Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire 2)

His c**k swelled even more. “Bite me,” he ordered. He wanted her to have his blood. Wanted anything that would strengthen the ties between them.

Was it fair to her? Hell, no. But he wasn’t interested in fair. He was taking the one thing in this world that mattered to him.

“Bite me, Sabine,” he snarled.

But she was lost to the pleasure. He could see it. And his own cl**ax was so close. He caught the back of her head. Tilted her so that her mouth was right over his throat. She just needed to feel the pulse of his blood. Her vampire instincts would do the rest.

“You’re hungry, love,” he rasped. Her teeth scraped lightly over his flesh. “Let me give you what you need.”

He pushed into her. So slick. So tight. He drove down again, making sure to push his c**k over her cl*t before he sank balls-deep in her sex.

She gasped and her teeth bit into him.

Yes.

Pleasure erupted. No other word. Like a volcano, burning, blasting away everything else. Her mouth moved lightly on his neck. Lips. Tongue. Those teeth sinking into him . . .

His c**k jerked as he emptied into her core. The orgasm was the strongest one he’d ever had. And it went on and on and on, sending hard pulses of sensation—too intense to just be called pleasure—through him.

He held her tight. Held her as close as he could get. When her mouth finally pulled from his neck, when Sabine eased back to look up at him with dazed eyes, he knew he’d found the one person he’d been looking for all those long centuries.

Ryder also knew that he’d destroy anyone or anything that ever tried to take her from him.

Mine.

He didn’t know if Wyatt had done something with his experiments to force the intense connection that he felt with her. Maybe the mad scientist had linked them somehow.

Ryder didn’t care about how he’d come to be linked to her.

He pushed into Sabine. Saw her pupils widen.

He only cared that he had her. Beneath him. With him.

He had such plans for her. This was just the start for them.

He forced himself to release her because Ryder knew he held her too tight. His hands flattened on either side of her body, sinking into the mattress, and he pushed up so that he wouldn’t crush her.

Her gaze met his. She stared up at him with shock. “What did I . . . ?”

He didn’t speak. Just waited for the truth to sink in.

When a tear slid down her cheek, he felt like she’d just cut out his heart.

Been there, done that before. But this time, it hurt more than when his brother had shoved that heavy sword into his heart.

“Sabine.”

Her lips pressed together. Pleasure still had his body replete, but tension, fear—because of his worry for her—sent a chill through him. “It’s your nature.” If sex hadn’t made her bloodlust come out, nothing would have. “When you f**k . . .”

She flinched beneath him.

“You feed,” he finished quietly.

Her hands pushed against his chest. “You need to know that your after-sex pillow talk sucks.”

He blinked. “Uh . . .” He hadn’t exactly had to worry about pillow talk. He didn’t usually make conversation with the women he screwed.

She’s not a woman I screwed. She’s . . . Sabine.

“Let me go,” she whispered, blinking quickly. “I can’t—”

Footsteps were pounding up the staircase. He heard them, coming too fast, and rolled away from her.

She scrambled for her clothes, looking rumpled and sexy, and the last thing he wanted to do was leave her.

But a threat was coming.

He yanked on his jeans. Rushed for the door even as the wooden frame shook beneath the blow of a powerful fist.

Ryder yanked open the door. Grayson stared back at him. “Problem,” the other vampire snapped. His gaze cut to Ryder’s right. The floor creaked beneath Sabine’s footsteps. “Her brother didn’t show up at St. Mary’s Hospital.”

“Wh-what?” Sabine asked, pushing past Ryder. She was mussed, flushed, and smelled of sex.

Grayson’s nostrils widened. He licked his lips, and his gaze drifted over her.

Locking his back teeth, Ryder stepped forward and shoved his only friend back. “Where’s her brother?”

Grayson blinked and shook his head. The guy had always had too big of a weakness where the ladies were concerned. “The ambulance . . . it crashed. The driver was unconscious, the other EMT was shot.”

“Shot?” Sabine repeated, voice rising.

“There was no sign of the human at the scene.”

“It’s Genesis,” she whispered, her breath coming faster. “That woman . . . she told me they’d kill my brother. If I didn’t do what they wanted—” She tried to rush into the hallway.

Ryder grabbed her hand and pulled her right back to his side. “You don’t know it’s them.” Was she forgetting about that jerk Dante? And there were other enemies, enemies she didn’t even know about yet.

My enemies.

Enemies who would target her because they knew . . . I want her. His enemies had finally found his weakness, and they would use her if they had the chance.

“Let me go, Ryder,” she gritted as she tried to twist her hand out of his grasp.

When he didn’t let her go, Sabine’s skin began to warm beneath his touch.

Impossible.

Her eyes were still dark brown. Showing no flames. Only fear and fury.

“Where will you go?” he asked her, and Ryder damn well didn’t let her go. “To your parents? Will you rush to them and place them in danger, too?”

“Aren’t they already in danger?” Sabine whispered, voice tight with pain. “Because of me?”

They were. Humans were always too vulnerable. Too easily hurt. Too easily killed.

“I have to warn them,” she said as her shoulders straightened.

Fine. She could warn them. Then he’d get them out of the country until his battles were done.

Ryder nodded slowly. “I’m coming with you.” Because she could be walking straight into another trap.

He knew Grayson watched them far too closely. He turned toward his friend. “Find her brother.” Tracks were always left behind. When it came to following a blood trail, Grayson was second only to Ryder.

Grayson nodded. His gaze swept over Sabine once more. Friend or no friend, if his stare lingered much longer, he was going to get clawed.

But, wisely, Grayson turned and headed back down the stairs.

Sabine hesitated. “Will he find Rhett?”