I take a measured step back. Now is the time to retreat, to take the out he’s offered me and put some distance between us. It’s what a smart woman would do in my position. But then, a smart woman would have run the second she had the chance and damned the consequences. I’m here. For better or worse, I’m choosing this. I lick my lips. “Prove it.”
6
The words barely leave my mouth before he’s on me, bearing me to the ground. Once again, he makes a cage of his body and protects me from any impact. Malachi takes my mouth in a rough kiss. His fangs nick my tongue. Or maybe it’s his tongue. Hell, maybe it’s both. All I know is I taste blood and add a bolt of sheer lust to what’s already a tidal wave of desire.
He’s already moving down my body before I have a chance to sink into the sensation, kissing my breasts through my thin shirt before he settles between my thighs. I prop myself up on my elbows, breathless and a little shocked. “Um.”
He trails his finger down the seam of my yoga pants, stopping directly over my clit. “Changed your mind?”
“No.” The words burst out before I can think about the intelligence of waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“Good.” He does something, moving too quickly for me to follow. One second we’re staring at each other and the next he’s ripped my pants in half. The movement jerks my hips closer to him and then his mouth is on me.
I tense, expecting a bite. Anticipating a bite. But instead of the sharp pleasure of his fangs, it’s the soft heat of his tongue. He licks a long line up the center of my body. It feels so wrong and so right at the same time. His growl vibrates through my pussy and my arms give out. “Fuck.”
That’s when he moves up to drag the tip of his tongue over my clit. Over and over again. I thought this would feel different than when he bites me, and it does… But not as different as I expected. It’s too good. Desire drugs me, molten and fluid, winding tighter and tighter through my body.
I don’t make a conscious decision to move. One second I’m trying to get my equilibrium back and the next my hands are in his hair, pulling him closer even as I lift my hips to grind against his mouth. “Oh gods, that feels so good.”
He makes another of those hungry noises and then his tongue is inside me. He spears me with it, and the intrusion has me crying out in surprise. Malachi withdraws a little and lifts his head to look at me with eyes gone dark and feral. For a second, I could swear I see flames licking in their depths, but I blink and the illusion disappears. He drags his thumbs down either side of my pussy. “Mina.” My name sounds like a sin on his lips.
I have to swallow hard before I can speak. “Yes?”
“Are you a virgin?”
I really, really don’t want to answer that question. It’s too loaded, too filled with implications I want nothing to do with. Vampire culture doesn’t place the same importance on virginity the way human culture does—at least according to the media I’ve consumed—but it remains a thing.
He watches me closely. “Answer me.”
“Yes.” The word feels dragged from my lips against my will.
Malachi presses his forehead to my lower stomach for a long moment. “Okay.” He exhales harshly. “Okay.”
I don’t know what he means. I just know I might die if he leaves me on this ledge. “Please.”
“Give me a second.”
Give him a second? What the hell kind of game is he playing right now?
My breath sobs from my throat. “Malachi.” I dig my fingers into his hair, but I’m not strong enough to move him on my own. “Malachi, please.”
He hesitates and then his mouth is back at my pussy. He picks up right where he left off, spearing me with his tongue and then moving back to my clit. Each little circle he makes ratchets my need higher. He has to pin my hips in place to keep me from writhing too far from his tongue.
Between one gasp and the next I orgasm. I cry out, the wave crashing over me strongly enough to leave me breathless. It feels so good, so incredibly good, just as good as his bite but at the same time better. And then he bites me and I lose my fucking mind.
I think I might be screaming. I can’t tell. All I know is I manage to haul him up my body or maybe he’s already moving up on his own. He claims my mouth and then he’s between my thighs and thrusting, grinding his cock against my pussy, his thin pants the only thing keeping us from fucking.