She responded by tightening her grip on my hair and rolling her hips over me, sending ripples of pleasure flowing through me. Pleasure so intense and multi-faceted, I knew I wasn’t only experiencing my own.
Fucking hell, the bond. I’d allowed us to complete it by performing our blood exchange. Why had I resisted her so long when I could feel whole by joining with her?
A smile spread across my face as the understanding of what having a mate felt like washed over me. At least, it did until searing pain shot through my chest in a circular pattern.
No. Not another one.A seal. I’d opened a fecking seal.
The time to turn back had long since passed. There was no undoing this.
Sunday Fallon belonged to me as surely as I did to her. And if I was already going to hell, I might as well enjoy the trip.
“That’s enough, my lovely one. Don’t take it all.” I stroked her hair and gently detached her from my throat, her eyes glazed with euphoria, lips red with my blood.
“Caleb, you gave me your blood,” she whispered, awe in her words. “You bonded with me.”
“Aye, and I’d do it all over again if it means I get to keep you.”
“But your vows. The rules.”
“Fuck the rules. It’s you I want to devote myself to. You are the reason I exist. I’ve just been too bloody stubborn to let myself admit it.”
She swallowed, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I love you, Caleb.”
I didn’t have the strength to keep from kissing her then. Those perfectly innocent and equally powerful words stabbed straight through me in a way she’d never understand. I crushed my mouth to hers, tongue delving between her lips.
Grasping her beneath her thighs, I stood and turned us around, laying her back onto the bed. She stared up at me, her chest rising and falling in time with my own as I spread her legs wide. Her eyes ran over my body, lingering on the circular markings on my chest.
“I didn’t know you had a tattoo. What does it mean?”
There was no way in hell I was about to have that talk with her. I had other plans. “Penance.”
Her lips twitched. “That seems appropriate for you.”
If you only knew.
She sat up, her hand outstretched as if to trace the circles with her fingers. I caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. Then kneeling down, I gripped her knees and tugged her forward.
“Look at me, darling.”
Wide blue eyes found mine. “I’m looking.”
“And what do you see?”
“My mate.”
“Fecking right.”
Leaning close, I ran my nose along her inner thigh before I buried my face in between her legs, inhaling the scent of her arousal. It was the most perfect thing I’d ever smelled, a perfume composed of honey and musk, a bouquet I wanted to explore further with my mouth. She wriggled her hips, a little whine coming from her as she begged for more friction.
“Stay still, or I’ll have to take you over my knee, and that would ruin my plans.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Jesus and all the saints. My cock pulsed, a rush of pleasure building in my balls. She’d bring me off with her words alone if I let her. Using my fangs, I tore the pleasure-damp fabric of her thin leggings open, then my fingers ripped the poor excuse for clothing straight down the middle until she was bared to me.
“No knickers? Naughty girl.”
“I was in a hurry.”