“You aren’t going anywhere,” Ginny managed, almost to the threshold of the room where Jonas had imprisoned himself.
“Stop where you are,” Jonas ordered, even as his fangs sliced into view. “Elias. Tucker. Stop her immediately.”
“I’ve made my decision.” The pain started to lessen in degrees and she barely kept herself from slumping to the floor. “You’re my decision, Jonas.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he croaked, a hint of his usual regal self peeking through. “Take the way out. Now. Otherwise it’s fucking forever, Ginny.”
Didn’t he think she’d considered that? Didn’t he think she’d weighed the fear of the unknown against a life without him?
The pain had left her so weak, it was impossible to form words and breathe at the same time, so she just kept going. He wouldn’t be able to deny her once they were touching, so that was her goal.
When she reached him, Jonas’s princely presence was once again eclipsed by the starving vampire. He jerked toward her with a growl, teeth bared, his naked chest heaving. “Get out.”
“No.”
The floorboards quaked beneath her knees, lights flickering in the hallway. “Get out.”
In lieu of answering—obviously he wasn’t going to listen or give her credit for knowing her own mind—Ginny reached up and molded a palm to Jonas’s cheek. A shudder passed through him, his lids turning heavy. He leaned his face into her palm, whispering her name. “Ginny. Love, my love, my love…”
“It’s going to be okay now,” she said softly, pushing aside his chaotic hair. “You can’t make decisions like this without me. Do you know what it would have done to me if you’d died? Because of me?”
“You’d have been safer,” he muttered thickly. “Happier.”
“Not happier. Never that.”
His body was still tense but the air of violence hovering around him had thinned. Now he swayed toward her with a clenched jaw, as if chastising himself for needing to get closer. Well Ginny wasn’t having that.
She looked back over her shoulder at their three friends. Elias had his back turned, Tucker looked fascinated by the sight of Ginny and Jonas on the floor. Roksana looked afraid for her, so Ginny tried to reassure her with a small smile. “Close the door, please.”
“Are you sure?” Roksana asked.
“Completely.”
“Hang the key by the door,” Jonas rasped. “Where I can’t reach it.”
Elias grunted his agreement and hooked the key on a nail that had been hammered into the wall by the entrance. Seconds later, they were alone. Jonas was stretched as close to Ginny as he could get while attached to the chains and his body was beginning to shake. “It won’t always be like this, love. I won’t wither after a single day without your…”
“My blood.”
His swallow was audible. “I’ve been neglecting my appetite. Some part of me knew the minute we met, nothing would ever taste the same again.” He strained against his bonds, sending a ripple across the muscles of his abdomen. “Jesus Christ. I’m so afraid of hurting you, Ginny. Please God don’t let me hurt you.”
“You won’t. If you’d lock yourself up to keep from hurting me, if you’d willingly die for me, how can I not be safe?”
“I haven’t recognized myself these past twenty-four hours. I’ve never drunk directly from a human before and my first human is my mate,” he said hoarsely. “You can’t know what I’ll do.”
She took a deep breath to calm the fluttering of her pulse. “I guess that’s why we have the chains.”
His skepticism did nothing to quell the hungry way he looked at her. As if beckoning her closer with his gorgeous face and seductive green eyes, while worrying at the same time she’d actually obey. That worry thinned and vanished, making way for lustful awe, when Ginny placed a hand on his chest and pushed him into a sitting position. Soothing him with gentle strokes of her fingertips, she climbed onto his lap and straddled him.
An animal groan burst out of Jonas, his hips shifting beneath her, the links of the chains clinking together.
“I made your heart beat,” she whispered, pressing her ear to the center of his chest, listening in awestruck silence to the hectic thrum. “It’s beautiful.”
“No. No, it aches. It burns. It’s heavy with longing for you, but it also needs your blood to keeping beating and that makes…that makes the longing savage. You have to get away from me.”
“No,” Ginny breathed. She patiently waited for him to settle, before sliding closer on his lap. Right up until the tight material of her skirt prevented her from opening her legs to accommodate his shifting hips.
Maintaining their intense eye contact, she reached down tugged the skirt higher, higher, his energy turning more and more fraught with every inch. She intended to stop once her thighs were able to hug him tightly, but something rebelled inside of her and before she knew it, the entire skirt was rucked up around her waist and she was settling her panties atop the ridge in his jeans.
Both of them tested the friction and moaned.
Jonas angled his head and licked into her mouth slowly, threatening to erode her composure. “What is this little outfit you’re wearing, love?” he rasped, letting his tongue rest on her lower lip. Dragging it side to side. “Did you think by looking the part of a sacrifice, you might help persuade me to take it?”
“I’m not a sacrifice.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain how I know this, but tonight feels…inevitable. Don’t you feel that?”
“Yes,” he hissed, his handsome face contorting with pain. “I hate that you felt an ounce of this pain. It’s going to haunt me forever.”
There were painful stirrings inside Ginny, telling her another episode was approaching and while she wanted to avoid that, she wanted to alleviate Jonas’s agony just as much. She leaned in and kissed him softly, hating the tremors passing through him, knowing first hand they were unbearable.
“Ginny, I can’t have you this close much longer without—”
“I know.” She stroked his face. “It won’t…make me a vampire?”
“There’s a venom inside of us that only releases when a victim is close to…” His eyes squeezed shut. “Dying. It’s involuntary, a product of our true nature as predators and it’s the only thing that can transform a human…God help me, I won’t let it get that far. I’d never make you like me.”
Entranced by the fangs he’d exposed to her in his vehemence, Ginny gathered her long hair in a fist and arranged it to one side. “I trust you.”
And then she offered him her neck.
Green embers whipped up in Jonas’s eyes. He still seemed determined to fight his obvious thirst for her. To Ginny, his lust was intoxicating. It wasn’t only for her blood, either. With her neck exposed and vulnerable, she felt his shaft thicken between her legs and her nipples peaked in response. Her inhales and exhales grew sharp, uneven, and she could no more stop herself from rocking in his lap than she could shoot lasers from her fingertips.