Sharp.
Deep.
Irrevocable.
CHAPTER 9
The first hot rush of Melena’s blood over his tongue slammed into him like a freight train. Warm, rich, potent. And laced with the sweetest trace of caramel and dark, ripe cherries—her Breedmate blood scent, a fragrance that had tempted him from the moment he’d first encountered it. Now that scent would call him as surely as a divining rod seeking a spring of cool, pure water.
He would feel her in his blood, everything she experienced most intensely would now echo in his veins. Her joy, her sorrow, her fears. Her hungers. Melena owned him now.
The bond he’d just activated inside him was unbreakable. She had been a distraction to his mind, will, and body before; now she would be his lifelong addiction.
And although better than a thousand years’ of logic strove to persuade him that Melena’s blood was a shackle he shouldn’t want and damned well didn’t need, the part of him that was purely male, elementally Breed, roared with the one word Lazaro never thought he would utter again: Mine.
He had known this feeling before. But what he had with Melena now was all the more intense for how desperately he’d tried to resist it. He groaned with possessive pleasure, knocked off his axis with a force that staggered him.
Amazed him.
Holy hell, it humbled him.
He drank more, starving for her. Twenty years of feeding from human blood Hosts went up in flames as he drew greedily from Melena’s tender vein. Her blood surged into his body, nourishing his cells as it wrapped silken bonds around his soul.
She was his. Even if his mind and will were reluctant to accept that fact, his body knew it with a ferocity he could hardly contain now. And where his desire for her had been consuming nearly from the moment he first laid eyes on her two nights ago, now it was a raging inferno that demanded its own satisfaction.
He wanted her savagely.
Needed her with a fury that left him shaking.
He realized in that moment that it wasn’t only the blood bond that lashed her to him. Melena would have owned him even if he hadn’t given in to his thirst for her tonight.
As unwelcome as that thought was—as unnerving as he found it, to think that she had obliterated his long-standing, iron resolve—it was a truth Lazaro could not deny.
And right now, he could not get enough of her.
* * * *
Oh, God, she was lost to this man.
She’d never known what it would be like to have a Breed male drink from her. Like so much where he was concerned, Melena hadn’t been prepared.
With her head dropped back and Lazaro suckling with long, hard tugs at her carotid, she dissolved into a state of pure, boneless bliss. She held him as he drank from her, cushioning his big body as he thrust against her where they stood.
Her veins were on fire. The core of her had gone molten as well. Each demanding pull at her throat sent arrows of pleasure and need shooting through every cell of her being.
When Lazaro suddenly stopped suckling her and swept his tongue over the wounds he’d made, Melena groaned in protest. “I need you na**d now,” he muttered thickly against her throat. “I can’t wait much longer.”
Neither could she. “Yes,” she gasped, her hands still clutching at him as he began to sink down before her into a crouch. He made quick work of her slacks and panties, baring her to him with the clothing pooled at her feet. On a low growl, he moved in and kissed each hipbone, then descended farther, burying his face between her thighs. “Oh, God...”
His tongue cleaved her folds, hot and wet and hungry. In long, knee-weakening strokes, he lapped and suckled, then kissed and nipped, wringing a moan from her as he drew her cl*t into his mouth and teased it toward a frenzy. She felt his teeth graze her sensitive flesh, felt the sharp tips of his fangs getting larger as he feasted on her with ruthless abandon.
She was quivering with hard need, on the verge of orgasm already, as he slowly kissed his way back up her body. With a deep, rolling growl, he stripped off her sweater and bra, then tossed them aside to gaze on her nakedness with burning amber eyes. Her blood stained his sensual lips a duskier hue, making his diamond-white fangs stand out in stark contrast.
He had never looked more dangerous or inhuman...nor more preternaturally beautiful.
“Lazaro,” she sighed, her voice feathery, as unsteady as her legs. That sigh became a moan as he lavished her br**sts and ni**les with his hands and mouth, tongue and teeth.
He muttered her name in a fevered, animal-like rasp that sent her blood surging with even greater pleasure and arousal. He needed her now, as much as she needed him. On a curse he released her nipple and drew back to shuck his pants and shirt. He stood before her like an otherworldly god.
Magnificent. Terrifying. And hers.
Melena reached down between their bodies to grasp the jutting length of his cock. His shaft more than filled her hand, thick and warm and pulsing with strength. He purred deep in the back of his throat as she stroked him, then seized her mouth in a wild kiss. She could taste herself on his tongue, her blood and juices an erotic sweetness that only made her burn even more for him. She stroked him harder, craved him with a desperate ache that demanded to be filled.
“I can feel your need in your blood, Melena,” he rasped against her lips. “It’s alive in me now. So f**king intense. Everything you feel this strongly, I will feel too.” He flexed his hips, his shaft surging even more powerfully within the tight circle of her fingers. “I need to be inside you. Put me there.”
She obeyed, guiding him into the slick cleft of her body. He drove home on a savage groan, the fierce thrust making her cry out in pleasure. He gave her more, slamming in hard and urgently, his lack of restraint sending her own control spiraling away. She clawed at him as he f**ked her against the wall, orgasm roaring up on her in a shocking wave of sensation.