It was torture to drag his eyes back up to her face, but he wanted to see her face.
Her pupils were blown wide with desire, cheeks flushed, hair mussed.
His fingers curled around the sash, and her attention diverted to it.
Bastian grinned, feeling his fangs poke his lower lip. "Now would be a very good time to tell me to stop if you don’t want this." He waited.
She said nothing.
His grin turned wider. "Very well, pet."
He let the end of the sash flutter over Luella’s face, and she gasped as it tickled her cheeks and lashes, forcing her lids to close. He put his mouth to her ear.
"You remember being sightless? I know you enjoyed it. A part of you liked giving up everything to someone else. Keep your eyes closed," he warned, voice low, then placed the sash over her eyes. He carefully lifted her head, and she was boneless, letting him. He tied it under her skull, then placed her head back down on the mattress.
Bastian stared at her. "You are sinfully decadent."
He leaned down to take her lip between his own, letting his fang prick her giving flesh. Her blood filled his mouth—just a taste. She softened further.
He kissed down the line of her body, loving every hitch in her breath. He didn’t speak on purpose, wanting her to always guess where his lips would touch next.
When he shifted to lie between her legs, his shoulders between her inner thighs, he whispered, "All you have to do is tell me to stop and I will. Otherwise, I will keep going, and I will take what I want and make you love it, pet. When I’m done with you here, you’ll put your gown on and walk outside—you will enter the midst of the Fallen, all while you feel me between your thighs with every step. When you breathe, I want it to be in memory of how you gasped as I touched you"—his lips hovered over the soft spot under her navel—"and how you trembled as I tasted you."
Then, he descended upon her. He tasted her like she was the last living thing to ever grace the earth, and he was starving—dying.
Luella gasped and trembled. He knew she’d done this before, with the demon. He was slightly grateful, if jealous. For now, he did not have to ease her into it. He wanted her to leave wrecked, taken apart, and put back together again.
The taste of her arousal filled his mouth.
Her first climax was swift and shattering. Her thighs clenched around his head, and he kept kissing her, tasting her; he didn’t let up.
She clenched and trembled as he forced her from one peak, hurtling toward the next. When she teetered right at the precipice, he let his fangs drag over her flesh. Her gasp was loud. He moved until his lips were at her thigh, giving her time to tell him to stop.
Bastian bit down. Hard.
His fangs sank into her inner thigh, and she came undone from that alone. A wash of her blood filled his mouth, dripping from his lips too quickly for him to gulp down fully. He drank greedily and stopped when she shuddered lowly in exhaustion.
When Bastian pulled away from her and sat up, small droplets of blood fell from his lips.
The sash was still firmly around her eyes, and her legs were splayed. The dressing gown was parted wholly down the middle, baring every inch of her to him.
He touched the tip of her nose. She leaned into his touch like a flower seeking the sun’s warmth.
He kissed her, and she moaned. He knew she tasted herself on his lips.
"Do you now know how much I like you?" Bastian whispered, with a breath of space between them.
He let the words echo through her mind, chasing away the last bit of her worries.
Bastian tugged the sash down her face, until it rested around her neck like a loose, silken collar.
She blinked a few times as if to clear her vision. "Yes. I know." Her tone sounded dazed.
"Good. Then get dressed, or we’ll be late."
He stood, moving to the gown she’d dropped on the floor by the wardrobe. He sensed her utter confusion through their bond—he didn’t even need to go into her mind.
Bastian let her lie there for a few moments, then helped her dress gently, as if nothing had happened. They did have to hurry, after all.
