Winter's Kiss (16 page)

His eyes bore into hers and his hand left hers to settle on her cheek.

“It still frightens you,” he whispered, answering her next question before she could speak.

Sometimes she had an inkling of how he was feeling. Her inkling didn’t seem like anything more than a blind guess when compared to how he could read her.

“Is that a vampire thing?”

He nodded now. “I can hear your heartbeat and smell your scent. It is possible to discern specific emotions from them if they are strong feelings. Fear is particularly potent. Even a youngling can sense it.”

Realisation dawned on her, bright and blinding. “Fear because it is part of the hunt.”

Another nod. “Vampires enjoy the feeling of another’s fear. It sweet—it makes the hunt more interesting.”

She frowned. “You were going to say that it sweetens the hunt.”

He leaned back on his elbows again and looked away at the wall of the barn. She followed his eyes to one of the holes there. When she looked back at him, he was blinking slowly, his eyelids only rising to half-mast each time. His eyes closed. He was tired. When he didn’t open his eyes again, she realised that he was falling asleep.

“Winter?” she whispered and nudged him.

He woke with a growl and a flash of fangs. She snatched her hand back and recoiled, leaning back to place some distance between them. Her heart jumped and skipped, thumping against her ribs. Rich purple eyes faded back to dark blue. A flicker of guilt crossed his face.

“The sun makes me sleep.” He actually yawned, drawing a smile of amusement from her. She hadn’t expected a vampire to yawn. It didn’t seem very dark or evil. It seemed very human.

Moving back against him, she nudged his balls with her thigh and his eyes rolled back in his head. She didn’t want him to fall asleep on her. Not yet. There had to be some way to keep him awake for a little longer.

A breeze swept through the barn, the cold wind instantly turning her skin into gooseflesh. She shivered and grabbed the edge of the cloak where it lay beneath them and pulled it over herself. The thick material blocked the breeze. She didn’t want to have to get dressed to keep warm. If this one moment was all Winter could give her, then she wanted to experience everything.

She prodded him when she realised that he was dozing off again and then trailed her gaze down his body. The position he was lying in, resting propped up on his elbows, made his stomach muscles tense and pronounced. Lowering her hand to his body, she traced the shape of the valleys between them and then continued downwards towards his length. He might be sleepy, but it wasn’t. It was still hard. She lightly ran her finger down the length of it and it twitched beneath the caress. Winter groaned.

“Wake
up,” she whispered and lowered her head, pressing kisses to his chest and shoulder, her fingers still stroking his cock. She ran them around the sensitive tip, teasing the soft flesh. He moaned again and opened his eyes.

They were purple.

Before she could ask why, she was on her back, tangled up in his body and the cloak. His hands pressed into the dirt either side of her head and his erection thrust against her hip. Her heart leapt and accelerated when he moved his knees between hers and forced her legs apart.

“Winter?” she said, concerned that his eyes were still purple. A voice at the back of her mind whispered that he was going to bite her. He was going to take her body and her soul at the same time, suck it out of her. Wasn’t

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that what she wanted? She wanted to feel him inside her. Now she was going to get her wish. She shunned the voice and ignored it. Winter wouldn’t hurt her. There had to be another reason he was still looking at her through purple eyes. “What’s wrong?”

He growled when she went to touch his cheek and she stopped, her hand frozen in mid-air.

“I want to feel it… all of it… all of you… it has to be this way. You wanted me. This is me, Nika. My true face.”

She stared into his eyes, her mouth dry. His hips thrust against her, his hard length pressing into her mound.

“You want to feel it?” she said with a frown when he thrust again, an almost desperate look on his face. He wanted to be inside her. She wanted him there. She just hadn’t expected him to look this way when it happened. “Being like this helps?”

He grinned, revealing sharp teeth that made her flight instinct kick in. He would kill her. She shut out the voice again. Winter wouldn’t kill her. He was doing everything in his power to keep her alive and safe. She had asked him for this moment with him. She couldn’t back out now that she was getting more than she had bargained for.

“My senses,” he said with an almost drowsy edge to his tone. “Heightens.”

She tensed when he thrust against her again and then buried his face in her neck.

“I need to be in you now,” he whispered and peppered her throat with kisses that sent sparks of desire through her.

His senses were stronger when he was like this. That was what he was trying to tell her. She focussed, curious as to whether she could experience something more too. Shock filled her followed by pleasant surprise when it amplified everything. Every kiss he pressed against her neck made her shiver with arousal. Every thrust of his cock against her mound made her tremble with need. When focussing her senses made her feel like this, she could understand why he was showing her his ‘true face’ as he had called it. It felt divine.

And
more
than that.

This man above her, kissing her throat and scraping it occasionally with his teeth, as though she needed a reminder that he was in his vampire guise, was the man that she had fallen for. This was the real him. The man he truly was.

She raised her knees and spread her legs, her fear ebbing away when she thought about how it would feel to have him inside her. The pain would be nothing compared to the pleasure. She knew that. It helped her relax and she lay beneath him, waiting and willing. Her hands skimmed down his back, her breathy moans voiced to encourage him. He sucked her neck over the pulse point again and, for a fleeting moment, she thought that he would bite her. Instead, he moved on, kissing up her jaw until he reached her mouth.

His lips claimed hers in a searing kiss that had her thrusting back at him, rubbing her groin against his and moaning. She opened her mouth to him and his tongue plunged inside to stroke hers, teasing it with a caress so scintillating that she couldn’t contain her moan and the shiver of arousal that turned her skin prickly and hot. The taste of metal made her frown. A split second later, Winter was kissing her so hard she couldn’t breathe. She

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shoved frantically against his shoulders and he pushed himself off her, his eyes wide and blue again.

“Blood,” he muttered, staring at her mouth.

She felt the warm trickle sliding down her tongue from the tip. She must have cut it on his teeth. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t noticed.

The look in his eyes said that kissing was off the menu now, or she would be on it. She wished he would keep kissing her but the hunger written plainly across his face told her that it wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much she begged.

He moved downwards and her frown melted away when his hand slid between her legs, his finger delving between her velvet folds to tease her aroused nub. She tilted her head back and sighed at the feel of his torturous caress and the sparks that shot through her with each brush of her clit.

A wriggle of her hips revealed that she was still slick with arousal, hungry to feel him filling her. She reached up to him, sweeping her thumb roughly along his lower lip as she held his jaw. He sucked it into his mouth and she gasped at the stab of pain. His eyes closed and he frowned, his nostrils flaring when he suckled her thumb. He was taking her blood. Was it hunger or desire that made him do it? Wasn’t her blood tainted? It had to be the heat of the moment making him do it.

When his eyes opened, his pupils were dilated, fixed on her body, burning her breasts with their gaze and making her buck her hips against his hand for more.

Desire.

He desired her body. Did he also desire her blood? In this moment, she would offer both to him. They would be his alone forever.

His fingers left her and she forced herself to relax when his hips shifted and the head of his cock rubbed her clit. She groaned and arched her back at the new sensation. Winter’s moan mingled with hers and she spread her legs further, allowing them to fall open for him. The feel of his soft head rubbing her pert nub was too much, too good. She had to have him inside her now before she came undone again. This time, she wanted to climax on him, wanted to feel him find release inside her.

The head of his length nudged against her opening and eased inside. It stung and she bit her lip to stifle the cry of pain that wanted to leave her. Winter murmured sweet quiet words at her, words that made her heart melt and tears fill her eyes. Her heart ached at the thought that this could be their only time together and she wanted it to be special, wanted him to remember this moment because it was divine, not because she had been crying. She blinked away her tears and stared into Winter’s eyes. Beautiful concern filled them. He nudged forwards another inch and then stilled his hips.

“It will pass,” he said, low and rough, his teeth clenched tight as though he was struggling to hold himself back.

“I think I’d rather it was done quickly,” she said, not quite sure whether she believed those words but so desperate to feel Winter inside her that she said them regardless.

“It will hurt.”

“It’ll hurt either way.” Was she that desperate to have him filling her, their bodies as one? Her hand slid down to his backside. Evidently she was. She pulled him towards her and gasped when he thrust inside, burying himself to the hilt. Pain tore through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, her breathing rough and fast as she told herself to relax. It would all feel better if she relaxed.

Winter kissed her throat, still mumbling words that melted her and made her warm. His thumb circled her left nipple, teasing it into a sensitive peak and dragging her attention there. She bit her lip harder. He pressed kisses along her jaw and just when he was going to move away, she caught his lips with hers and kissed him. Her tongue caught on his teeth again. He was back in his vampire guise. His kisses turned fierce, his tongue ravaging her mouth and teeth clashing with hers. She matched his fervour, her own tongue battling his. The desperate feel of his kisses stole all reason from her and her focus was so intent on the slide of his tongue against hers that she barely noticed him withdraw and slowly ease back in, a little deeper this time. She gasped into his mouth and he drew back, breathing hard.

“I am too hungry to—”

Her finger pressing against his lips silenced him. She didn’t care if he was too hungry for her blood to control himself. She had accepted what he was, all of him, and if he wanted her blood, then he could have it.

“Just let me breathe occasionally.” She smiled, hooked her arm around the back of his head, and dragged his mouth back down to hers.

His tongue instantly entered her mouth again, caressing the cuts on her tongue. She traced hers over his teeth. He had changed back. They were blunt again. She smiled inside. He really didn’t want to go too far and hurt her.

She moaned when he thrust into her again, deep and slow, and raised her hips into his. The feel of his cock filling her and his kisses drove her out of her mind until she didn’t know whether she was coming or going, flying or falling. She closed her eyes and looped her arms around his neck, surrendering completely to him. Now that the pain had passed, the feeling of him inside her was incredible. Each deep slide of his hard cock made her tremble and ache deep in her belly. It began to tense, each thrust making the feeling coil tighter and tighter until she wanted to explode. His thrusts increased in speed, one hand lowering to claim her hip and hold her still. She arched her breasts against his chest and the tightening of her muscles made her eyes shoot wide open and her breath leave her in a gasp. Winter plunged into her again, deep and hard, and the entire universe exploded in front of her eyes.

He caught her scream with his kiss, devouring her lips as he thrust into her, over and over, sending her out of her mind and into a warm hazy world where she felt pleasantly numb and light.

He moaned into her mouth with each thrust and his body tensed against hers, every muscle tautening. Feeling how close he was to climax and his desperation, she clenched his cock with her trembling muscles and kissed him harder. Winter thrust once and then twice, and then plunged his length deep inside her. His cock throbbed and pulsed, and she felt his seed pumping into her with his slow minute thrusts. He remained tense a moment, still and motionless above her, their mouths still fused in a frozen kiss, and then relaxed into her, his body covering hers. She wrapped her arms around him when he buried his face her in neck, his cool breath puffing against her skin as he panted. Her hands glided over his

back beneath his shirt and then played with the strands of his long black hair as she smiled to herself.

She was a woman.

Winter’s woman.

Nothing would change that, not even him leaving.

She was his.