she shoved his arm out of the way and leaned over him. “You know that you can’t just kill people, right? No matter what you are.”

  “Vampire,” he reminded her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t give you some free pass to go all monster. I like this Nic,” she said as she poked him in his very firm chest. “You don’t need to be scary.”

  “You like me?” he asked, grinning, and she sighed.

  “A bit. Or I’m starting to. Orgasms can win a girl over,” she said, and when he pouted, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “My point is, I’ll give you a chance with this stuff, but only if you promise not to go on a murderous rampage and anger the villagers.”

  “I’ve only gone on one ‘murderous rampage’ since I awoke, and it was because they touched you,” he retorted, and she laughed.

  “I don’t think it’s even been twenty-four hours, so I don’t think that earns you any points.”

  Nicomachus actually huffed, and she rolled her eyes again.

  “Listen, I said I’d give this a chance. Did you hear that part?” Just as she finished speaking, he was suddenly on top of her, and she was on her back on the bed, too fast to do more than gasp air into her lungs. “You’re going to give me whiplash. I’m breakable.”

  “You won’t be for long, plehara.” Nic was grinning, leaning down to brush a chaste kiss across her lips. “I fed you some of my blood, and it’s already working to heal you.”

  “You did what?” She tried to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her, his hands catching hers and pinning them to the bed at her side.

  “You liked it, and it helped.” A subtle shrug lifted one of his shoulders. “I would have given you more, but I want that to be your choice.”