Archangel's Shadows

Eyes slumberous, Ash ran her nails over the skin of his lower back. “I give you permission.”

He froze, the bloodthirsty creature inside him caught between lunging at the chance and fear it had imagined her words. “It’s not nice to play with a desperate man.”

A sinful, intimate laugh. “Just a taste,” she whispered, lips curved and body hot against his own as she rose on her toes to fit herself against his straining erection. “Just enough to drive you crazy.”

“It’ll be torture,” he accused, battling not to shove her to the floor or the wall and drive his cock into the tight, wet clasp of her body. “I fucking can’t wait.”

Dipping his head to her intoxicating smile, his pulse pounding so hard it was a roar in his ears, he licked over the point where her own pulse raced beneath her skin. He wouldn’t rush this, wouldn’t devour. He had to sip her like the rare vintage that she was, a vintage that was his own private reserve.

One hand splayed on her ass, the other tangled in her hair, he held her to him and sucked on the spot in her neck that made his fangs prick into his lower lip, the craving near unbearable. Ash made a very feminine sound and undulated against him. His mouth watered, his brain threatening to short-circuit.

Nipping at her, but not enough to break the skin, he asked again to make certain she was with him. “Yes?” It came out a growl, the hunger pounding in his veins.

“Yes.”

He sank his fangs into her flesh, felt her jerk against him, but there was no hiss of pain, nothing but her pulse rocketing out of control. Even vampires who couldn’t give pleasure with their bite had the ability to dull the pain of entry. Some, of course, liked to make it hurt, and some donors enjoyed the sharp edge of pain. Janvier wasn’t about to hurt his Ashblade; he’d pumped in the pleasure-giving drug his body naturally produced before he fed.

Not much, just a touch. He wanted her addicted to him, not to his bite.

Then it became impossible to think. The taste of her went to his head, the feral bloodlust inside him shuddering in a pleasure so intense, it threatened to send him to his knees. He wanted to stretch out naked on top of her in a lush, comfortable bed, to sip over an hour, tasting and kissing his lover as he stroked his cock slowly in and out of her.

He wanted to drink and drink.

Breaking contact before the greed stole his mind, made him a glutton, he licked over the marks, ensuring they’d heal just slowly enough that others would know she was his. Aroused all over again by the thought, he licked once more, his veins hot and heavy, his head buzzing. “You are a drug.”

Her buttocks clenched under his hold, her breath a rasp. “Jesus, you’re potent.”

Realizing he’d brought her to the edge of orgasm, he licked over the marks again. “I should let you suffer as I’ll suffer.” Despite his threat, he shifted their bodies so that his thigh was in between hers.

Urging her to ride his thigh and cursing their clothing, he sank his fangs into her one more time. He made sure it didn’t hurt, but didn’t pump in the pleasure-giving compound.

Her back arched at the dual wave of sensation, her cry shattered silver in the air.

Retracting his fangs before he could take more than she’d offered, he licked again and again at the wound as he rocked her against his thigh. Her nails dug into his nape, and it made the feral thing in him bare its teeth in bone-deep pleasure. The bloodthirsty beast was holding on by its claws, but that was all right. It could be patient now that she was in his arms. It could pretend to be rational for a while longer.

Going limp as the last ripples of ecstasy squeezed her dry, Ash turned her head into his neck . . . and kissed his own pulse, her arms tight around him. If he hadn’t already given himself to her, he would have at that instant. Holding her close, he drowned in her scent, in her warmth, in her.

•   •   •

Ashwini had thought about sex before—it kind of tended to dominate the mind at times when you weren’t having any, especially when a certain sex-on-legs Cajun kept flirting with you. But the one thing she’d never really considered was how it’d feel to be held . . . held with such fierce devotion that she could feel it in her bones.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.” Walking backward and taking her with him in a quiet display of strength, he tumbled them onto the bed. And then he tightened his embrace, thrust one of his thighs between her own, and locked his body around hers.

Tucking her head under his chin, she drew in the scent of him, the warmth of him, and felt things in her snap and break and knew she’d never again be the same. “I don’t think I’m so tough after all, Janvier. I don’t know if I can go any further.” The sex she could’ve handled, but the way he held her, it destroyed, threatening to make her break the promise she’d asked of him.

Janvier’s hand curved over her nape. “I could hold you for eternity.”

Closing her eyes on that bittersweet vow, Ashwini just lay wrapped in him, and when sleep came, she went into it warmer and safer than she’d ever been. Yet the darkness lapped at the edges of her mind, showing her things she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see. A vampire with skin a shade darker than her own and vivid black eyes, his razored black goatee paired with hair braided tight to his skull, used a whip on the white, white skin of a woman who screamed, welts rising over her breasts and her stomach.