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His eyes glowed red, bright, intense.Thiswas the real him, behind all the games he played, behind his schemes and manipulations. Maybe that was one of the reasons I actually did like being like this with him, because I got to see a side of him I had a feeling few ever saw, the person beneath the power and the ambition.

This man wanted me—nothing else mattered.

And that was one heady feeling.

Kelvin

I fucking give up.Every time I tried to stand against Grey, it never worked. I could bend the rest of the world to my whims, could make it all dance for me if I just pulled the right string, if I leaned on the right note, but Grey?

Nothing ever worked as I expected it to. She defied all attempts to control, to even push in a certain direction.

For example, I would have never thought fucking her in a strange realm not more than a hundred feet from others would be a good idea, yet here we were, prepared to do exactly that. No matter if I resisted, I’d give in at the end.

She got the best of me in every situation, and, to be fair, at the end of it I wasn’t even mad about it. Somehow, she led me in the direction I wanted to go.

I mean, we’d ended up bonded at the end of what was arguably her biggest fuck up.

I’d had a perfect plan to get rid of that old man, to take over, to finally get into power, and what did she do?

Put herself right in the middle of the crosshairs.

And yet, in the end, it brought us closer than I thought possible.

It meant that now that she wasn’t resisting, now that she wasn’t trying to escape it, I couldn’t hold myself back. The best I could manage was to ensure I didn’t hurt her, to keep my hand in a loose brace around her wrist, to keep track of my strength. That was easier than I would have expected, as though her safety were part of my own instincts.

I used my free hand to help pull her jeans off, taking her panties with them, stripping them off the leg that had no boot on. They hung on her other ankle, which was fine. We weren’t in the sort of place where we had the luxury of laying her out, of teasing her to my heart’s content.

When we got back, however, the next time I fed from her, there was no chance of me resisting that. I wanted to spread her thighs, to ensure not a stitch of clothing could obscure an inch of her body, and I wanted to explore every last part of her. I wanted to trace my tongue along her body, to find every last crevice, every mountain, every valley, every spot she felt self-conscious of and lavish attention until she understood just how much I adored it all.

Since that wasn’t in the cards currently, however, I kept her in my lap. She undid my pants, and I lifted myself just enough to expose my cock, shifting up so I rested my weight on my knees, so my shins were flat against the ground. It offered a better position, for her legs to spread around my hips as she hooked her free arm around my shoulders for balance.

I guided my hard cock into her, and she lowered herself at the same time. It made this feel like a dance, like we both worked toward the same end, that we both wanted the same exact thing, that we craved it with equal hungers.

Which was nice.

I was an orphan in the vampires, a vampire born to no sire, an outcast, someone without family. Most of us didn’t even survive because we didn’t have the ability to grow as strong, didn’t have anyone to protect us. Me, however? I’d scratched and struggled and made a name for myself even if I didn’t have someone to give me one. I’d dug my own place, hollowing it out of those who had thought they could take me down, who thought me not worthy of survival.

I didn’t give a fuck what they thought, not anymore, and I had been content to live on my own, to do as I pleased without thought or care toward anyone else.

When Grey moved like this, though, when her snug cunt swallowed my shaft, when her arm held me tight, it was the rare time I didn’t feel entirely isolated. It was when I thought there was a place for me in the world beyond the one I’d made for myself.Shewas the only creature beyond myself who had ever made space for me, made room for me in her life even if she got nothing out of it.

She hadn’t accepted me because she wanted something from me. In fact, in many ways, I’d made her life more difficult over the years. Still, she welcomed me, her warmth, her humor, even her temper, it all made me feel less alone in a very large and empty world.

So I set a hand on her hip, my other holding her wrist still, almost as though we were holding hands, and I fucked her. I didn’t do it gently or sweetly—though we’d never been those things to start with. Instead, I took her with an intensity that I hoped she understood, a need that I’d tried to leash for so long but couldn’t anymore.

I took her roughly, quickly, bottoming out with each thrust so I could ensure that there existed no space between us. I bit at her full bottom lip, then moved my mouth to her throat. Her pulse danced just beneath the surface, but I held back.

Her words echoed in my ear, the desire to have me like this, to haveuslike this, not clouded by biology, by a feeding, by my venom, but instead having it just be us, just our wants, just whatever we had cobbled together out of bad decisions and good jokes.

She took every thrust and moaned, her voice nowhere near quiet enough to even hope that the others wouldn’t hear. I didn’t care, and she didn’t seem to either, so I took that as a win. I’d accept that everyone could know—fuck, I rather liked it to be honest. I wanted to claim her in some way, to ensure that at the end of the day, she was mine and everyone knew it.

I could share, but I wouldn’t be pushed out. And, that petty part of me didn’t mind the idea that others would want what I had, that I would be the enviable one.

I wanted them to be jealous, to recognize what I had with Grey, mostly because it had been so hard fought to get here. Despite all the things I had in my life, I doubted any meant nearly as much to me as this woman, so I wanted people to know.

I took her hard, fast, rough, and she rolled her hips to ensure I didn’t miss anything, to keep going no matter what.

Words stroked the back of my lips, desperate to escape, to tell her exactly what she meant to me, that I wouldn’t let her go, especially not now. Despite the problems with the Graves, the vampires making ploys against me, no matter all the dangers going on, only she really mattered.