Page 77 of Roses & Ruin

But I’ve stopped listening. Because a hot, deep pleasure is beginning to radiate, rippling throughout my body from the point of Hayden’s fang marks.

“Oh my god,” I breathe, grasping for Hayden to get closer, wriggling my hips desperately. “What is that?”

Hayden’s eyes fall heavy. His fingers dig into the bedspread, and I think I hear a ripping sound.

“Our saliva has some kind of…chemical.” Hayden licks his fangs, staring at my body, my bleeding breast. “Floods your brain and blood with endorphins. Dopamine.” He lowers himself so his face hovers over my heaving chest, looking drugged. “In short? Floods you with pleasure. Lots of it.”

“Yeah, I…” I pant, shaking with unbearable need. “I can confirm.” Hayden’s tongue hovers agonizingly over the drops of blood on my breast. I grit my teeth. “C’mon. Don’t you want to taste me?”

With a hoarse moan, Hayden breaks. He drops his mouth to me, lapping hungrily at the tiny offering of my blood. At the first drag of his tongue, that sweet, tight wire inside of me spins violently tighter. It happens so quick and sudden, I nearly snap on the spot.

“Hayden,” I say, sounding desperate, breathy. “Hayden, what do I taste like?”

“My favorite things.” His voice is in tatters. He sounds mindless, like he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. “You taste like Vanilla Coke. You taste like the first time I saw the stars. You taste like the feeling of you…squeezing me.”

Immediately, I grab his firm, polished-stone biceps, and I squeeze with all my might. Hayden pulls back, letting out a dark chuckle. One of his hands grabs my hip.

“No,” he grates out. “Not there.” And then Hayden pulls me against him, rolling his hips firmly into me. My mouth drops open when I feel him press against the apex of my thighs. “There.”

Oh. Oh my god.

“I want to do that,” I rush out, frantically squirming against him. I’m actually panicking at how much I want it—the corners of my eyes are pricking with tears. “Show me how? Teach me how to…” I squeeze my eyes shut, my sweat-damp cheeks flaming.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Hayden’s eyes are black in a way I’ve never seen, roving every inch of my body. I have never felt so vulnerable, spread out beneath him, completely bare. I have never felt so okay being vulnerable, so safe. I lie there on the ripped corset and mangled dress, chest heaving, gazing up at him in wonder, letting him take me in.

The look Hayden is giving me, full of a reverent awe, a terrifying, barely tethered hunger, makes me want to rub my thighs together.

So I do.

Hayden’s hands land high on my bare thighs. His thumbs tuck into the crease of my leg.

“I always want to do this. For two centuries that hasn’t changed.” He drops his mouth beside his thumb, kissing me. I clap a hand over my eyes, my face on fire. I’ve never had someone so…close to down there. “Used to stare at you in public,” Hayden continues, the tips of his fangs grazing my inner thigh. “I’d imagine pulling you into every place I went. In closets, the rectory. In the pantry of the tavern, the townsfolk on the other side of the closed door.

“I imagined tugging you in there, ripping your dress in half, sinking to my knees and…” Hayden presses his mouth right at the center of me.

And then he gives me four kisses in a row. Four slow, deep, hot kisses with tongue, down there.

Every muscle in my body is hit with lightning and goes rigid. A deep, ungodly noise rips out of me as I bury my hands in Hayden’s hair and twist hard. A million steel cables snap inside me like dominoes, one right after the other, each one a miniature firework, one explosion after another, over and over.

The euphoria is so overwhelming, I collapse against the bed and white out.

When I come to, I open my eyes to find Hayden watching me from between my legs, panting, grinning hard, his expression a mix between deep reverence, self-satisfaction, and the most overwhelming desire I have ever seen.

My hands are still in his enormously messy hair. I have the odd thought that it’s strange to see him panting so hard when there’s not one drop of perspiration on his forehead. He’s perfectly dry.

Wait. Except for— I get a second look at his face.

I immediately blush so hard, I swear to god my cheeks steam. Hayden’s eyes glitter like he can read my mind, and he gives me the hottest smirk. The smugness radiates from him in waves as he slowly wipes his chin and mouth, licking his lips.

“That,” he says in a ruined voice, “that is exactly what I have wanted to do with you in every room I have ever been in.”

“What’s stopping you?” My words slur a little, like I’m drunk. Hayden climbs up my body so his mouth can brush my ear.

“Nothing,” he whispers. “Absolutely nothing.”

So swift and sudden I’m dizzy again, arousal shoots through me. My hands go to his belt and fly, and surprisingly fast for a human, I have his pants undone.

“Rose…I…” But Hayden’s breathing so hard, looking so desperate, his protests are falling weak.