Dark Ghost (38 page)

She was coiled tight. Too tight. She didn’t want to let go, not without him.

“Give it to me,” he instructed, his voice harsh.

“With you.” Her breath hissed out of her lungs. She was desperate to hang on. She was so close, her body wanting to spin out of control.

He was relentless, driving her higher. “Give it to me,” he bit out between his teeth.
“Now.”

There was no stopping her body from obeying. She came apart, a brutal, hard orgasm that tore through her entire body so that she screamed her release. He powered right through it. Never stopping. A machine moving in her, prolonging the orgasm, stretching her out on a rack of pure pleasure, her muscles grasping at that spiked steel invader.

Abruptly he withdrew and turned her, rolling her under him, yanking her legs apart and pushing them over his shoulders. His tongue took one long swipe that sent hard aftershocks rippling through her. Then he was over top of her, his body blanketing hers, and he thrust into her brutally again, nearly triggering another orgasm.

Andre slowed the pace, although each thrust was hard and deep, sending waves of pleasure through her. He leaned over her, his dark hair brushing her skin sensuously. It felt so amazing, especially when the strands trailed over her sensitive breasts. His mouth found hers and he kissed her. His mouth on hers added to the fire in her sex and streaking through her body.

His mouth trailed kisses down her chin, her throat and over the swell of her breast. Her heart nearly stopped. His hips kept moving, jolting her body when he surged deep, but she could barely breathe when she felt his tongue on her breast. For one moment he lapped at her nipple and tugged with his teeth and she nearly lost all control, but his mouth moved back to the swell of her breast, tongue swirling and teeth nipping. This time she felt the sharp edge of his incisors.

Her feminine sheath clamped down hard around him. His teeth sank deep and she cried out, her head tossing, both hands anchoring in his hair as he drank from her. He was in her mind, filling her with him. Every part of her mind, every lonely place she thought no one would ever see or know. He was deep in her body, stretching, burning, bringing that fire to her and her blood mingled with his. Soaked into his cells. They shared the same skin. It was… beautiful. Perfect. Erotic.

There was no stopping her body from milking his. She didn’t try. She lifted her hips to meet his, wanting him deep – so deep anyone would have to pry them apart. She pushed against his mouth, urging him on, while her fingers stroked caresses in his hair. He was hers. All hers. Every inch of him. Every single gorgeous Carpathian inch of him.

Baby, I can’t hold back,
she whispered into his mind.
It’s too lovely. Too perfect.

Give yourself to me and take me with you.
He filled her mind with his consent, with his command, his voice a silken velvet rasp that always undid her.

Teagan let the fire consume her. Her body clamped down hard around his, grasping, making demands of its own, refusing to burn alone. She felt his cock swell, a seemingly impossible feat, but it did, she knew it did. Then there were the hot splashes that added to the beauty of the moment.

He swept his tongue over the swell of her breast and threw back his head, groaning her name before dropping his head against her neck. Her body didn’t want to stop. She had no idea an orgasm could last as long as this one did. All the while he stayed hard, feeling her body strangling his, feeling the pleasure sweeping through both of them.

“I love you, Andre,” she whispered softly. “I want to give you everything you want, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be anyone but who I am.”

He knew what she was talking about instantly. She felt him moving through her mind. Felt his soft caresses. That was beautiful, too. She couldn’t stand by and watch her man fighting a vampire and not help if he was in trouble. She just couldn’t. She wanted to give him what he needed, and she knew that reassurance was a need of his. He wasn’t being arrogant or bossy, he needed to know she was safe from vampires.

He rolled, taking her with him, so that she was sprawled over top of them. They were still locked together. She felt full. Stretched. Part of him. She let him push her head down to his chest, his fingers massaging the nape of her neck.

“I have given this some thought and I think I have worked out a solution to our problem. One that allows you to be you and still gives me peace of mind.”

“Really?” She
loved
that he’d thought about their problem. Loved that he wasn’t trying to dictate to her, but genuinely wanted to find something that would work for both of them, not just him. Since her head was on his chest, she pressed little kisses over the heavy muscles. “Thank you, Andre.”

His hand slid back into her hair. “
Csitri
, do not thank me until you’ve heard what I have to say. You may not agree.”

“I’m thanking you because you cared enough to give the problem some thought instead of dictating to me.” She lifted her head to look at him, her gaze drifting over his face. She loved his face. Every expression. Every line. The strong line of his jaw and the darker shadow that she found so attractive.

“I want a partner, not a slave, Teagan. I was never hoping for a ‘yes’ woman.”

She laughed softly. “That’s a good thing, honey, because there isn’t anything remotely ‘yes’ about me.”

She leaned down and brushed kisses over his lips. Back and forth. Light. Gently. Tasting him. Her stomach fluttered. “Tell me about your solution.”

“I thought a lot about what you said, how you would need to come to my aid if you thought I was in trouble.”

She nodded and nibbled on his chin just because it looked so delicious. “I want to contribute in some meaningful way. What you do is important and you’ve been doing it for so long, I doubt you’ll just stop.”

“I would not know how to stop. I have too much experience, Teagan. I promised you I would move to the States and that we would live near your grandmother and we will. Tomas, Matais and Lojos are already there. I told them I would follow when I could and now I have even more reason to join them in the States.”

“There are many Carpathians like you in the United States?”

“We have many reasons to change locations, but vampires have spread out and that means hunters have to follow. They try to find places where there are no hunters and they are free to kill. For your grandmother to have joined the human society of vampire hunters there had to be some major event that precipitated her believing in vampires.”

Teagan froze. Her gaze searched his. “Do you mean she might have come across an actual vampire?”

“Why else would she suddenly decide vampires are real? Could someone convince her?”

She shook her head. “My grandmother is very intelligent. She’s very grounded in reality, that’s why none of this made sense to us. We tried to talk to her about it, but she just wouldn’t tell us a thing.”

“She would want to protect you.”

“Even knowing we all thought she was going round the bend? Bonkers? Completely crazy?”

“You tell me, Teagan. Would she protect you from the knowledge that the world had real monsters living side by side with humans?”

She took a breath. It would be something Grandma Trixie would do, especially for her because she was afraid of so many things.

“My grandmother is the best, Andre.” Her voice softened. “She’s always loved us and taken such care of my sisters and me.”

He rubbed her bottom. It felt good. More than good. She could feel the burn starting all over again. Not as desperate or as hungry, but building slow and easy. Still, she felt something in his mind.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Even if you think I can’t take it.”

“If she tried to harm you,
sivamet
, I would protect you. I would not hesitate to protect you. My protection is, as a rule, very permanent.”

She knew what he was saying. “I appreciate you might think you would have to protect me from her, after all the things I’ve said, but she would never, under any circumstances hurt me. She would protect me even if she thought I was the undead. Family is everything to her. Absolutely everything. If she accepts you as family, you’ll see what that truly means. She’s fierce, outspoken, funny and I love her more than anything… except maybe you and I don’t know how that’s possible.”

He nodded, but she noticed he didn’t reply. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to argue with her, or belabor his point. He’d warned her straight up what would happen if her grandmother tried to harm her, but she knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Grandma Trixie would die before she harmed her so she wasn’t worried.

“Tell me your solution,” she said again. “We keep getting off the subject and I think it’s important.”

“You are unique in a lot of ways, at least I think your gifts are. I have not heard of other lifemates, when they were human, being able to take down safeguards in the way that you could. You can also tune your body to a vampire’s. That gives us an advantage when hunting. You can find them and bring down their safeguards.”

She drew in her breath. Andre was actually talking about using her as a partner. She loved that he thought she would be such a help.

“I would not want you to participate at all in the battle, no matter how bad things look,” he warned. “That would be forbidden. You would have to give me your word you will follow instructions.”

She bit her lip hard. She wanted desperately to be his partner, but she knew, if he were in trouble, she would go back on her word.

“I can open my mind to you the entire battle. I cannot be distracted in any way, but you can see clearly what I am aware of and what I plan to do. That way, you will know if I am really going to be surprised or not. If you cannot see awareness in my mind, you will be able to warn me.”

She liked that. She liked that
a lot
. “That sounds reasonable.” She wouldn’t be paralyzed in the body of an owl feeling helpless.

“And then, there is the fact that you are a superior healer.”

“I am?” She liked that a lot, too. More than anything, she wanted to be good healer. She wanted to be able to help others.

“For most wounds such as those I encountered – other than the gunshot, which was no more than a couple of flesh wounds – I would have had to stay in the ground more than one rising. I could actually feel the tissue regenerating when you were healing me. You definitely are good. That will be a huge bonus to me as well, knowing you are close by and can see to any wound.”

She didn’t like the fact that he so readily accepted that he would be wounded in his battles with the undead, but he’d been hunting and destroying them for centuries, so he knew what he was doing.

“I like your idea very much, Andre,” she whispered. She brushed her lips back and forth against his and began a slow undulation of her hips, moving lazily.

His hands slipped to her waist and he urged her into a sitting position. The moment she sat up, she could feel him pressing deep inside her. So deep. So thick. Filling and stretching her. She loved that
more
than a lot. His hands moved up her body, lingering a moment where the vampire had slashed her midriff and then higher still until he was cupping her breasts.

“Do you see why your breasts are so perfect for me?” he whispered. “So beautiful.” His palms covered her breasts completely. She fit perfectly into his hand. He had a large hand and the warmth engulfed her. He massaged and kneaded the small curves gently. “So soft. So sensitive.”

Her nipples went hard, pushing into the center of his palms. Two stiff peaks begging for attention. She threw back her head, her hair cascading around her shoulders and down her back to slide over his belly and hips. She began to move faster, riding him the way she had his fingers.

“See,
sivamet
. Look how beautiful you are.” He watched his palms drift down over her slight curves to once again cup them in his hands.

Teagan looked down at herself. With each movement of her body, her small breasts swayed against his hands. She loved the way they looked together – him so big, her so small. She’d never loved her body before that moment. She was flushed and aching.

“Keep watching,
csitri
.” His voice was a rough, velvet rasp. Sexy. His eyes were hooded and dark with growing hunger. Pure sensuality.

There was something very decadent and forbidden about watching his fingers grasp her nipples, watching them roll and tug, while streaks of fire shot from her breasts straight to her sex. Her muscles clamped down tight around him and her body bathed his shaft in liquid heat. She moaned and licked at her lips, forcing herself to keep her gaze on the erotic sight of his fingers at her nipples. Her hips, of their own volition, began a more urgent pace.

Andre half curled his body so he could pull one breast into his mouth, suckling hard. She cried out, the fire raging hotter. Her blood went thick and molten. Her eyes closed because she could barely stand the pleasure. The fire had begun slow and lazy, but now the temperature was hotter than ever, the burn storming through her like a fireball out of control.

“Watch,” he commanded.

His hand slid down her belly. She watched the path it took. Those fingers, long and strong, thick and clever, sliding in a caress over her skin. She swallowed hard as she watched Andre’s body coming together with hers, as she lifted up and then rode down over his steely spike. The beauty of it nearly brought her to tears. The pleasure of it made her entire body glow with heat, with excitement.

She gasped as his finger homed in immediately to her most sensitive spot. It was shockingly sexy. His other hand moved up her body until his finger was sliding back and forth over her lips.

“Open for me.”

She did immediately, sucking his finger deep into her mouth while she rode him harder and harder, faster and faster, gasping for breath while his other finger stroked her bud right straight into paradise. Her orgasm snuck up on her much faster than she anticipated, roaring through her, leaving her breathless and a little shocked at the intensity when she’d been moving into it so slowly.