"Look at me," he commanded, and I lifted my gaze to his. His silver eyes were blazing, his face a mask of strained control. "I'm going to come down your throat. And you're going to swallow every drop. Understood?"
I nodded as best I could around his cock, and something in him snapped. His thrusts grew faster, harder, his grip on my hair tightening as he fucked my mouth with the same brutal efficiency he brought to everything else. I could barely breathe, could barely think, could onlytakeas he used me for his pleasure.
"Lizzie—" My name was a groan, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. His hips stuttered, and then he was coming, hot and thick and endless, spilling down my throat as I swallowed convulsively around him.
He pulled out slowly, carefully, and I gasped for air, my lips swollen and my throat raw. He sank onto the loveseat beside me, his chest heaving, his composure utterly shattered. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he reached over and untied my wrists, his fingers gentle as they worked the silk free. He brought my hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to each palm—soft, almost reverent.
"You're impossible," he said quietly. "You know that?"
I smiled, tired and sore and strangely content. "So I've been told."
He pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me, and I felt the tension slowly drain from his body. The pink cloak lay forgotten on the floor, a soft pool of velvet in the firelight.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted, his voice muffled against my hair. "I've spent centuries alone. Controlling everything. Letting no one close. And then you appear, with your pastel pillows and your stolen cloaks and your complete refusal to be afraid of me, and I—" He broke off, his arms tightening. "I don't know what to do with you."
"Just be with me," I said softly. "That's all I want. Not the vampire crime lord. Not the ancient, terrifying creature of the night. Justyou. The man who wears pink velvet because it smells like me."
He was silent for a long moment. Then, so quietly I almost missed it: "It does smell like you. That's why I kept it on."
My heart swelled. I pressed a kiss to his chest, right over where his heart would be if he had one that beat. "I know."
We stayed like that until the fire burned low and the cold seeped into our bones. Eventually, he helped me up, his hands gentle now, and retrieved the pink cloak from the floor. He draped it over his arm, then offered me his other hand.
"I'll walk you to your room," he said. "And tomorrow, we'll talk. Properly."
I took his hand. "Promise?"
He looked at me—really looked, his silver eyes soft and unguarded in a way I'd never seen before. "I promise."
He walked me to my door and pressed a kiss to my forehead—soft, chaste, devastating. Then he was gone, disappearing into the shadows with the pink cloak still draped over his arm.
I closed my door and leaned against it, my body aching, my heart pounding, my mind spinning with everything that had just happened. I'd wanted to break his control. Instead, he'd broken something in me—some wall I hadn't even known I'd built, some fear of being truly seen.
And somehow, impossibly, I felt more whole than I had in years.
I crawled into bed and pulled the blankets up to my chin. The manor was quiet around me, but I could feel them—Lucien, prowling the perimeter, his wolf senses probably picking up the scent of what I'd done with Darius. Azrael, in his library, sensing the shift in my emotions. Selene, in her workshop, probably laughing to herself at the chaos I'd unleashed.
I was surrounded by monsters. And I was falling for every single one of them.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I didn't have an answer. But as I drifted toward sleep, I realized I didn't particularly care.
Somewhere in the darkness of the manor, a vampire was holding a pink velvet cloak and thinking of me. And that, more than anything, felt like a victory.
