“Christ, Elena.” His voice sounds pained. “As if I'm not damned enough to hell, the universe has to send you as the ultimate temptation.”
He probes one finger into my wet heat while his thumb rubs a slow circle over my clit. His fingers are like magic, knowing exactly how to touch me.
I arch my hips up into him wantonly, my hands pressed against the hard planes of his chest.
His eyes flick down to the pulse fluttering wildly in my neck. They begin to glow red. He closes them and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, they've receded to a bright shade of gold.
I feel the danger of being in his arms, the threat that this predator could snap at any moment and bite me, turning me into a monster just like him. It should scare me, but it thrills me instead.
He hovers over me and drinks from my lips as he continues to stimulate the little bundle of nerves between my legs.
I can't see. I can’t think. Every nerve in my body is zeroed in on that place that he's stroking so insistently until I'm grasping his shoulders, holding on to him tightly.
“That's it. Come for me, my love,” he rasps against my cheek.
I don't know if it's his command or that final stroke of his thumb, but I shatter into a million tiny pieces.
“Motherfucking beautiful.” His breath is hot and harsh against my cheek as he continues to stroke me through my orgasm.
When I finally start floating back down to earth, I find myself completely wrapped up in his arms, laying on his chest. He's arranged me on his body so that my chest and thighs are flush against his.
He's so much bigger than me, and yet somehow we fit together like a perfect puzzle piece. I feel that hard part of him jutting up against me, but he makes no move to take his own pleasure.
Instead, he’s stroking his hands all along my body and praising me, “So beautiful when you come for me.”
I blush and bury my head deeper into his chest, inhaling his scent. He smells like some kind of spicy cologne and something else that I can't identify that must be uniquely him. It's an intoxicating scent, and I start to understand a bit of the obsession he must feel. If my smell is even half as good to him as his is to me—and him with his enhanced vampire sense of smell—I can only imagine what he must go through every time I'm near him.
“Let me keep you, Elena,” he begs me, his smooth voice husky.
I look up at him and marvel at the vulnerability I see in his eyes.
Yes, he kidnapped me. Yes, he told me he would never let me go, but the simple fact that he's making a gesture to ask me does wonders for my state of mind. Maybe it's some trick of psychology, but it makes me feel like I have a choice—even if I really don't.
I consider what he said earlier about how I really don't have anything to go back to, and as pathetic as it sounds, I know it's true. And if I'm honest with myself, I've never felt as contented as I do laying in Stephan’s arms right now.
I don't know if the feeling is exactly happy, but it's a warm glow that I've never felt before. Stephan might be a vampire, a veritable monster, but he'smymonster. For some reason, he picked me, and he's devoted to me. He's made it abundantly clear in the short time I've been here in his castle with him that he'll do anything for me. Anything but let me go—or take my virginity.
The pleasure he gives me with his mouth and his fingers is already so intense. It feels like I'm going to leave my body when he plays me like a violin until my body sings for him. If vaginal sex is more intense than that, my heart would probably give out on me.
I might be a pushover, but I finally smile and say the only word that I can manage right now, “Okay.”
Twenty-Six
Stephan
There's a blindinglight shining in my life now, and its name is Elena. Having her agree to stay here with me willingly changed things between us.
It's not like she really had a choice. I wasn't going to let her go either way, and I think she knew that, but giving her the choice so that she could feel like she had a say in the matter made all the difference in the world. It prompted her to accept it. And now that she has, there's not a dark cloud of despondency following her everywhere she goes.
She fills my life with joy.
Now she's let loose and seems to enjoy herself. There’s a lightness about her, like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
It's good to see her taking time to find herself instead of watching her scrape by day after day for survival.
She'll never have to work again unless she finds something she just wants to do.
This is the longest I've gone without working myself, and it's not for the need to have to work but rather just to pass the endless haze of time.