I forced away the thoughts, unwilling to follow them any further. That wasn’t going to happen to me. Ididhave a sire. One I trusted with my life.
With my heart.
“So I guess I have to call yousirenow,” I said, another laugh bubbling up as I turned to meet his eyes.
Darius flashed me a sexy smile, tracing his thumb across my bottom lip. “I wouldn’t refuse a nickname like that, if you insisted, of course.”
“You mean you like it better than D?”
“Hmm. That onehasgrown on me since our halcyon days in the Bay, but only because it’s from you.” He leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips that only left me wanting more. Apparently, it left him wanting more, too. The hot, hard press of his cock against my thigh told me everything I needed to know about that.
I shifted closer to him, as much as I could with the binds, the movement inspiring a low groan from my vampire.
“So what now,sire?” I teased.
Darius laughed again, his breath tickling my cheeks. His honey eyes sparkled with a thousand new facets, flecks of otherworldly colors and bottomless depths I was seeing with all new vision.
“Oh, little brawler,” he breathed, the length of him growing harder. “First my delivery girl, then my witch, and now my vampire… You reallyaregoing to be the death of me, in this form or the next.”
This form…
It hit me all over again—the magnitude of what we’d done. The magic of it. Sure, I was hungry, but I’d survived the change. I was a fuckingvampire. A bloodsucker. An immortal supernatural. A fearsome, apex predator.
I must’ve said all of that out loud, because Darius suddenly laughed and said, “Yes, all of those things and more. So much more.”
“Right,” I said. “So,howis it that I’m not freaking out right now?”
At this, Darius could only shrug. “Because you’reyou, love.” He kissed my eyebrow. “Completely baffling.” The tip of my nose. “Wholly unusual.” Then, just as softly as before, my lips. “An utter mystery, the likes of which none of us will ever fully solve.”
I rolled my eyes. “In other words, a total weirdo.”
“Yes,” he teased, his lips still dangerously close to my mouth. “But you’reourtotal weirdo, and that’s the important bit.”
I longed to touch his face, his hair, his lips. The tremor had returned, but this time it wasn’t a side effect of the change. It was a side effect of the sexy, dangerous, seductive vampire in my bed, and the fact that my desire to feel him inside of me had sparked to life once again, smoldering between my thighs.
Why are you next to me instead of on top of me, vampire?
“What is it love?” he asked softly, his voice holding a note of playfulness. He knew damn well what it was, and he was enjoying every minute of tormenting me.
“I feel… hot,” I said, my body already beginning to writhe under his intense gaze. “Under my skin. Inside me. Everywhere.”
“Is that so?” He ran his finger down the front of my T-shirt to the top edge of my underwear, sliding it back and forth beneath the lace, his touch kindling the embers inside me into a blaze.
“Darius,” I whispered, my eyes fluttering closed. “I’m dying.”
“And I’m not unsympathetic to your plight.” His fingers dipped lower, but not low enough. I arched closer, but he only pulled back, starting the whole torturous process again. He trailed those teasing fingers slowly down my T-shirt, back to the lace, sliding lazily down, down, down… then back out again.
Holy hell, bloodsucker.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I snapped.
“Mmm. I remember the first thirst of a newborn vampire,” he said, every word laced with seduction. “The need. Bone-deep, all-consuming, a blinding fire that rages unchecked. It’s not just the blood you burn for now, is it?”
I shook my head, my mind and body both unraveling. Vampire influence had no power over another vampire, but Darius’s words were having the same effect, winding me tighter, leaving me wet and aching for his mouth between my thighs.
“I cannot feed you,” he said, his voice a liquid whisper against my mouth, “but perhaps we might sate adifferentsort of hunger tonight.”
Four
