CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jonas carried a laughing Ginny into her bedroom over his shoulder. She was tempted to scold him for handling her like a sack of potatoes, but she was in too good a mood. The best mood of the century. The millennium.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, directly to his butt. “The highest bid of the night.”
“I’m not surprised,” he sniffed, ever the prince. “I know nothing about dresses, but I know I’d most like to see you in the ones you made.”
Her face burned with pleasure. “That’s how you judge, is it?”
“Yes.”
“I guess the one downside to selling them all is you’ll never see me in them.”
“That is regrettable.” Gently, he lifted Ginny off his shoulder and settled her on her feet, keeping steadying hands on her waist. She gasped when he used the belt to tug her up against his body, nipping at her mouth. “Speaking of dresses, love. This little fucking red one…”
Her knees turned to rubber. “What about it?”
“You know.” Using his hold on the belt, he turned her in a slow circle, raking her with hot eyes all the while. “Yes, you knew when you put it on that I’d be obsessed with getting it off you.”
“Obsessed?”
“Ginny, don’t question my obsession with any and every part of you.” Turning her to face him once more, he unfastened her belt and let it clank to the ground. “Just start assuming.”
If only her lungs were working properly. “Are you going to spend the night?”
His fingers paused. “Would you like that?”
She nodded, never more sure of anything. Never wanting anything more than she wanted to forge that final connection with Jonas. “In my bed.”
Jonas seemed to rein himself in with a deep, shuddering breath. “We’ll go slow,” he said, thickly. “God, I’m scared out of my mind I’ll hurt you.”
“That whole thing about the rules? Breaking one means breaking them all? That can’t apply to us,” Ginny said, pushing the jacket off his shoulders and running her palms up the cool cotton of his white, long-sleeved shirt, feeling his muscles strain and flex at her touch. “Nothing else seems to apply. I’m your second mate in a lifetime. I feel your pain. Until someone can explain any of that to me, I’m operating as if this is a-a…totally unique situation.”
“We’re nothing if not that,” he agreed unevenly, watching her hands mold over his body. “You’ve done some thinking about this.”
“A little,” she admitted, in a vast understatement. “Have you?”
Jonas puffed a pained laugh. “Have I thought of getting you into bed?” He dropped his mouth to the valley of her breasts, kissing them both with a greedy, open mouth. “Almost as much as I’ve thought of getting you down the aisle.”
Ginny’s legs turned to mist. “What did you say?”
He straightened and looked her square in the eye, intensity radiating from every inch of his powerful frame. “You heard me.”
Her mind stretched into an obstacle course and she had no idea where to begin conquering it. Was he serious? Marriage? Yet even as the holes in his plan presented themselves, she was filled with an effervescent hope that could have carried her up to the stars. “Jonas…our relationship is a secret,” she said, common sense prevailing. For now. Holding back her happiness was like trying to plug a dam with a twig. “We’re not even supposed to be together.”
“You can be my secret wife just as easily as you can be my secret girlfriend,” he said in a low, resolute voice, backing her step by step toward the bed. “All you have to do is say yes.”
Before she could utter a word, he drew off his shirt and tossed it aside, leaving him in all his glowing, tousle-haired, muscular glory. Her blood had turned up the volume on every part of Jonas, down to his cloves and mint scent, the plush masculinity of his lips, the intensity with which he devoured the sight of her. All of him burned bright with hunger and beauty and possessiveness. His fingertips brushed down the trail of dark hair beneath his belly button absently, drawing attention to the risen flesh below.
“Um…” she started, a ticklish feeling stirring in the deepest recesses of her stomach. This was all happening very quickly. She was still getting used to being a vampire’s mate. Surely they could space out the surprises here and there? “I m-mean, we should probably live together for a while first. To see if we’re…compatible? You do own half of this place now, remember? You could move in for a while and—”
“Compatible?” Appearing more than a little annoyed, Jonas sauntered closer, giving Ginny no choice but to fall back on the bed. He leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her head. “I live for you. I crave you without cease. Your beauty, your blood and your spirit sustain me. Yet you question our compatibility?”
“No,” she whispered. “No, that was a stupid thing to say. I’m just trying to keep up with the rapid-fire changes. I need you. I crave you, too.” She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling every word like a twist in her chest. “Constantly.”
When she opened her eyes, she saw the temper had ebbed from his face. His overt possessiveness remained, though it was tempered with adoration. “Compromise,” he said to himself. “Moving in here could draw more unwanted attention to us. But hell if I’ll be able to stay away. Or deny you anything you ask.”
“We’ll be careful.”
“Ah, love. There’s nothing careful about us.” Jonas scrutinized her thoughtfully, hungrily. “Do you know exactly what it is you crave from me, Ginny?” He reached down and tugged up her dress, bunching it around her waist. “Is it time for me to show you?”
Her belly shuddered under his rapt regard. “Yes.”
He hit her with blistering eye contact while lowering his mouth to her stomach, licking a slow circle with the tip of his tongue. “Open your legs.”
Ginny’s feminine core clenched with such intensity, it hurt to follow his order, but she managed, her chest already heaving, trying to draw air. Simply from being on display in front of Jonas, her dress around her waist, thighs fallen open, her moon and star panties stretched over a place she’d never shown anyone.
“Such a beautiful offering,” he groaned, ghosting his mouth over the waistband of her panties, then lower, nudging her mound with his lips. “Do you give yourself to me freely, Ginny Lynn?”
Her hands flew up and fisted the bedclothes. “Yes.”
The heat of his mouth warmed her, covering her in gooseflesh. Through the taut material, he pressed his tongue down on her sensitive nub of flesh and sparks danced in front of her eyes. Lord Lord Lord, it was already took much. The rasp of his shaking hands on her knees, the flex of his shoulders, the wicked portrait he made framed between her straining thighs.
Do you know exactly what it is you crave from me, Ginny?
Until he tugged her panties to one side, then ripped them off entirely, she hadn’t understood. Not completely. The need to be claimed by him was already swamping her senses and plaguing her with a heavy, aching feeling right in the center of her belly. This was so much more than desire, though. She’d desired him from the moment he sat up on her table.