I stopped thinking.
I stopped being me, whoever me was, and I just let what I was feeling happen, and what I was feeling was something so beautiful it was almost painful.
My hands slid to the bare skin of his chest and my legs spread as his thigh eased between them. My body wasn’t my own, and I didn’t care. I began to move, twisting and churning against his thigh, the friction so good it made me pant. One of his hands curved around my hip as he braced his weight on his other.
And then it happened.
The whirling force inside me whipped out of control as the first wave of pure, full-bodied bliss crashed over me. I cried out against his mouth as spasms racked my body, and it went on and on, a wave I rode for what felt like an eternity. When it was over, every muscle in my body was limp.
I only became aware as the soft tugging motion slowed, eased and then faded off. He wasn’t feeding anymore, but his mouth was still close to mine and the pounding in my chest had turned to a throbbing in several pulse points throughout my body. That delicious ache was still there, pulsing, pounding, waiting for more, because while the experience had been amazing, there was this hollowness about what I’d just felt. And I knew it was from him feeding and I knew it was… it was simply because it was him.
The Prince lifted his head.
I opened my eyes and saw that his were closed. His head was thrown back, neck muscles taut and corded. He was striking like this, awe-inspiring. I lowered my gaze to his shoulder. The wound was healed, as was the one in his chest. Nothing but faint streaks of dried blood remained. I figured the one in his thigh was also healed, but he looked like he was… he was in pain.
I lifted my hand, placing just the tips of my fingers onto his cheek. “Are you… you okay?” When he didn’t answer, I guided his chin down. “Prince?”
His chest rose with a sharp, unsteady breath and when he opened his eyes, I gasped. Their color had changed.
“Your eyes,” I whispered. No longer were they the pale wolf’s blue. Instead, they were a stunning shade of amber, rich and intense.
“It’s all right,” he said, voice thick. “It was… it was bound to happen.”
My brows knitted. “What… what does that mean?”
He gave a little shake of his head. “Nothing. Are you okay?”
I managed a nod.
Those eyes drifted shut again. “Can you do me a favor?” He turned to my hand, startling me when he kissed the center of my palm. “Call me Caden.”
“Caden?”
“That is my name.” His lips brushed my palm again. “My name is Caden.”
A swelling sensation rose in my chest. “Okay. Caden. I can do that.” I lowered my hand to his bare shoulder and he flinched. I jerked my hand away. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you take enough?”
“Did I take enough?” He let out a dry laugh as he dropped his chin to the chest. “I took enough.”
“Then what’s…?” Air caught in my throat as the Prince—no, as Caden shifted just an inch, pressing against me, and I felt him then, hard and heavy against my hip.
He was aroused.
Seriously so.
Those odd eyes were closed again and those features were just as stark as they had been before he fed. He was hungry… he was hungry for me.
I don’t know what it was. If it was what we just shared that gave me the courage or if it was something deeper than that, but whatever it was, I welcomed it.
Grazing his cheek with my fingertips, I dragged my thumb over his full bottom lip, reveling in the way he inhaled sharply, as if my touch had some heavy impact on him. My thumb followed the line of his jaw and his eyes drifted shut as the muscle along his jaw flexed against my palm.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” That wasn’t completely true. I knew what I was doing as I threaded my fingers through the silky soft strands of hair and curled my hand around the nape of his neck, tugging his head down as I lifted mine.
I knew exactly what I was doing when I brushed my lips over his parted ones, touching the tip of his tongue with mine.
Caden locked up. He didn’t move. He didn’t kiss me back. He just froze above me, and when I opened my eyes, his were wide and dilated.
Oh no….
Had I done it… wrong? It had been forever since I’d been kissed and even longer since I kissed someone, so I had no idea if I was doing this right or if there really was a wrong way of doing this.
I started to pull my hand away. “I’m—”
His hand left my hip and shot to my neck just as his mouth came down, stopping a hairsbreadth from touching mine. “We can’t.” His thumb smoothed over my wildly beating pulse. “We can’t do this.”
Confusion filled me. “We can’t?”
Caden shuddered as he dropped his forehead to mine, his hips moving in a slow roll.
“No.”
“No?” I whispered.
“I promised you that I would not let this go too far.”
“I want this.” To prove my point, I ran my hands down the tense muscles of his back and then lower, slipping my fingers under his loose pants. “Don’t… don’t you want this? It seems like you do.”
“God,” he groaned, moving his mouth to my neck. “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.” He kissed the spot just below my ear, causing my back to arch. “But you can’t say what you want is all yours. Not after me feeding.”
“It feels like it’s all me,” I said, and I thought I felt him smile against my neck.
“I’m trying to be… better than who I was,” he explained after a long moment. He lifted his head and that striking gaze latched onto mine. “I don’t know if that will make a difference or mean anything, but I’m trying to be better and it’s never been harder than this moment.”
My breath caught as I slid my hand back along his jaw and I remembered what he’d said before he fed. That there were some things you couldn’t come back from. I searched his gaze as a knot of emotion formed in my throat. I could understand that feeling—that there were some things in life, even if you weren’t responsible, you just couldn’t get past.
But I didn’t… I didn’t want that for him. “You aren’t guilty for those things you did when you were under the Queen’s spell.” I caught his gaze when he started to look away. “You’re already better. You didn’t hurt me. You don’t want to take advantage of me. You’ve saved my life, more than once. You’re not him.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Knowing I didn’t have control doesn’t erase the memories. I was aware of everything, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop any of it.”
My heart squeezed with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Caden. I really am.”
His eyes flared wide and then he rolled off me, onto his back beside me. “You’re really making this hard.”
I bit down on my lip as I stared up at the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom. “Sorry?”
He didn’t respond.
It took a surprising amount of energy for me to roll onto my side, but I managed to do it.
“Does your brother know you hadn’t fed?”