Yes. She wanted all that. And more.
He angled his body and gripped her thigh, pulling her closer as they rose off the bed and into the air.
He pulled away from her mouth and gave Tenzin half a smile as they rolled. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
Her lips were swollen when she spoke. “Let me.”
She pushed them down to the bed, Ben beneath her as she straddled him. The change of positions only sent him deeper inside her.
“Fuck.” He arched his hips up as he gripped her hips, but even as he held them in an iron grasp, his thumbs fluttered delicately over her hip bones, tracing the lines of tattooing that marked her pelvis.
Ben looked down at their bodies joined together. “Beautiful.”
“Yes.” She lowered her torso to his and licked from his collarbone up to his neck as she rode him. “I want to bite you.”
Ben’s pupils dilated and his lips flushed. “So bite me.” He angled his head to the side, exposing his neck.
“If I bite you, are you going to come?”
He groaned. “Yes.”
“I want to come again.” She pulled him up to sitting and put both his hands on her breasts, smiling when he immediately began caressing her sensitive nipples.
“Good.” He bent to kiss her breasts.
“Bite me first.”
Something came out of his throat that sounded like a growl, and he lifted his head. “Are you sure?”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ground herself down as she laid her head on his muscled shoulder and bared her neck.
“I want your bite,” she whispered. “Only yours.”
He didn’t have to be told twice. Ben’s lips closed on her skin and his fangs pierced her neck, flipping her into another head-spinning orgasm as she felt her amnis enter his body. He grew impossibly harder as her muscles convulsed around his erection.
He drank deeply, pulling her blood from the vein like a starving creature. Then he licked the wound closed and locked his lips on hers. She tasted her own blood in his mouth, along with the hint of his own.
Ben grabbed her and lifted her up and down on his body, the combined friction and amnis whipping the air around them into a frenzy.
She heard something crash, and Tenzin thought the door flew open from the wind. The scent of lilac and new grass filled the air, but she didn’t look. Her eyes were locked on Ben, and all she could see was him.
His cheeks were ruddy with her blood, and his strange grey-and-brown eyes searched her face.
“I want to bite you,” she whispered again. “Say yes.”
“Yes.” He threw his head to the side and pressed her head into his neck. “I’m yours.”
She licked his skin, warming it with her breath before she slid her fangs slowly into his neck.
“Oh fuck.” He panted and groaned. “Faster.”
She didn’t rush. She drew out the pleasure, stroking the nape of his neck and the smooth skin of his shoulders, tightly stretched over straining muscles. His skin was gold, darker than hers.
How lovely.
When she began to pull from his vein, he came hard, shouting her name as his hand slammed into a cabinet, shattering it as his pleasure overtook him.
Ben lay on his side, Tenzin in front of him, lazy from her blood and sated by pleasure as he surveyed the wreckage of the luxury camping caravan.
They were not going to be able to have sex in the loft for a while. Not unless they wanted to be impaled by weapons.
“Outside is good,” Tenzin murmured.
“Right.” He slid a hand down her side, tracing a finger over the tattooed lines that had taunted him.
The tattoos ran between her pelvic bones, but there were smaller, finer dots and symbols along her hips and trailing up her center toward her breasts. He could also see with his keener vampire vision the telltale marks that told him she’d born children in her mortal life.
Not tonight. He wouldn’t ask tonight.
He could feel her in him, her amnis unexpectedly warm and threaded with an emotion so powerful and fine he understood why she had trouble putting it into words. Ben couldn’t name it either. Love seemed woefully inadequate.
“I love you.” Ben said it because even if she couldn’t say it, she needed to hear it. He kissed her shoulder and cupped her breast. “I love you more than anything.”
She didn’t speak, but her amnis kissed him. It reached out all over his body and enveloped him in warmth.
“Even though I love you,” he said, “I’m still kind of a mess.”
“I know.”
“I’m not… whole. I don’t feel whole yet.”
“I don’t need you to be.” Tenzin turned in his arms and looked at him. “I don’t need you to have all the answers to be mine. I will take whatever part of you is ready, Benjamin. The rest of you has time to catch up.”
He kissed her nose. “Sounds good, Tiny.”
Her smile lit the room. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“You know I’m going to want to do this again in about an hour.”
“Mmm.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Newborn energy. I like it.”
35
They left their shelter an hour before dawn. Ben and Tenzin stood over the wreckage of the burned-out caravan, and he felt his rage rising again.
“You’re sure it was Vano’s men?”
“They threw a very clever net over me and bound my feet.” She looked confused. “I’m not sure why they thought it would hold me. Do they think I need to flap my wings to fly?”
“I admit it would be funny, except for the fact that they tried to burn you alive.”
He heard Kezia’s voice over and over in his mind.
…may they never burn us alive.
“If this gets out, no one will ever stay in the Dawn Caravan again,” Ben said. “No one will trust it.”
Tenzin shrugged. “Maybe. They could always deny it happened.”
“Would anyone take the chance?” Ben turned to her. “Why? Why spoil the reputation of a valuable commodity like immortal trust when there are so many easier ways to get rid of us? And why leave me alive when they tried to kill you?”
“I believe Vano considered me the bigger threat. And I’m also known for disappearing for the odd decade or century, so if I go missing, it’s less suspicious. You, on the other hand—”
“Newly turned son of Zhang Guo, nephew of a famous assassin and scholar. Yeah, I’d be noticed.” He frowned. “Is it weird that I’m offended on your behalf?”
“It’s nice that you care, but Vano’s reasoning was solid.” She shrugged. “I do tend to disappear.”
He watched her. “But not from me. Not anymore.”
“No.” There was a slight frown between her eyes. “You’ve taken my blood twice now.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him. “If you take it another time or two, a more permanent mating bond will form.”
“I know.” He watched her carefully. “Does that bother you?”
“No.” She didn’t even hesitate. “As I said before, I am very territorial about you right now.” She stared at the wreck. “I should tell you René was in my trailer when Vano threw me inside.”