Dark Needs at Night's Edge

29

"This is real," she murmured between kisses. "I'm really here."

"How?"

"I wanted to be with you like this so badly. And now I can." She placed his hand on her breast.

With a groan, he palmed one, then the other, his breaths growing ragged.

Néomi was aroused for him but overwhelmed, attracted yet anxious. His erection prodded against her hip, the wide head so hot and slick, seeming to scald her skin.

"Conrad." She wriggled her chest when he grew a fraction too rough. "A little lighter."

He froze. When he eased his grip, and she stilled, he said, "I can be gentle with you."

Releasing her, he softly rasped her nipple with the back of his fingernail, then dragged the pad of his finger over it. She moaned sharply when he did it again. "Better?"

She found herself nodding against his shoulder. Somehow the assassin was gentling his callused hands on her—such a contrast to his ruthless fighting tonight.

Back and forth came the rasp of his nail and the maddening drag of his finger, over and over, until her nipples ached so badly they pained her.

"Tell me—say you like it."

"Uh-hmm, I like it."

In a husky voice, he said, "I can feel them throbbing, koeri."

She moaned again, arching her back. He responded by leaning down, his hot mouth suckling her, those firm, cruel lips pulling on one peak, then the other. As he inched his hand up her leg, he began slowly grinding against her hip.

Nuzzling her damp nipple, he said, "Spread your legs, Néomi. I want to touch you inside... learn you." Even as she ached for his touch, she grew nervous. Though she wasn't a virgin, he could still accidentally hurt her.

He tugged on her knee with a wildly quaking hand.

"Part your thighs for me." After hesitating, she... did. "Ah, that's it. Let me see you there." With a last lick over one of her stiff nipples, he relinquished her breasts to sit up above her. When he stared at her between her legs, he exhaled in a rush, and his shaft jerked in his excitement.

This aroused her even more. As she reached her arm around him to smooth her hand over the glorious muscles of his back, he ran his forefinger along her sex.

She needed to kiss him, to lick his body, to get her legs wider for him—

His big finger entered her.

She squirmed and moaned from the filling sensation, as he delved deeper, inch by inch. When he could go no farther, she cried out.

He stilled. "Have I hurt you?"

"No, oh, God! N'arrête pas!"

He began thrusting his finger inside her, grating, "Tight. So tight." She'd never felt or imagined any man so hard, yet he took his time learning her body. But in the back of her mind, she wondered if his claiming her as fiercely as the others had predicted might be better than this seething need, barely contained—and building.

Slow build, she'd told him. But where did it end?

"Conrad, please... "

"Will you come like this?"

"Yes, and soon."

With his lips parted around ragged breaths, he watched his finger slipping in and out of her glistening sheath.

"Conrad, yes, yes... " she whimpered, seeming mindless with lust. She leaned up to lick his chest.

He was stunned by how slick she was getting for him, how hungrily her flesh milked his finger. "It's perfect," he bit out, his tone sounding awed even to him.

He'd never known a woman could become this abandoned.

Not just a woman. My woman.

Unfamiliar urges racked him. He had the strongest need to pin her to the bed, so she couldn't get away from him. He had the need to tell her how much she was pleasing him. He bent to murmur at her ear, but his words turned to an agonized hiss when she rocked her hips on his finger.

"Higher... with your thumb," she panted.

Groaning at how swollen her little clitoris had gotten, he circled it with his thumb.

She moaned, "Yes, Conrad... "

With the finger inside her, he could tell when her sex tensed, readying to come. He wanted to make her come, needed to so badly. Just from his fingers.

The idea of giving her his cock to glove like that made him wild, but he wanted to feel what it would be like when she orgasmed.

She was shuddering, quivering, so close. Then, with her nipples tight and pointing, she stiffened, her eyelids sliding shut on a wordless cry. Her legs fell open wide. It was everything he could do not to spill against her hip as she clenched his finger, coming wetly around it, again and again. Amazing... .

Now he was dying for her to do that around his shaft. As soon as the tension left her body, he knelt between her legs.

Her expression was partly dazed, but still hungry, and her hips undulated as if she ached for him to fill her sheath. Seeing her open to him like this...

He laid his hips to hers. Leaning over her on straightened arms, he thrust to enter her, but she rocked down at the same time. He yelled out when the head slipped along her damp folds. She went wild, head thrashing on the pillow.

Sweating, gritting his teeth for control, he tried again, but she rolled her hips once more. He gripped her hips to mount her, but pinning her to the mattress only made her arch her back, rubbing her stiff nipples against his chest.

"Still, koeri! Or I'll spill against you!"

"I don't care," she moaned.

"Are you... are you about to again?"

"Yes, yes!" When his cock slid up over her mound, she fisted the sheets, arching even more sharply, rubbing up against his shaft. "Conrad," she cried out, jerking beneath him. When her big breasts quivered...

To his shame, the throbbing pressure exploded against his will. "Ah, God, you're making me come!" With a yell to the ceiling, he ejaculated against her, pumping hard jets out onto her belly and breasts. He'd never known such ecstasy... grinding against her clitoris, he bucked uncontrollably as it continued on and on.

Once he'd finished at last, he buried his face in her hair. Staggered by the pleasure he'd just received, he breathed in her scent.

Then he realized what he'd done. He'd tried to claim his Bride, and instead had humiliated himself by losing his seed before he could even enter her. Tightening his jaw with frustration, he hammered his fist into the mattress.

Yet then... she was kissing him. Happily. "We have all night, mon trésor adoré. By the fifth or sixth time, I'll bet you can last as long as you please." She nipped his earlobe, then sucked him there before murmuring, "Get a towel, darling... ."

Reluctantly he rose and headed for the bathroom, feeling as if she might as well have sent him on a years-long hunt for the grail. That was how difficult it was for him to leave her. He still dreaded she'd disappear.

He couldn't imagine how she'd become embodied since the last time he'd seen her, and burned to know. The situation was enough to make anyone start doubting his sanity. Again.

He knew that just days ago she'd been... dead. Now, she was blooming with life.

Yet with all his memories, he'd certainly seen stranger things in the Lore, and he had time to discover her secret. For now all he wanted was another chance to get inside her—and another chance to make her climax again.

The tales he'd heard had always made pleasing a woman sound impossible, fantastical even. His shoulders back, he reminded himself that he might not have claimed her properly, but he had made her come more than once on his first try.

Recalling her abandon made blood surge to his groin. Though he'd spent his seed till his body felt emptied, his shaft was already hardening before he'd even gotten a wet towel.

Five or six times? At least, koeri.

But when he returned, she was already sound asleep. Her lips were parted delicately, her lashes thick on her pink cheeks. Her arm curled beside her head, the back of her hand against her ear.

Any disappointment at having to wait was dimmed by the thought of how exhausted she must be after a night like this. Recently embodied, attacked, and likely intoxicated. Her lips had been wine-reddened, her mouth sweet with it.

Leaning over her, towel in hand, he cleaned her skin with gentle strokes, marveling at how she was formed. She had a strong, lithe body. A dancer's body—that had responded to his touch as if it'd been trained to. Nothing had ever felt so right to him.

My Bride, he thought, his chest filled with pride. No vampire has a more beautiful one, he decided easily.

Once he'd wiped her off, he studied her at his leisure. On his hands and knees over her, he gazed down. He feared he'd soon grow obsessed with her breasts. How they quivered and how soft they were. How her nipples had budded as if demanding his mouth on them.

With a groan, he stroked himself, still surprised by the unfamiliar stiffness. But he vowed the next time he came it would be deep inside her body and to the sound of her cries... .

He'd always regretted not having sex at least once in his lifetime. Curiosity had plagued him—now it tormented. Taking her would be mind-blowing.

Yet he was still too new to sex to predict how he'd react. Mind-blowing. He didn't know if that would work out well for the insane vampire.

And how could he keep from hurting her little body when he did it? Tonight he'd felt her inside, had discovered how tight she was—there was no way he could fit into her without causing her pain.

He tried to push aside the doubts. Ignoring the ache in his shaft, he lay back and dragged her warm body to him. He exhaled with pleasure when she slid her smooth leg up over his knees and draped her arm over his chest—exactly as he'd imagined them sharing this bed.

He knew he would be unrelentingly aroused through the night, but he would savor it, relishing her touches, the way she was already squeezing his chest in sleep. All night he would get to enjoy the scent of her hair. He could feel her heart beating against him, and he eventually lost himself in the soothing rhythm... .

Near dawn, he shot upright in bed. Leaning over her side, he planted his hand across her body, caging her in protectively, eyes darting.

No one was there—just the wind.

She murmured in French and turned to him trustingly. His Bride was now so fragile, so... mortal. No longer was she invulnerable to harm. He would be endangering her just by keeping her with him.

The Woede now knew he had a weakness. They would be relentless trying to capture her. In their minds, she equaled Rydstrom's crown. Conrad would gladly give them the damned information if he could pull it up, but they'd never believe he wasn't simply withholding it—not until they were threatening her.

Before, Tarut's curse had constantly shadowed him—now it had become a thousand times more imperative to destroy the demon.

Conrad had been given his dream. Was some force out there even now seeking to take it from him? If he even remotely believed in the power of the curse, then how fair was it to stay with her? Or was the damage already done? If he deserted her now, then he could be leaving her vulnerable to attack... .

In any case, Conrad wouldn't consider her safe until he was in possession of Tarut's head.

Forcing himself to set her away, he traced downstairs. He knew a crude protection conjuring that would guard her at least while she was here. By the front doors, he dipped his fingertips in the crumbling plaster, using it as chalk to inscribe the ancient lettering. Once he felt confident no trespassers could enter their home, he returned to the bed.

Conrad would remain here only until sunrise. After that, he'd begin providing all the things she apparently lacked: food, clothes, women's things...

As he pulled her back into his arms, he thought back over the hectic night. In the past, Néomi had looked at Conrad like he was a hero and had called him a protector, even though she knew many of his sordid secrets. She'd told him she believed in him.

Tonight he hadn't disappointed her.

He'd never forget the absolute conviction in her eyes when she'd said, "Now I understand what you were." She'd been so sure of him that she'd already appeared proud.

But she didn't know of his secret fantasies of taking her neck in a frenzy.

I'm the worst threat to her.

Even in the midst of the mind-numbing pleasure she'd given him tonight, he'd experienced fear for her, for the dangerous things she made him feel.

If you care for her, you'll let her go now, his long-dead conscience whispered. And yet he found his arms squeezing her closer to him. Mine.