Jared (19 page)

That’s it, baby. Welcome me.

Hurry.

No way.

There was no way in hell he was rushing this first
time.

Her heels drummed on his back. This is not my first
time.

It’s our first time. Her frustration came at him in a
curl of energy, tinged with anxiety. She really was worried he’d leave her
behind.

Relax. You’re going to be with me all the way. All you
have to do is stop worrying and concentrate.

On what?

This.

He lashed her nipple with his tongue. The spark of
sensation shot through her in a bright sparkle. Her attention focused inward
with a single-mindedness that might have scared him if he hadn’t understood
her. She wanted it to be right between them with the same fervor that he wanted
it for her.

“Oh . . . Do that again.”

He did. Following the sensation into her center,
feeling the explosion of pleasure that radiated outward as it found its mark,
the echoes reverberating against his own desire, throwing him off center. He’d
never been with a woman who could slip in and out of his mind. Never
anticipated the havoc all that hot feminine need pouring over his desire would
wreak on his self-control.

She gasped. A flick of pain came from him to her. He
was holding her too tightly. Easing his grip, he gentled the moment of panic,
moving up so he could kiss her slowly and leisurely, rubbing his lips over
hers, ignoring the parted invitation of her lips for thorough investigation of
the edges, lingering in the corners when she flinched, touching the sensitive
flesh with his tongue when she arched her neck, enabling more of the caress.
Giving her tenderness when she thought she needed demand. Smoothing his tongue
over the narrow dents left in her lower lip by her teeth. Replacing pain with
pleasure until, with a broken gasp, she lifted, forcing a connection he was
only too willing to maintain. She tasted sweeter than wine, more potent than
whiskey, addictively perfect. He needed more, so much more. The line of her jaw
beckoned, then the hollow beneath her ear, the dip between neck and collarbone,
the high curve of her breast. Her right nipple was still puckered, but the
left, not so much.

He cupped the small mound in his hand, plumping it to
his attention. “Poor neglected baby. She needs some attention, too.”

Raisa’s enthusiastic “Yes” caught his vampire’s
attention and brought it roaring forward. Her palms cupped his cheeks, smooth
where his were callused, so small and yet capable of holding him in ways no
amount of strength could maintain. He went with her direction, fighting his
vampire’s selfish demand that he take the step back from the edge of the bed
that would bring his aching cock into alignment and just rut on her until he
exploded.

Resisting was harder than it should be with the erotic
images pouring from her mind to his, images of his mouth on her breasts,
between her legs. And behind each image the secret desire she didn’t want
known. Ah, hell, that one might just be the nail in his coffin.

He dropped his forehead against her breast and slowly
squeezed off the connection of their minds, enduring the protests of her
vampire along with his. He couldn’t give her what she needed if she kept
bombarding him with her joy at each caress. Not when his own pleasure was about
to detonate. “I’ve got this, sunbeam.”

The start that went through her bounced his chin on
her chest. She was very on edge, in more ways than one. Her hands jerked open.
“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” He cupped her right breast,
surprised to see his hand was shaking. Shit, if he wasn’t careful, he’d be
coming at her like a green kid. A brush of his thumb over her sensitive nipple
had her arching into his touch. He opened his mouth, letting her be the one to
press her nipple in.

“This is good,” he murmured before closing his lips
around the hungry little bud. Very good, better than anything he’d imagined or
dreamed.

Her breasts were small but highly sensitive. Every
lap, brush, and tap had her breath catching in her throat, her hips working
against him, her energy straining to entwine with his.

More.

The desperate little thought slipped past his shields.
He glanced at Raisa’s face. The same desperation was etched there. He released
her nipple with a little popping kiss. “I’ll give you all you can take. Just
relax and let me.”

Her lower lip slid between her teeth. “Promise?”

“Absolutely. Now close your eyes and let me build on
this little feeling.”

Her “It’s not little” brought forth his smile again
along with a tidal wave of lust. For a second he went under, his fingers
pinching her nipple in hard pulses that fed into the lash of his tongue on her
other breast. Her gasps did nothing to deter him; rather they inspired a hot,
glittering incentive to inspire more of those groans that rolled over him in
the hottest of compliments.

“Yes.” Yes, yes.

She wanted more. He wanted to give it to her, but his
control was shaky this first time. He kissed his way down her torso, over the
concave hollow of her stomach, skimming the well of her navel, finding the
downy soft hair beneath, catching a few strands in his teeth, smiling when she
yelped before moving down farther, letting her scent roll over him in potent
encouragement before he parted the full outer lips and touched his tongue to
the spice within.

“Oh my God!”

That was his reaction, too, as her flavor spread
through his mouth. An addictive, honeyed spice. More.

Her hand came down and wiggled between his mouth and
her pussy. The growl welled from his core. Nothing would keep her from him. Her
hand jerked back. “Jared?”

“Mine.”

“I’m not sure.”

“I am.” He snuck another taste, which led to another
and another. His tongue glided across the moist flesh, gathering the rich cream
in a heady feast. Her heels gouged into his buttocks. Her breath came in hard
pants that echoed the hard thud of his heart. He parted her folds and found her
little clit. It was engorged and as eager as the rest of her. Eager for his
touch. He homed in on it, letting her cries and her tension feed his desire. He
tested her with a finger. Her snug little sheath clamped down on him
immediately. A few flutters of his tongue and her sheath rippled. She was
close. So was he. It was going to be a close call getting her to the finish
line ahead of him.

He laved her gently, holding her put when she would
have jerked away under the initial slash of sensation. And then she was pulling
him to her, her fingers sinking through his hair, her talons into his scalp.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

He was right there with her. Cradling her in his arms
as she shattered, kissing her once, twice before climbing up over her, nudging
her tight sheath with his cock, then easing it in past the hard contractions.
Fighting for control, restraint, and determined to make this the experience
he’d promised. A second orgasm crashed over her, catching him by surprise.
Barreling through his barriers, her energy wrapped around his, pulling him in
physically and mentally, until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

Come with me.

The warm entreaty dragged him into the storm. Raisa’s
pleasure magnified his, blending, mixing, escalating until there was nothing
but the two of them.

The need hit him as hard as the pleasure. He leaned
down, the rhythm of her pulse pounding in his ears, calling to him. He scraped
his teeth over her artery. Her head fell back.

“Yes.” Yes. They needed this to complete the cycle.
Needed the joining. He bit down. Her scream echoed around them as he came hard
and deep, filling her with his seed as she filled him with her essence. His.
The thought rode through him as he marked her. Irrevocably, forevermore his.

JARED’S lips brushed her temple. “How did you get
turned?”

“Ah, the big question.”

“Yet so easy to answer.”

Raisa snuggled her head into his shoulder. She
experimentally pinched his side. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Just
long, lean cuts of muscle slabbed attractively over heavy bone. She glanced up
into his face. He was looking down at her, his mouth soft, his expression
indulgent. If his expression was anything to go by, he was going to be a very
generous lover.

The corners of his mouth eased into a smile. “Very
generous.”

She tried to put resentment into her tone, but she
didn’t think she was too successful. “You peeked into my mind.”

His finger wove through a curl at her temple. “That
seems inevitable between us.”

She slid her thigh up his, the hair on his leg
tickling the inside of hers. A shiver went through her, and she kissed the rise
of his pectoral muscle, just to the left of his nipple. His energy pulsed. Hers
answered. She bit down. Just a little. He shuddered, and his shaft rose thick
and strong against her stomach, the broad head throbbing with the urgency
between them, setting the pace for her desire.

She liked that. “You’re a very sexy man.”

His smile was very sensual. “And you, sunbeam, are
ignoring my question.”

She inched her hand across his chest to weave through
the mat of hair in the center, understanding, as the strands wrapped around her
fingers, why he liked to play with her hair so much. There was something
intrinsically satisfying about being bound to him in even this insubstantial
way.

“There doesn’t seem a need to mess up this moment with
ickiness from the past.”

“So it was . . . icky?”

A note in his voice made her look up. “The conversion
wasn’t, but the time before was.”

His arm tightened around her. She rubbed her cheek on
his skin, accepting the protective cloak of his energy around her. “Honestly,
Jared, being a vampire was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Before I was turned, I was
a bartering tool. My family was poor. My job as a daughter was to raise their
status. They loaned me to a relative in America.”

She shuddered. “That, as they say these days, was not pretty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. It was ages ago.”

This time his sympathy was couched in a kiss, brushed
across her hair. She patted his chest and continued. “But once I was turned, I
was free.” She tugged at the dark hair under her fingers, watching his
naturally dark skin lift ever so lightly to the pressure. “I never had that
until I was a vampire. Even though I’m the sickliest vampire in history, being
the walking dead let me be free for the first time in my life.”

Jared’s hand came over hers, stilling her playing.
“And what did you do with your freedom?”

She glanced up. “The very first thing?”

“Yeah. The very first thing.”

“I learned to read. And then I read and read and read.
I think I spent my first century living in libraries. Good books, bad books,
children’s books, fiction, nonfiction. Oh, it was a feast for my mind.”

And a balm for her soul to read about a world bigger
than the immediate need for survival that she was used to. To see that other
people thought like she did, had fully formed philosophies that reflected the
half-gelled ones she’d struggled to live by. That other women had been where
she had and made something of their experiences. It had been liberating,
enlightening, not to mention fascinating. She tucked her thigh higher over his
and tilted her head back. “Do you like to read?”

His smile was gentle, letting her know he’d been in
her mind again. She sighed. Maybe it really was inevitable between them. “Yes.”

“Do you have a favorite book?”

“My reading is more for information.”

She propped herself over him, shaking her hair out of
her face. Lamplight played over his harsh features, softening the edges,
bringing out the green in his eyes, highlighting the intelligence there. “Oh,
who do you think you’re kidding.” She cocked her head to the side. The man was
way too curious and intelligent to not like to read. “I bet you’re a Tom Clancy
type of man.”

His laugh was beautiful to see. And strangely, it
seemed to fit his face better than sternness. She touched the corner of that
grin. He immediately turned his head and caught her fingertip in his mouth. The
hot lick of his tongue burned down to her core. She folded her arms on the firm
ledge of his chest, placing her hands on top of each other. As she rested her
chin on the back of her fingers, she had a moment of sudden insight. “You used
to laugh a lot before you turned vampire, didn’t you?”

His hand hesitated before coming down on her back. His
expression went from soft to hard in the space of a breath. “I don’t remember
that far back.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you can just say
so.”

He walked his fingers up her back, under her hair to
the nape of her neck. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She had an image of a man’s face, vaguely familiar,
and then a pulse of anger so hard it made her jump.