Chapter 6
Author's Notes: For those who were curious if I’d disclose any details about William and Elizabeth’s past…I hope you’re not disappointed. I’ve always enjoyed the art of telling a story within a story, and though I might not be successful, this fic provides a wonderful excuse to practice.
My boundless thanks to megan_peta, spikeslovebite, elizabuffy, dusty273, yutamiyu, and angelic_amy for their comments and criticisms. I couldn’t ask for a better staff of betas.
New England, 1700 It was the darkest time of night. No moon. No stars. No warm glow of a lantern from a nearby cottage. Not even the wind offered companionship. Grass blades whistled against her bare ankles with every step, the stake in her hand growing heavier as minutes inched by. The vampire Kenneth had predicted would rise tonight wasn’t being entirely cooperative; calculations had timed his rising at approximately seven minutes past eleven.
It was now approaching one in the morning and the grave had yet to stir.
Kenneth’s predictions were typically off the mark. He was constantly piecing together mathematic formulae, determined to find a way to pinpoint a vampire’s rising to the second. It never worked, of course. Not many of his ideas ever did.
Thus Elizabeth had wasted most of her evening. She was more than used to this, of course. These wasted evenings.
Not that she had much waiting for her at home.
Elizabeth fought a yawn, stuffing the stake between the small of her back and the hem of her trousers. She propped herself up against the nearest tree, her eyes taking in the still graveyard with nothing more than bored acknowledgment. The part of her that had once regarded cemeteries as sacred ground had died the night of her first slaying. She used to think them hauntingly beautiful—a place resonating with spirits beyond the imaginings of the physical. A world grounded in flesh and reasoning instead of the mysteries of realms beyond theirs.
The romantic in her had died long ago.
It was a graveyard. One of many. A demonic playground—the birthplace of those she hunted. No more. No less.
Elizabeth sighed and glanced up to the starless sky.
It really was the darkest time of night.
It was also her favorite time of night. She loved it when it grew dark; even more so when it became so still she could hear things like grass blades caressing her skin. Silence and darkness might rightly terrify any other human within proximity, especially in a village as superstitious as hers. But Elizabeth wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.
Not that the townspeople were incorrect in their fears. Just foolish in the so-called preventive measures issued against said fears.
Elizabeth loved this time of night because it made her job easy. Oh so easy.
When there was darkness, it was easy to detect movement. She had yet to encounter a demon whose eyes didn’t glow in some fashion. When it was
absolutely dark—when the air in front of her face was colored with blackness—she was at her best. She was at her safest. If something came after her, she’d know exactly where to look.
Silence contributed in the same way. If all was quiet, noise would betray anything lurking in the night. Noise would give her the advantage, no matter how indiscernible it was to human ears.
Oh yes. Elizabeth loved this time of night.
She didn’t, however, love being bored.
“I see the moon,” she recited under her breath, her eyes fixed on the black space where the moon would be were it not shrouded in clouds. “The moon sees me.”
“Moon can’t see anythin’, pet. This is what we call a starless night.”
Elizabeth fought an eye-roll and crossed her arms, turning fully to face the owner of the voice. The chill she once felt at its sound was absent, as it had been for weeks now. There was only so much a person could shudder before boredom set in. After all they’d been through—the numerous times they’d tried to kill each other, the numerous times they’d come close—she felt she knew him well. As it was, she was fortunate if he wasn’t around every corner she turned. He stalked the night—stalked her—at times beat her within an inch of her life and left her to heal before returning to do it over again. It was a mutual thing, of course. They hadn’t the healthiest relationship but it was one she’d strangely come to depend upon.
Her weekly nocturnal visits from William the Bloody.
“What are you doing here, Will?” she asked, heaving a long sigh. “Can you not see I’m otherwise engaged?”
“Oh right,” he retorted with a huff, taking a step forward as a leer stretched his lips. “Watchin’ the grass grow an’ waiting for one of my newest relatives to show an’ ugly head. Your life looks right entertainin’.”
“Go away.”
“Sorry, love. No can do.” He grinned, hooking his thumbs through the waistband of his trousers, his brows flickering upward devilishly. “I came here for a reason.”
“To annoy me?” she ventured.
“To kill you.”
Elizabeth couldn’t resist it this time; she rolled her eyes. “How many times have we had this conversation?” she asked.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he replied, shaking his head with a condescending tsk. “No need to get testy.”
“Forgive me for recalling the fact that we’ve done this before.”
“Yes, an’ I think you took our relationship for granted.” William’s grin widened as the bones in his face shifted, his fangs descending and his eyes burning a deep ember that had shivers racing down her back. “Always told you I wanted to do me a slayer.”
“Will—”
“An’ while I feel our…arrangement has been mutually beneficial, this dance has run its course, darling.” He took a step forward. “You’re brilliant an’ beautiful. An’ after tonight, you’ll make a lovely footnote in one of your watcher’s dusty ole books.”
Elizabeth swallowed hard, her bravado vanishing. Her tough exterior betrayed her—the child inside was terrified. There were nights when she bested William, yes, but he was an old demon. An ancient, as Kenneth would say. A vampire whose legend was only preceded by his reputation.
A vampire who had, for whatever reason, made her his number one priority.
A vampire whose company had been oddly appreciated, despite the violent terms of their relationship.
“You taught me a lot, love,” William said, nodding to her respectfully. “Never saw a chit with moves like yours. A body like yours. You’re enough to make a fella want what he can never have.”
The words lent her pause. Elizabeth blinked and glanced up. “What he can nev—”
Her voice was severed by the biting smack of William’s fist smashing into her jaw. The ground swept up from under her and the next thing she knew, she was on her back, her eyes blinking numbly at the starless sky. She barely had time to gasp—to blink—to do anything but register the dull pain spreading across her skin before he was on her, tossing her back to her feet if only to knock her down again. This time she managed to fall onto all fours—perched awkwardly with her open palms supporting her, her cut-off trousers sliding up her legs and introducing her knees to the cold forest floor. William came at her again, his foot slamming up into her gut, knocking what little wind she had in her out again and sending her body spiraling through the air before she collapsed once more.
“Unh…”
“Oh come on, Slayer!” William snarled, the toe of his heavy boot sinking into her ribs with wrath that knew no bounds. “Don’ tell me you’re not even gonna fight!”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath so deep her insides ached, rolling over quickly to avoid another angry kick. She fought to her feet just in time to catch his swinging leg with her hands, clamping down her grip and bringing her own leg around in a roundhouse kick which had him soaring through the air in a flash of thunder.
The move made every part of her hurt. He’d taken her by surprise.
William had taken her by surprise.
“Why now?” she screamed, lashing with furious fists at his advancing form, each of her punches wasted on the dead night air around them. She was blinded with pain and outrage—too much to take note of her surroundings, or even calculate how close he truly was to her. “Why now, Will?”
“I’ve told you—”
His calm voice only strengthened the fire in her blood. “We were—”
“What? Getting along?” He managed to evade her swings and smash another punch into her cheek, forcing her to the ground again. “We’re not
meant to get along, pet. Me vampire. You slayer. That’s how this thing works.”
Elizabeth recovered quickly this time, tossing her hair out of her face as her swollen eyes met the demonic glow of his gaze. Her face was wet—she had the horrible notion it was from tears rather than blood. Blood she could understand—could defend. Blood was expected. Blood was justified.
Tears were deadlier than blood. Tears meant something else altogether.
“I thought—” she began weakly, but her voice died without argument.
“You thought what? That I was enjoyin’ this? That I look forward to seein’ your annoying li’l face every night? That fightin’ with you makes me…” William trailed off, his eyes softening as he took her in, running his gaze down the length of her body. Something unprecedented flashed across his face—something she didn’t know, had never seen before. It made her feel, of all things, self-aware and feminine.
Standing under a starless sky, bleeding and likely sporting more than one broken bone, and looking at her attacker as though only then realizing he was a man.
“Nearly two hundred years,” he breathed, shaking his head. “’ve never felt this way.”
Elizabeth shivered, a confused frown wrinkling her brow. “What way?”
A few seconds of endless silence settled between them. She didn’t even know if he’d heard her.
“Not right,” William continued, shaking his head, his balance stumbling as he advanced upon her. She found herself walking back, but it didn’t register until her back collided with a tree. And William was still there—his eyes glued to the dip in her shirt where her small breasts made themselves known. Her nipples were hard and poking intently through the fabric, and seeing as Elizabeth had yet to come across undergarments with enough freedom to allow for the sort of acrobatics she was required to perform nightly in her vocation, she wore nothing beneath her clothing for the purpose of protection.
“Elizabeth.” Her name was a prayer on his lips. He had her stunned into immobility, her body rigid with anticipation, tight with the need to lash out or shove him away—do anything to get away from him. Drive a stake through his chest, even if her heart started racing in a manner which was most curious at the thought.
“This isn’t right,” William murmured, his chest now rubbing her breasts, his eyes fixated on her lower lip. There was something hard pressed against her stomach. Something she’d never felt before—never been close enough to him to feel before. At least, not close like this. Not close in the capacity of a sudden lack of swinging fists and veiled threats.
She didn’t know what it was. It seemed unnatural.
And in the meantime, he kept talking. “Should jus’ off you,” he said. “Be done with it. No more sodding dreams. No more wanking off to the scent of…Christ…”
“Will?”
A sliver of moonlight peeled through the curtain of clouds, hitting the length of his ivory fangs with such intensity that she was at once struck with the notion of kismet. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to happen. Perhaps fate had decided to intervene once and for all. Perhaps fighting it would only make it worse.
“Elizabeth…”
Then he was close. Sweet Lord, he was so close. She felt a cool draft against her throat, his hands sliding up her body until he was holding her by the arms. Something soft, wet and wonderful laved at the pulse-point of her neck, and it seemed for a moment that he was content just to hold her there. His body in intimate contact with hers, the foreign hardness pressed against her, rotating and sending a blaze so intense throughout her body she was at once certain that this was how he meant her to die.
“William—”
Pleasure-laced-pain ripped through her insides as his fangs sliced into her skin, and Elizabeth cried out in a confused mixture of horror and euphoria. Her cells burst and her blood burned, her body roaring toward a screaming inferno. And before she knew what was happening, William whimpered against her bloodied skin and his fangs receded. The movements of his mouth softened inexplicably, and suddenly there was nothing but the gentle caress of his lips across her flesh, the rhythmic thrusts of his hips against her increasingly-pliant body, and the way his grip on her loosened into something resembling tenderness.
“Oh God,” he murmured, his hands sliding up her arms and over the sides of her neck until he was cupping her cheeks, his eyes leveled with hers. “Elizabeth…”
As a slayer, she’d been raised with limited purpose. To hunt. To kill. To protect. To die. There was nothing in her upbringing reserved for romance or the want of human contact. Kenneth had flatly refused to discuss the closeness men and women enjoyed with each other behind closed doors, and while her imagination was rather inventive, most areas of human relation remained a mystery to her.
She’d witnessed those around her find happiness. She’d attended weddings, occasionally stumbled across lovers stealing kisses, and pined for a connection of her own.
At the very least, she wanted to experience a kiss. If only a kiss. One kiss before she died.
How strange that a vampire would be the one to fulfill her desire.
His lips were cool but not cold, and they brushed against hers with such tenderness she could have sworn he was afraid to do anything lest he break her. His thumbs caressed her cheeks, the lower half of his body moving against hers in a way which seemed sinful. The skin between her thighs was wet and what she privately referred to as her
naughty place was positively burning. He seemed to be grinding against her with fixed intent, the movements of his mouth melting her resistance and driving her into insanity.
“Open up for me,” he whispered, his tongue tracing the crack of her lips. “I need to taste you.”
Elizabeth gasped and the next thing she knew, his tongue was inside her mouth. He licked every corner of her insides, his hands sliding down her throat again until he had a breast captured in each palm, his thumbs brushing the hard pebbles her nipples had somehow become.
“Oh my God…” she gasped, throwing her head back and hitting the tree hard enough to hurt. She barely felt it. “What…what are you…?”
“No one’s ever touched you like this, have they?” William replied, his eyes growing wide as his left hand dropped to the hem of her shirt and slipped beneath the fabric. He looked, for all the world, like he yearned for her. She’d never seen anyone look at her like that—like she was something precious, something desirable. Like she was a woman. “God, of course they haven’t…”
“Like what?”
William’s eyes darkened and he growled softly, dropping another kiss across her lips. “I want you.”
“You…you what?”
“I want you, Slayer. I shouldn’t. God knows I shouldn’t.” He glanced away quickly as though he feared betraying himself, his jaw clenching. “I’ve wanted you…I’ve wanted you so bloody long. Since the firs’ time I saw you, I think.”
Elizabeth blinked, her heart thundering. “I don’t understand,” she said hoarsely. “What does it mean to…to want me?”
There was a long pause. William’s attention remained glued to a spot on the tree, or something behind her where her eyes could not follow. At last he glanced up again, and the storm in his gaze stole the breath from her lungs.
“Gimme your hand,” he said quietly.
The request surprised her. He didn’t seize her wrist, rather waited until she placed it in his care. Then with methodical slowness, he guided her hand southward until she was cupping the hardness she’d felt against her a few minutes before. At first contact a short, passionate breath broke through his lips and he stole another kiss from hers before he could help himself.
Elizabeth didn’t mind. The taste of him was addictive.
“This is what it means to want you, pet,” he murmured, eyes shining. “I want you. I want to be your first. No…no, I wanna be your…” He shook his head. “I want things I shouldn’t. From you. With you. I’ve been alive so bloody long, Elizabeth. So bloody long. An’ everything’s been the same till you. Till you showed up an’ all went to…”
“You want—”
“Inside you. I want inside you.” The hand still curled around her breast gave her fleshy globe a tender squeeze. “I want inside that tight li’l quim of yours. I want you squeezing me until I can’t remember I don’ need breath to live. I want to mark you.” William held her eyes a minute longer, then dropped a kiss across the healing mark on her throat. The hand clamped around her wrist released her abruptly, his attention suddenly focused on stripping her trousers down her legs.
The warmth of his body disappeared the next second. Elizabeth’s eyes flew open and a gasp clawed at her throat. He was on his knees before her, his eyes on the skin he’d revealed, particularly the forbidden part of her which she’d never considered overly remarkable.
She had no use for undergarments when on the hunt. Not for binding her breasts and not for her bottoms. Thus she was completely naked to him from the waist down. Her blushing flesh exposed to his overly hungry gaze, the wetness between her thighs intensifying and the ache within her belly exploding into all out need.
“I…I don’t…”
William raised a trembling finger to her skin. “You really don’ know about any of this…do you?”
“Any of…oh
Lord.” His finger brushed the soft wetness at the opening of her vagina, rubbing that part in her body with such tenderness she swore she was going to melt. And then he was pushing upward until that small part of him was inside her, exploring flesh no one before him had ever before touched. Elizabeth feared her legs would buckle but she somehow managed to maintain balance, even when he leaned inward, parting her private-lips and favoring her skin with a long, sultry lick.
“Oh…oh…”
“This part of you is gorgeous, pet. You know that, right?”
She barely heard him, but she trusted the words were lovely.
His other hand, still warm from the heat of her breast, gently grazed her dark curls. “More than gorgeous, even, you’re…delicious.” William’s eyes traveled up the length of her torso until their gazes locked. Somehow the buttons of her dress-shirt had become undone, so she was completely open to him. No trousers, no undergarments—just her breasts peeking out through the lapels of her hunting-attire, her legs spread and a hungry vampire perched between them.
“You know what this is, darling?”
A long, hoarse cry ripped through her throat as his fingers slipped over something in her body she’d never known existed, euphoria exploding through her veins. “Oh
my God.” “This juicy li’l pearl is what we call a clitoris.” His lips encircled her, giving her a good, hard suck. “Mmm. Do you know—”
“Oh my…”
“You like that?”
“I…I don’t know…I feel…so…”
“Hot?”
“Yes!” He grinned and licked her again. “You taste divine, love,” he purred. “Bloody divine. I could eat you like this for hours.”
Elizabeth shuddered with something that definitely wasn’t revulsion. “E-eat?”
“Sweetheart, this—” William sucked her clitoris hard again, eliciting another husky moan. “—is the only eating I wanna do. An’ that’s the problem, right?” He rubbed his face against her with a growl. “It’s always been the problem.”
“I don’t—”
“I need to be inside you.” He licked his lips, sliding two more fingers inside her body, massaging the flesh he discovered, sharing her moan when he felt the wetness she gave him. “Like this.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips and thrust her hips forward, forcing his fingers deeper within her. “Okay.”
William trembled and flashed a half-grin. “But with my cock.”
“Your…your what?”
There was a long pause in which she thought she’d said something wrong. In which she thought he’d remove his heavenly touch from her body and walk away from her forever. Instead, when he glanced up again, there was nothing but awe in his eyes. Awe and adoration, and a thousand things she’d never thought she’d touch.
“You’re so pure,” he whispered. “How can you be so…fiery…an’ so bloody pure?”
“I…I don’t…”
William grinned and laved her clitoris with a long, parting lick before rising slowly to his feet. “I know,” he replied. “You don’t understand.” He studied her for a long minute, then slowly turned his hands to his own trousers. “I don’ wanna alarm you.”
“Alarm me?”
“’S gonna spring out at you.”
A beat. “What is?”
“Li’l boys an’ li’l girls aren’t built the same, love. Surely you know that.”
Elizabeth nodded at once. This she very much did know. She’d helped several of the villagers through childbirth—enough to not be surprised. Well, not too surprised. She wasn’t prepared for the size of his—as he put it—cock, nor was she prepared for the way it indeed sprang out at her.
“Ohh.”
William grinned and wrapped a hand around himself. “I want to be inside you,” he repeated, the fullness of his intent hitting her hard.
“That won’t fit inside me.”
“Oh,
yes it will.”
He was against her again before she could react, his lips consuming hers in another burning kiss. Her legs fell further apart without prompt, his cock sliding up her abdomen until the hard length of him was resting against her belly. “I wanna make love to you, sweetness,” he murmured between kisses, his fingers slipping between their bodies to caress her clitoris. “Please let me in.”
The world spun madly around her, the touch of his fingers against her throbbing flesh had everything melting into shapeless colors. Elizabeth nodded hard before she could stop herself—before what she was consenting could truly hit her—and found herself lost in another kiss before she could pause for breath. The way he whimpered against her lips had her reconfiguring what little knowledge she held about the universe. There was no way an evil creature could feel like this—taste like this. There was no way an evil creature could make her body cry out with pleasure with something as simple as a touch. There was no way an evil creature could get this close to her without dusting.
William was an evil creature. She knew he was.
What did that make her, then, if she could let an evil creature touch her this way?
I don’t care. I don’t care at all. And the startling thing was…it was the truth.
“Hike your legs around my waist,” William murmured, his tongue laving the mark he’d given her. She was quick to obey—quick to do whatever he asked of her, and he rewarded her speed with a quick, playful pinch of her clitoris. “That’s my girl.”
At some point, the ridges of his demon had receded and he was a man again. She honestly didn’t know when that had happened—or how she hadn’t noticed it sooner. The gaze meeting hers was a deep, royal blue, filled with such rich emotion that it became difficult to breathe. She hadn’t thought she could see anything in this darkness, but God was she wrong. She saw him clearly. So clearly. She could see nothing else. And the second her legs were off the ground, the second her balance was placed in his care, she knew she’d crossed some invisible boundary.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, drenching his length with her wetness. He had a hand between them, navigating his cock so that the silky tip caressed her swollen clitoris once, twice, and again before slipping down her slit until he was poised at her entrance. “Figure I’ve never told you how beautiful you are before.”
“Uhhh…”
“This is gonna hurt a bit.” He licked her throat and purred. “’ll be slow, okay? You tell me if you need me any slower.”
Words had no meaning anymore, but she found herself nodding anyway. And then the world stopped—she heard only his ragged pants and the thunder of her heart. Then the walls around her collapsed and she was catapulted into a new world, the clouds above parting as he began to sink himself inside her. It felt at once that she was ripping apart completely—her flesh separated and her body split in half. She clenched and moaned, every inch of her going rigid, her hands clamping his shoulders and a hoarse cry battling her throat for freedom.
“Ohhh…”
“It gets better, kitten. I promise.”
Elizabeth nodded and tried to speak but words failed her completely. And even so, she didn’t know what she wanted to say. The sting was minimal compared to sensation, and while her body strained around him, it was more for the alien feel of invasion rather than actual pain. She felt parted but strangely complete all in the same blow. As though she’d been made for this as naturally as anything else—more so, even, than her Calling—and she’d only just discovered herself. She inhaled sharply and nodded her silent consent when he asked her if he could move in just a little deeper. And then the walls of her existence were toppling over once more, the length of him pulling at her wet flesh as he seated himself deep within her body.
She was trapped, then, between the tree at her back and the vampire pressed against her breasts. She was speared through and she didn’t care. She was at last whole—it took coming apart to render oneself whole. And while she didn’t understand how or why, she wasn’t about to question herself.
In all her life, there had never been a more perfect moment.
“Mmm,” William murmured. “No barrier.”
It took a few seconds to register his comment. “What?”
“You din’t have a barrier, love. What the poets call your maidenhead, or what all. Most girlies do.” With one hand supporting the weight of her thigh and the other at her cheek, he pulled her toward him and kissed her lips sweetly, his hips moving only slightly against hers. “Guess all those high kicks are good for somethin’, yeah?”
“I don’t…ohhh…”
“Ride many horses?”
She nodded, finding this an extremely bizarre conversation considering she had William trapped within her body. “A little.”
“Coulda been that way, then.” He grinned and nuzzled her neck. “Never been anyone else, though. I’d know it. I’m your first.”
“Wha…”
William chuckled, and the sound reverberated through her every cell. “Better watch it,” he mused, though there was a look in his eyes which told her he was talking to himself. “I could get myself in trouble.”
“Trouble?”
He shook his head and kissed her lips once more, the hand at her face sliding downward until he had each thigh cradled in his palms. His fingers dug hard into her skin as he pulled back from her, his cock dragging against her flesh before plunging inside again. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “You’re…never had it…so tight.”
“Tight?” she echoed. It seemed all she could do was repeat whatever he said.
“Your sweet li’l pussy,” William purred, a rakish grin tugging at his lips. He forfeited the hold on one of her legs to brush his fingers through her soft pubic curls. “Squeezin’ me. Oh God, pet, squeeze me.”
“You’re vulgar,” Elizabeth gasped, though she couldn’t deny the thrill racing down her spine. She didn’t want to deny it.
“You love it.” He buried his face in her throat, growling hard as the thrusts of his body gained speed and fervor. Every slip of his cock from her burning flesh had her falling further into an abyss from which she could never climb free. “You have no idea how good you feel, do you?”
“Ohh…”
“You feel wonderful. So wonderful. So hot. Burning me up, you are.” He trembled hard against her, his eyes squeezing shut. “How do I feel, sweetheart?”
The hysterical screaming in her head fizzed into nothing, but left no words in its wake to feed him. How did he feel? Elizabeth barely knew herself. The nerves he struck were ones she hadn’t known she possessed—the way his cock moved in and out of her body, slick with her wetness and seemingly determined to push her over some final threshold, had her skin humming with ecstasy beyond ecstasy and her heart fearing the inevitable plunge. He was thrusting against her, into her, slamming her between the tree and his chest. Cold night air whipped across her skin and in the distance, if she looked, she could see the gravestones of the cemetery she patrolled every night.
This place she guarded—this place she knew—was suddenly completely different.
“My sweet li’l Slayer,” William moaned against her skin, “please talk to me.”
Elizabeth fought off a whimper and thrust her hips against his. It was maddening, the way he attempted to remove himself from her body. She didn’t want him gone—she wanted him locked inside. Forever. She wanted her muscles clenching around him, holding him, claiming this piece of herself she hadn’t known to be lost until he stumbled into her life.
Until tonight.
Until this moment.
He couldn’t give her his body and then take it away, no matter how brief the loss. She would battle him for custody, and she would win.
She was, after all, the Slayer.
Her revolt didn’t land her the scolding she expected. Instead, his eyes about crossed and the hold on her tightened still, his thrusts hardening with need. “Oh
bloody hell,” William growled. “That’s it, kitten. Fight me.”
The words almost angered her, they seemed so inappropriate.
So she did what was natural. She fought. Every time his cock pulled away from her, she slammed upward to claim it back again. Every time his lips pulled off her skin, she seized his face and tore at them with her own. Every time he laughed she growled, and every time he growled she laughed. They fought each other with their bodies until their mutual snarls faded into whimpered moans. Until sound melted into the intimate smack of their flesh as they moved together, as he stabbed her insides and as she clenched around him every time she thought his thrust deep enough to capture him forever.
“Oh Elizabeth…”
The ring of her name off his lips had her insides trembling.
“Tell me…this feels…good,” William begged, driving hard into her, hunger straining his eyes. “Tell me…you…love it.”
A foreign sense of ascension sparked within her belly. “Love…love it,” she agreed. “Feels…”
“This is
mine, you hear?”
The spark was growing rapidly, spreading through her veins like wildfire. Pressure gathered and spread, moving and rolling into something so large she knew her small body wasn’t going to be able to contain it. “Oh—oh—my God. Ohhh…”
“You’re so hot. So bloody tight.” William turned his attention to the bite mark on her throat again, laving it lovingly with his tongue, his body slamming her so hard she saw stars. “This is
mine, Elizabeth.
Mine.” “Oh yes. Yes.”
“You don’ let
anyone touch you like this, you hear?”
She didn’t bother to tell him that no one else would. Her brain had melted as it was—the fire spearing through her veins burning down the parts of her built for such reactions. She was driving forward at speeds she couldn’t believe existed, and she was headed directly toward an inferno unlike anything Dante could ever dream up.
Then William’s fingers found her clitoris again, and he was rubbing her gently even as their bodies battled one another toward an unfathomable finish-line.
She was going to burn. Her body was simply going to burn until she knew how it felt to dust.
A fitting ending, she supposed. It was only fair.
“William!” And then it happened—an explosion beyond anything the gods could have orchestrated. Her body clenched and spasmed, her grip on her vampire tightening so hard she was surprised when he didn’t cry out in pain. Instead his thrusts grew harder, demanding more from her, murmuring dirty little confessions into her ears as her heart battled her chest for freedom. As her blood turned to lava. As her skin touched the heavens, wrapped in euphoria and drenched in the sweetest peace she’d ever known. Elizabeth buried her head in his shoulder and cried out, her arms finding their way around his neck as he continued pumping his cock inside her. And when his fangs found her throat again, there was no fear. There was no crying foul.
There was only liberation as he provided the fire burning her insides with cool release. The next thing she knew, they were falling together, bodies intimately locked and arms wrapped around each other.
She didn’t care to ever find freedom again.
Elizabeth truly had no grasp on how much time passed. How long it took for her chest to stop aching for the breaths she took. How long her body blazed with the aftershocks of what they’d shared before finally lulling into sweet, languorous satisfaction. When she blinked back to herself, she found she was resting upon William’s chest, his hand woven through her hair, his body still a part of her body, his greedy lungs claiming air he didn’t need. And while the earth had moved and the night was forever changed, she was captured all at once in a moment of stark realization.
There was no going back from this.
Everything had changed.
Everything. “What happens now?” she asked, surprised at how hoarse she sounded.
There was no reply. William tightened his arms around her, his lips finding her brow, but he didn’t say anything.
Perhaps there was nothing to say.
Then, at last, words.
“Ask me again some other time.”
And before she knew what was happening, she was on her back and William was above her, his eyes smiling into hers.
Her heart stopped and warmth tingled her previously-numb nerves. She felt him hardening within her body, and without want of stopping herself, she thrust her hips hard against his.
A moan crossed his lips, which twisted into a grin. “Right now,” he continued. “I just need you.”
And for once, she was not one to argue.