The words barely leave my mouth before he’s on me, bearing me to the ground. Once again, he makes a cage of his body and protects me from any impact. Malachi takes my mouth in a rough kiss. His fangs nick my tongue. Or maybe it’s his tongue. Hell, maybe it’s both. All I know is I taste blood and add a bolt of sheer lust to what’s already a tidal wave of desire.
He’s already moving down my body before I have a chance to sink into the sensation, kissing my breasts through my thin shirt before he settles between my thighs. I prop myself up on my elbows, breathless and a little shocked. “Um.”
He trails his finger down the seam of my yoga pants, stopping directly over my clit. “Changed your mind?”
“No.” The words burst out before I can think about the intelligence of waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“Good.” He does something, moving too quickly for me to follow. One second we’re staring at each other and the next he’s ripped my pants in half. The movement jerks my hips closer to him and then his mouth is on me.
I tense, expecting a bite. Anticipating a bite. But instead of the sharp pleasure of his fangs, it’s the soft heat of his tongue. He licks a long line up the center of my body. It feels so wrong and so right at the same time. His growl vibrates through my pussy and my arms give out. “Fuck.”
That’s when he moves up to drag the tip of his tongue over my clit. Over and over again. I thought this would feel different than when he bites me, and it does… But not as different as I expected. It’s too good. Desire drugs me, molten and fluid, winding tighter and tighter through my body.
I don’t make a conscious decision to move. One second I’m trying to get my equilibrium back and the next my hands are in his hair, pulling him closer even as I lift my hips to grind against his mouth. “Oh gods, that feels so good.”
He makes another of those hungry noises and then his tongue is inside me. He spears me with it, and the intrusion has me crying out in surprise. Malachi withdraws a little and lifts his head to look at me with eyes gone dark and feral. For a second, I could swear I see flames licking in their depths, but I blink and the illusion disappears. He drags his thumbs down either side of my pussy. “Mina.” My name sounds like a sin on his lips.
I have to swallow hard before I can speak. “Yes?”
“Are you a virgin?”
I really, really don’t want to answer that question. It’s too loaded, too filled with implications I want nothing to do with. Vampire culture doesn’t place the same importance on virginity the way human culture does—at least according to the media I’ve consumed—but it remains a thing.
He watches me closely. “Answer me.”
“Yes.” The word feels dragged from my lips against my will.
Malachi presses his forehead to my lower stomach for a long moment. “Okay.” He exhales harshly. “Okay.”
I don’t know what he means. I just know I might die if he leaves me on this ledge. “Please.”
“Give me a second.”
Give him a second? What the hell kind of game is he playing right now?
My breath sobs from my throat. “Malachi.” I dig my fingers into his hair, but I’m not strong enough to move him on my own. “Malachi, please.”
He hesitates and then his mouth is back at my pussy. He picks up right where he left off, spearing me with his tongue and then moving back to my clit. Each little circle he makes ratchets my need higher. He has to pin my hips in place to keep me from writhing too far from his tongue.
Between one gasp and the next I orgasm. I cry out, the wave crashing over me strongly enough to leave me breathless. It feels so good, so incredibly good, just as good as his bite but at the same time better. And then he bites me and I lose my fucking mind.
I think I might be screaming. I can’t tell. All I know is I manage to haul him up my body or maybe he’s already moving up on his own. He claims my mouth and then he’s between my thighs and thrusting, grinding his cock against my pussy, his thin pants the only thing keeping us from fucking.
I want them out of the way. I want him inside me. I want.
I open my mouth to tell him, but his tongue is there, stealing my words, my thoughts, my very sanity. One of us is snarling. It might be me. I can’t stop, rolling my body up to meet his every stroke. I taste myself and blood on his tongue, and it only drives my frenzy higher. More, more, more. Don’t stop.
I come again and he goes still against me. He lifts his head and this time I know I’m not imagining the flames in his eyes. I’m breathing so hard, I’m gasping. “Malachi?”
He strokes a hand down my thigh, hitching my leg up around his waist. His pants are wet, but I can’t tell if it’s because of me or because of him. He drops his head to my neck and keeps moving against me, rocking in an almost decadent motion. I cling to him, barely managing to keep from begging him to fuck me.
The first sign something’s gone wrong is the heat flickering against my arm.
I open my eyes and shriek. “Fire.”
Malachi doesn’t stop moving against me. He doesn’t seem to notice the flames licking at the floorboards in almost a perfect circle around us. It’s not getting closer, but the room is on fire. I yank on his hair. “Malachi.” Still no response.
In a panic, I do the only thing I can think of. I squirm my hand between our bodies and grab his cock in a ruthless grip. He rears back, his eyes entirely black. Smoke burns my throat. “Fire, Malachi.”
He blinks and gives himself a shake. A brief wave of his hand and the flames smother themselves. “Sorry.”
I stare at the burned floor. I know all seven of the bloodlines have different magical properties associated with them, but my father decided I didn’t need to know more than that. He never saw fit to inform me that Malachi’s is fire. I swallow hard, tasting ash. “Is that going to happen every time we make out?”
He slumps on top of me and gives a hoarse laugh. “No. I lost control.”
That’s not nearly as comforting as he seems to think it is. “Let me get this straight; we didn’t even have sex and you lost control enough to set the room on fire.”
He still seems to have no desire to move off me. “Your blood is intoxicating, little dhampir. It’s easy to lose myself in you.”
I blink at the ceiling. “So it’s my fault you lost control and almost killed us both?”
“No.” He finally sits back and pulls me up with him. “It’s simply the way things are. But you were never in any danger. I wouldn’t have let the fire touch you.”
There is a perfect circle around us of untouched floor. “I can die from smoke inhalation. Or the floor could have collapsed and given us both an inconvenient stake in the heart. So, yeah, I think I might have been in some danger.”
He frowns at the charred boards as if he never considered those outcomes. But then, why would he? No matter he keeps calling me dhampir, he keeps drinking my blood, he seems to forget sometimes I’m not operating on the same level he is. I think it might be a compliment if it wasn’t likely to get me killed on accident.
Finally Malachi shakes his head. “It won’t happen again.”
“But—”
“It won’t happen again,” he repeats firmly.
Maybe I should let this go, but I can’t quite manage it. “You’ve drank my blood several times in the last couple days and this hasn’t happened before.” He also wasn’t licking an orgasm out of me before now, either, but surely that isn’t enough to undermine his control so thoroughly. I have never heard of a vampire losing it like this during sex, let alone foreplay. Granted, my information is incomplete, but surely people would talk about it if it was a real risk? Vampires might be immortal, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be killed. Any of the seven bloodlines have powers strong enough to kill. If they lose it every time someone orgasms, their lines all would have died out a long time ago.
Malachi sits back on his heels and drags his hand over his face. “I underestimated the strength of your blood. It’s increased my strength as a result.”
I pull my legs to my chest, acutely aware my yoga pants no longer cover the essentials. “I thought you’ve drank from dhampirs before. Why didn’t you expect this?”
“Because none of the dhampirs I’ve tasted before had this effect on me.” His dark gaze turns contemplative, and I notice his pupils have retreated to their customary shape, no longer bleeding over the entirety of his eyes. “It’s strange.”
When it comes to vampires, strange is not an asset. Something akin to panic bleats through my veins. “Stop it.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but stop it. I am not special and I am not a mystery and I’m not any of the other shit you’re about to spout.” It has to be game. It’s the only thing which makes sense. Rejecting his musings is the only thing which will keep me sane. The mystery he paints is too tempting by half.
Everyone wants to be special. To be unique. Me more than most. When you’re a dhampir, especially one without a lick of magic to speak of, you can never measure up no matter what you do. Never strong enough, fast enough, just flat out never enough. Malachi acting like this is just cruel. “Don’t you think if my blood was some kind of magical booster, someone would have figured it out by now?”
His expression is painfully serious. “Have many vampires fed from you more than once?”
A fair question, but it stings all the same. “No. Of course not. I think my father had me destined as a sacrifice from the moment I was born, so he didn’t exactly pass me around to his people.” I look away. “I’ve been bit a couple times during sparring.” And a couple times outside it. “But it was rare.”
“By turned vampires.”
“Yes.”
“Then how would you know if your blood boosts a bloodline’s power?”
I open my mouth, but close it without answering. Again, a fair question. It doesn’t make it less cruel. “I am not special.”
He frowns. “Yes, Mina. You are. Even without the blood element.”
That’s about enough of that.
I shove to my feet and start for the door. I barely make it one step before Malachi sweeps me into his arms. He glares at my sound of protest. “You’ll burn your feet.”
“I just drank a bunch of your blood. I’ll heal.”
“All the same.” Except he doesn’t set me down once we’re out of the room. He just keeps moving at that dizzying pace until we arrive back at my room. Malachi pauses in the doorway and sets me on my feet. He frowns at the bed. “I’ll order new things for the room.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “Oh, you’re just now remembering maybe I don’t want to sleep in a dusty old bed? Lovely.”
He gives me a long look. “Are you angry about the fire or something else?”
It’s so, so tempting to confess what has me twisted in knots, but if I honestly believe he’s playing games with my mind, then telling him what I’m feeling is just opening a path for him to fuck with me further. I can’t risk it. “I’m tired. Goodnight, Malachi.” I shut the door in his face.
Even so, I clearly hear him through the thick wood. “I am not the enemy.”
I want to believe him. I want it so badly I can taste it like the coppery tang of blood on my tongue. But there’s one lesson my father taught me, one I cannot afford to forget. Not even with Malachi. Especially not with him.
Everyone is the enemy.
