Dark Surrender (9 page)

Heat rose up from inside her, searing hot and liquid, its fire pooling in her nether region, turning heavy and full, making her feel like she was about to burst. She came, shuddering and gasping, her hands twined around the twin faucets of that antique sink, one on one side for hot, one on the other side for cold.

“
That’s it, baby,” Luca said as he extricated his tongue from her and kissed her thighs. “Come for me.”

Min’s entire body went into a spasm, her muscles clenched, her spine arched to present herself all the more to him.

He rose and she felt his hard sex press against her again, maddeningly close, but still separated from where she wanted it by those damned pants. She pressed her bottom back against him. “Please…” she pleaded, her voice breathless.

Min looked back over her shoulder and watched Luca pull his shirt off over his head, not bothering with the buttons, and heard the rustling of cloth, the clink of a belt buckle, and the working of a zipper. She couldn’t see his cock, but as he ground its cool, hard heft against her buttock she sighed with relief.

He
is
going to fuck me…

The eagerness of that thought, and of how her voice sounded when she was begging “Please…” made something in her head throb cold and shameful. She was literally begging this
thing
to fuck her. What the hell was wrong with her?

But then Luca pulled back his hips and in a single brutal move rammed himself up into her, splitting her open, forcing the walls of her sex to stretch and accommodate him. Min cried out, as did he, and before the exquisite sensation of being opened so violently had a chance to really register, Luca began pumping himself in and out of her, leveraging at her hips, moving her forward and back to meet his own thrusts.

Good god, this is so…

A shameful shiver cascaded up her spine, but was soon replaced by the searing heat of a welling orgasm.

Exactly what I need…

Holding onto her hips he battered his rock hard erection into her, his pace growing faster as his thrusts became harder. Oh god, it was too much. And then he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her up off the sink. One hand slid down and rubbed wickedly at her sex as his cock slammed in and out of her. His other hand took her chin and drew her back for a kiss, their lips barely touching, his tongue licking at her teeth. And then he forced her face to face the mirror, and the irrefutable fact that he was a vampire, not a man. She looked into that damned mirror and felt tears sting her eyes. But these were not tears of shame. Min felt something in her chest crumble, like a great wall falling to ruin, turning to sand, and with it the sense that something, something dangerous and probably very wrong, was surging into her, straight into her heart.

He’s in my heart…

Impossible.

But as she felt him pummel demandingly into her, felt his arms surround her, his mouth against her neck, she couldn’t deny it. Even staring at his lack of reflection, the image of only herself coming back at her, she knew they were now connected by more than just their bodies.

Min clenched her eyes and tried to push those thoughts away. Luca…no, the vampire—
yes
, the freaking
soulless
vampire—was making desperate sounds as he gasped and panted against the back of her neck.

Good. It would be over soon, and she could bury this new feeling deep in some shadowy corner of her soul and never look at it again. Maybe she’d ward her heart again. Dangerous or no, it was better than feeling this way for a dead thing. Maybe she would improve upon it too.

The vampire stopped, holding her to him, suddenly becoming that stillness that only a vampire can manage. It was like being held and penetrated by a statue. It made Min tremble.

What was wrong? Had her other spells fallen when the ward around her heart had as well. Was she about to be killed?

Slowly he pulled himself out of her, making her body ache and hunger at the emptiness that he left behind. He physically turned her around to face him. He was staring at her chest, and then he took hold of her negligee and dragged it up and over her head, leaving her completely naked, her nipples hardening in the cool of the bathroom’s air. Her heart pounded so fast, fear and dread…and rampant anticipation flooding her mind.

He leaned down and pressed his face to her chest, as if he were listening for something. And then he chuckled, and in an awed tone of voice rasped, “I can hear it. I can hear it beating now.”

He nuzzled his face into her cleavage, kissing and licking her breasts, nipping at her nipples. And then he righted himself, pushing his granite erection back into her, gasping as she hissed. His eyes were closed, as if in ecstasy, but when they opened something so strange, so unexpected look out at her that Min simply blinked and shook her head.

Luca Picked her up, his cock planted firmly up in her, his hands wrapping her legs around his hips, then roughly cupped her ass as he walked them both out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. He lowered her to the bed, sliding out of her as he pulled off his shoes and his open pair of pants. With animal grace he crawled onto the bed and up on top of her, his body supple and beautiful, his manhood throbbing and hard.

But it was his eyes that Min couldn’t tear her gaze from. There was a light in them. A light she couldn’t believe was there. As he entered her again, this time staring into her eyes as he skewered her, she recognized for certain what it was.

His soul…

*****

Chapter 10

Having Min bent over that sink had been a thing of beauty. Luca had enjoyed forcing her to do as he wanted, and she had tasted all the better for it—she had truly been afraid. But she could have stopped him. She could have ordered him to leave, to go back to the bedroom—hell, she could have told him to stake himself. With as much power as he’d felt in her binding spell, she probably really could have told him to burst into flame this time, and he would have, no match required.

But she hadn’t.

And though he felt himself losing his connection with a vital part of himself, the beast inside, he still enjoyed dominating her.

He’d feasted greedily at her nether lips, at her sex, making her squirm and buck. But as she came he felt the tide of her orgasm crash over him. He felt her orgasm inside him, overwhelming. He’d barely kept himself from falling to the floor and curling up in sated bliss at her feet.

God in heaven it was the most intoxicating feeling he’d had that century. It made him hunger for the witch’s blood all the more. If just the taste of her sex, and the feel of her orgasm could illicit so much from him, through him, he just knew the thick red liquid that pumped through her veins would be all the more powerful, all the more exhilarating.

He barely remembered taking off his shirt—it just seemed so urgent that he be naked with her—and before he knew it he was thrusting himself inside her. Not being a bit gentle, wanting to hear her moan and cry out as he fucked her.

He wanted her to cry out his name.

But she didn’t.

And that alone drove him instantly insane. He wanted her lips, her tongue, to wrap around his name. He needed her to scream it, to moan and to writhe as she called it out.

Not vampire. Luca.

But she didn’t. The sounds that escaped her lips were feral and maddened with lust and desire, and pain…but they were incoherent. He slammed himself into her all the harder for that.

Luca pulled her face up so she had to gaze at his nonexistent reflection, and know it was him fucking her, him making her body come time and again, that he had control over her.

But then he heard it. Faint at first, just a pulse, a murmur, but then it broke into a solid, perfect beat.

The beating of her heart.

“
Min,” he said with awe, and as his words left him, he felt that heartbeat race and shift. It was beating for him. He grudgingly pulled his manhood out of her hot, tight embrace, feeling her shudder as he did so. He pulled her about, gently turning her to face him. He whipped the silken thing she wore up over her head so she was naked and shivering before him. Leaning down, he pressed his ear to her chest, feeling that lust fevered flesh against his skin, hearing the urgent cadence of her heart. He had no idea why before now he hadn’t been able to hear it, but it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

It called to him, pulsing and pounding out his name. She was all he could think about. And, for some unfathomable reason, he was not thinking even the slightest bit about the delicious red that flowed in her veins. He was truly thinking about, and only about, her. Min.
His min.

“
I can hear it. I can hear it beating now.”

Mine.

Though he didn’t need to breathe, he felt his breath become labored as he rubbed his face against her breasts, licking and kissing and nipping at her tender, lovely flesh. He moved back into her, calling out in ecstasy as the succulent folds of her sex opened to receive him again. He buried his face in the aroma of her hair, and picked her up off the sink, wrapping her long, supple legs about his hips, crushing her round, perfect bottom in his hands. Moving heedlessly, he somehow navigated them back to her bedroom, lying her gently on her enormous bed, then removing his shoes and pants, wanting nothing between them as he made love to her.

He stopped and stared down at her, naked and quaking for him.

Made love?
Luca could not remember once in his three hundred years thinking that phrase. It had always been just about sex, and of course feeding. But never had he thought of love during any of it. Especially not with his maker. No, fear and hate, that was what he’d felt for Elaina.

But right that moment, as his preternatural body moved of its own accord, crawling onto the bed and up atop Min, pushing itself into her once again, he knew that he indeed felt it. He loved Min. And the thought, the knowledge of that made something hot flicker inside him, something strange and alien…but somehow familiar. What had only been a spark only moments ago now burned like a torch. It was engulfing him, overwhelming him, and he didn’t want to do a damned thing to stop it. It could burn him to a cinder, as long as he could stay with her.

Min’s hand flew out and slapped against his chest, her arm straight and strong, holding him away from her. That one move made that torch inside him flicker and shudder with pain. She was pushing him away.

Her eyes sharpened to slits, and she simply stared up at him.

No, no, no…she’d finally decided to be done with him. Somehow he’d displeased her. Or maybe she had just gotten hold of her sanity once more, and was now wondering why in god’s name she had a filthy, murdering monster like him in her bed.

Fear all but snuffed out the fire that had been burning inside him, but then she reached with both hands and grabbed him not too delicately by the sides of his face and pulled him down to her, into a burning, succulent kiss. The fire inside him rekindled and blazed like a bonfire, and he melted into Min’s embrace, their bodies becoming one, and somehow, in a way he couldn’t begin to describe, they became one in more than just that way as well.

*****

When they were done and sated, Luca held Min to him, listening to her heart and her breathing slow, feeling her warm body soften and dissolve against his. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was her, and when he opened them, there she lay, soft and warm and his.

Mine.

He held her, not daring to breath—thankfully he didn’t have to—and watched her as she dosed in his possessive embrace. His thoughts had been blessedly empty…that was until he felt her slip into sleep. That was when the beast’s voice struck with its usual perfect timing. It was a master at knowing exactly when to speak, when to push its wants and desires, and somehow to make them feel and taste like one’s own.

If she is asleep…could you not bite her?
The beast rumbled inside him.
Could you not drink her blood, and then bring her over?
Or, maybe you could just make a meal of her, kill her outright, extinguish her wondrous beauty—not just because she has power over you, but because to kill something so beautiful has its own pleasure.

Luca felt his teeth worrying at his gums, yearning to elongate, to become what he was meant to be: a monster, a killer.

Min breathed, nearly sighing with contentment, her lush, strong body so warm and soft against his, her expression so innocent. She was not innocent. She was good, yes, she was good. But she did not possess true innocence. But that didn’t make the innocent look on her beautiful face any less compelling or attractive to the beast inside him. The beast wanted blood, wanted violence and death. The beast looked upon his min like a lion standing over a fresh kill. All hunger and possession.

Mine.
Luca thought bitterly.

No,
the monster inside him hissed.
The witch is mine.

Luca could all too well see how exciting it would be to allow his beast to take over. Especially now that Min was asleep, her magicks would be unfocussed—there still, lingering in the air—yet inanimate. They could have her exactly as they wanted her.