Ascend (The Vampire Destiny Series Book #4) (16 page)

His lilting voice continued. "As I dug my way through filth and through partially sealed passageways, I only thought of returning to you.  Amir's presence had severed the bond and I could not sense you.  I have grown so accustomed to feeling your presence that once it was gone, I almost went mad.  The pain I felt...I would gladly endure years of torture other than face that kind of suffering again.  My chest felt as if my heart had been ripped from inside, leaving an emptiness that could have brought me to my knees if it was not for the knowledge you were likely in comparable pain.  I had to find you to make us both whole."

My eyes burned with unshed tears.  I vividly remembered the pain of our severed bond, the terrifying worry of his fate as if it was yesterday.  It was impossible for us to be separated. The tie between us was that strong, tethering our hearts together.

"One complete being," I mused bitterly.

"Yes.  What is it you say?  It is a blessing and a curse?"  Stefan caught my chin in his hand, tilting my head back to look into my eyes. The conviction shining in his eyes was powerful.  "To have this connection, this feeling is a blessing.  Du är mitt liv, min anledning att leva."

Before, I would have needed a translation.  Since my change, I could easily tap into his mind to translate or if needed, talk to him in his native tongue.  A weak smile broke over my face.  "You are my life and reason to live too, Stefan.  It's just difficult to accept if something happened to me, your life would be over. It doesn't seem fair."

His precious life could be wiped away with something as simple as my final death.  The very thought clenched my silent heart. And if Stefan perished, I would wither away until there was nothing left.

There would be no reason to survive without him.

"Ah, Josephine.  I would rather live a final one day of utter bliss with you than face another thousand years without you.  Do you understand?  My life was empty without you."  His mouth lowered to mine, his lips capturing mine in the lightest of kisses.

Miles away from the closest house, our clothes were carefully removed.  Our hands worshiped one another reverently and kisses were placed on lips, shoulders and necks. Our foreheads touched as we lay naked on the blanket we'd spread on the grass.  The spicy smell of Stefan was almost overwhelming.  All I could feel, see and taste was him in the air around us.  As he hovered over me, the feel of his arousal pressing against me was tantalizing and heady.

As he pressed me down among our discarded clothes, the kiss never broke.  Heavy exhales pushed out against cheeks, tongues tangled and lips glided wetly against each other. The knowledge that he was mine and the sensation of his need filling the bond was strangely satisfying. I wasn't alone.  Pulling him closer, I needed to feel every inch of skin against mine.  My fervent hands branded his flesh from his firm ass over his muscled back, finally gripping his wide shoulders desperately.

I could hear every thought in his beautiful mind.  His love for me was breathtaking, but his need to touch, to memorize, to lose himself in us if only for a moment made my chest ache.  I'd made him remember too much tonight.

"We'll stay together, Stefan," I vowed in a whisper against his lips in order to soothe his unspoken fears. "No one can separate us now.  Forget it all for now, lover.  Be with me."

A strangled whimper escaped him as he pressed further into me, turning his head to kiss me. There was no preamble for this kiss; it was desperate, loving, and full of the things that words couldn’t say because what we shared...it was deeper than spoken feelings. Skimming my hands down his back, I wrapped my legs around his hips and wound myself around him.  A low growl rumbled out of me when his hard cock slid erotically over my wet, swollen folds.

My mind met his.
"Be gentle later.  I just need to feel every inch of you, Stefan. Vänligen älska med mig."

I wasn’t playing fair.  I was using his own words against him.

He didn’t bite.  In fact, he disentangled himself from my arms and legs until he was between my parted thighs.

“Stefan…this isn’t what I meant.” I moaned wantonly, my hips rising against him.

 I felt his smile against my hipbone, but he merely dragged his tongue over my navel and grazed his lips long the crease of my leg.

"Ah, vackra..." he started, but then paused long enough to open my legs wider and lick me from one end to the other, making sure to swirl the tip of his tongue around my clit teasingly. "I could spend hours between your legs."

Another blanket disintegrated under my clasping hands as he licked again, not bothering to wait for my answer. Not that I could manage much more than a harsh moan. A handful of cotton fluttered to the ground beside of me as my fingers laced in his golden hair.

Stefan was moving slowly, his tongue languid and wet against my pussy. Gripping him harder, I wanted to grind against him as I chased my next orgasm.

Again, I felt another smile against me, and warm breath from his mouth rushed across my swollen clit.  "Open wider for me, Josephine.  I know what you want to do.  Do it...fuck my face."

I didn't have to be told twice.  My hips jutted hard against his mouth as he licked, sucked, nipped, causing a growl of satisfaction to erupt out of me at finally getting the friction, the feeling that I needed.  His hands had given up holding me down.  They slipped under my legs and traveled up to my breasts, his rough hand palming them, squeezing and rolling my nipples between his fingertips.

Not able to articulate what I needed, or even if I knew what I needed, only his name came from my mouth.  My back arched, and I continued to grip his hair while my other hand sought out something else. A large, warm, gentle hand engulfed mine, linking our fingers together.  The contradiction that was Stefan growled low and feral against my folds, but his thumb made soothing circles on the skin of my hand and I shattered into a million pieces.

He gave my clit one more kiss before looming up over me. His long fingers swiped at his mouth, slinging the moisture away before his mouth descended upon mine. Something about that drove me absolutely wild, and I accepted his kisses hungrily. It was masculine and sexy, and I moaned shamelessly.  But it also meant that my arousal covered him.  I could smell it on his skin, taste it on his tongue.  My shield wrapped hungrily around him, pulling him closer.

"That is one, vackra," he pointed out, his forehead dropping down to mine as he braced over me. "You owe more than that, yes?"

He was strength and possession, predator and protector, love and want all rolled into one beautiful, angelic creature.  My hands had to touch him, slip up his chest, over his shoulder, and around to the back of his neck to pull and tug him closer.

"I want another from you," he stated, almost sounding harsh, but he softened it all with a sweet sweep of his lips across my own. "I cannot promise to be gentle," he warned, begging me with his eyes to understand when he suddenly sheathed himself fully inside of me.

"Oh fuck...yes!" I hissed, my head pressing back into the pillows beneath me.

"Fuck," he groaned, his eyes squeezing shut as he drove into me.

Every sensation that my mind registered, he countered it again and again. He buried his face into my neck, the bond completely open between us.  His mind was filled with thoughts about how good I felt, how tight I was, and how nothing was as good as this. My shield wavered around us, but I couldn't help but grip him with it and my hands, which caused the most delicious string of curses to push out into my ear.

"So good..." he panted, growling low when my hands gripped his ass, but my shield pressed down on his back. "You cannot hold me back forever."

Had I been coherent, I would've known what he was trying to say, and I might've laughed. But any humor I might've found evaporated with the next swiveling thrusts he gave me.  I knew it felt like more than just one pair of hands on him, but as it was, I needed to see this unhinged Stefan come.  Soon.  And hard.

Fingernails raked down his strong, flexing back.  My legs wrapped around his hips, and my voice urged him to come, because there was no way in hell I was able to hold my shield around us much longer.

"Stefan, I can't..." I sobbed, gazing up at him. "Please... You have to come..."

"Then let go.  Let go, min gudinna," he chanted in a whisper against my lips, but his teeth dragged across my bottom lip. "Let it all go. But I need one more from you." As he said that, his hand slipped beneath my ass, lifting me up just enough so that he shifted inside of me, sliding deeper.

There was no holding back.  Everything inside of me let go, my shield included. As the orgasm tore through my body from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, the ecstasy of its wake halted my lungs and froze my tight muscles in place.

"I could watch you come like this for days," he muttered, but his rhythm faltered.  His breathing stopped, and with a few more thrusts, he came hard.  His braced stance over me failed him, and he fell to his elbows instead. "My beloved," he whispered breathlessly against my lips as my whole body was wracked with an earth-shattering shiver.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I chanted, feeling his smile as he brushed my hair from my face. "I couldn't hold it... hell, I don't think I can get it back."

He snickered softly. "Shh, vackra.  It was perfect."

It was then that I chanced a look at his face.  The dark mask of need was gone, and in its place was smug but very happy and sated Stefan.

I groaned. "You wanted to fuck the shield out of me?"

A roaring laugh shook his chest as he rolled us to our sides. "No, not precisely," he said slowly. "Consider it a test to see the conditions it can withstand."

I raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch.  "And?"

"You and your shield passed inspection.”

***

Standing in the open French doors leading out to the patio was my beautiful husband, completely nude.  The setting sun made his satin skin glow, his tall frame casting a shadow on the floor around him. His muscled back sloped at an angle as he leaned casually against the door, his blond hair gleaming up in the red glow of the setting sun.

The words still sounded strange, even in my mind.  
My husband
.

He turned slightly to face me, a smile on his lips.  He extended a hand to me, jutting his chin in my direction.  "I have been waiting to hear those words a thousand years, my beautiful wife.  Mrs. Lifsten, come join me."

In a blur, I was across the room and wrapped in the comforting embrace of his arms.  The moment our skin touched, I felt our connection pulse between us.  It had been that way since I’d turned.

"How did you know I don't want to keep the last name of Anderson?  Maybe I'll be one of those feminist types hell bent on keeping my last name," I teased, poking him in the ribs with my elbow.

"You forget I can read your mind."  He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and resumed staring into the distance.  "It is beautiful here.  Quiet."

"That's why Garrett chose to live here.  It was calming for me.  When I was young, my ability was out of control.  And now...it's gone.  I enjoy the silence, but I didn't realize how much I relied on seeing things, predicting behavior.  I'm learning to live again."

A single finger brushed my hair away from my face.  His blue eyes bored into mine as if he was trying to stare straight through me.  "I have a theory about your abilities."

Turning my head to the side, I gave him a sideways glance.  Of course Stefan would have a theory.  His mind was constantly working through theories, situations...if I let myself sink into his mind, it was like sinking into a swirling pit of snakes.  His thoughts were dark and reminded me of things that slithered in the night.

"Snakes?  Interesting."  He waggled his eyebrow and gestured for me to follow him onto the patio.  He pulled me into a chaise lounge chair and wrapped us in a blanket.

Twisting to face him, I relaxed into his lap.  "Your mind is scary.  Even my vampire mind can't keep up.  Tell me your theory."