Page 35 of A Bond Beyond Blood (The Butcher’s Daughter Trilogy #1)

V inny

Weary and pliable, Jacqueline allowed me to strip her clothes off slowly, watching every move quietly, but even though she didn’t say a word, her thoughts were loud.

I couldn’t hear them like Elias could, but the way her jaw worked or her brow furrowed from time to time told me she was deep inside the commotion of the last few hours, and I’d better leave her to it so she could make sense of everything that had happened since Elias Bristol’s return.

I kissed across her collarbones and down between her breasts, grazing my hands lazily up her body until goosebumps broke out over her soft flesh, then I eased her into the shower, positioning her beneath the warm spray as I stripped out of my own clothes.

She’d had a bath earlier, but something told me a hot shower might help ease the tension from her shoulders better than just heading straight to bed.

And if the shower didn’t help, I had other ways.

When I climbed into the small stall, she stepped into my body, pressing herself against me and wrapping her arms around my waist.

My heart swelled with emotion as I returned her embrace, holding her tightly to me.

My cock jerked between us, hardening from her closeness, but it wasn’t the time for that.

Jacqueline needed to be held, and I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

I massaged her shoulders as she clung to me, dragged my knuckles down her back on either side of her spine, smiling when she moaned.

I dug my fingers in firm circles from her shoulders down to her ass, then couldn’t resist and glided my hands over her full cheeks, flexing my fingers to get a good feel.

She tipped her head back to look up at me with narrowed eyes, but I just shrugged.

“Can’t blame me with an ass like yours.”

Shaking her head, she pushed up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine in a chaste kiss, then she lowered back down and rested her forehead against my chest while I washed her hair, then her body, slowly and carefully, then eventually added conditioner to her long waves and ran my fingers through them to eliminate any tangles.

My cock was a steel rod jutting out before me, but she ignored it—and to my credit, so did I. Jacqueline was too exhausted by the day to do much of anything but stand still while I cared for her.

By the time I finished rinsing her hair, then drying her off, the tension had mostly left her shoulders, and when I lifted her into my arms, I even caught the hint of a smile on those perfect lips.

I placed her onto her bed and settled between her thighs, leaning over her to press a trail of kisses from her jaw to her belly.

As I kissed her damp flesh, I massaged her muscles.

I started with her shoulders, down to her hands, working each finger in turn and kissing the tips.

I avoided her breasts even though I took self-control I didn’t even know I had to skip over those supple mounds, moving down to her strong thighs and massaging first one leg, down to the toes, then the next, from the bottom of her foot to her other thigh—

When both hands were mid-thigh, her moan hit my ears at the same time as the tart sweetness of her arousal reached my nose and I lifted my gaze to hers, smirking at the way she squirmed as my hands inched closer to her heated center.

“Sweet girl,” I murmured against her upper thigh, then dropped a kiss and inched higher.

I kissed her slowly, languidly leaving a trail over her skin until she was panting and squirming.

When I nipped at that sensitive softness just below her bellybutton, she shivered, the skin jumping beneath my lips.

“Vinny,” she whimpered, my name a desperate plea.

“What is it?” I asked, trailing my knuckles between her legs.

She groaned and pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle the sound. I looked up at her and she flicked her gaze pointedly to the door.

Right. We had a guest.

Best keep it down then.

“Shh,” I said, lowering my face to her cunt.

“Let me take care of you.” I nuzzled my nose against her tight curls and she whimpered, spreading her legs for me.

“Such a pretty pussy, Jacqueline,” I whispered against her flesh, letting my breath tease her sensitive folds. “And you smell so fucking sweet.”

Her hips jerked, seeking my mouth, and I chuckled.

“So needy, too, aren’t you, little Fiorino?

” She whimpered and lifted her hips, growling with frustration.

I chuckled again, then I tightened my hands on her thighs to get her attention.

When she looked down at me over the luscious hills and valleys of her body, I said, “Do you want to come for me?”

She whined, her forehead creasing with frustration as she nodded frantically, throat working overtime with hard swallows.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Please what, sweet girl?”

“Please make me come.”

Spreading her with my fingers, I dragged my tongue slowly through the slick heat between her legs, struggling not to moan at the first taste of her cunt, then I dove in with fervor, eating her hungrily as she writhed on the bed, whimpering and moaning while I feasted on her sweetness.

She was already so close, worked up by our shared shower and the massage I’d given her afterwards.

Slipping two fingers inside her, I pushed up to lavish her breasts with attention while I finger-fucked her closer to climax, curling my digits to press against that rippled skin on her inner wall and making her buck with the rush of sensation each stroke of my hand sent through her limbs.

My cock, heavy and swollen, rested heavily against her lower belly. She reached between us, and when her palm closed around my shaft, I hissed in a breath.

My fangs unsheathed, nearly cutting into the fleshy globe of her breast, but I pulled back with lightning speed.

“Vinny,” she said as she pumped my cock with firm, demanding strokes. “Do it.”

My head whipped up so I could look at her face, but the rest of me froze.

“Please,” she whined, pumping my cock harder and faster.

I closed my eyes, reveling in the feeling of her warm hand stroking me, then I opened them and held her gaze as I lowered my mouth back to her tit. I licked a circle around her nipple, then flicked my tongue over the pebbled tip. She moaned and her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Right here, baby?” I sucked the mound of her breast into my mouth, the fangs dragging against her flesh, and her body jerked with the first tremor of her orgasm.

“Yes, god, oh god.” She looked down, focusing on that connection between us, where my mouth held the weight of her breast within its cage, my fangs poised to sink into her flesh as soon as I allowed myself that luxury.

“Vincenzo, please .” She shoved her hand into my hair as if she might shove my head down and force me to puncture her flesh. “I’m begging.”

I groaned, my body shuddering as I allowed her words to sink in, then I eased a third finger inside her, curling my fingers and pressing against her G-spot with demanding strokes, and when she could no longer sit still, couldn’t fight the quakes that had begun rolling through her body with such force the headboard shook the fucking walls, I held my breath and bit down.

She cried out my name, the most delicious song I’d ever heard leave those fucking lips, and I couldn’t tell if I was high on that sound or the rush of her blood pumping into my mouth. I deepened my bite and she came apart exquisitely, soaking my hand with arousal.

When I took that first deep pull of her blood, another wave of release tore through her, my mouth on her breast extending her climax and pushing me right into my own.

The rich, coppery tang of her blood was intoxicating, filling me with the buzz of euphoria only feeding could provide. The way she tasted was unlike anything I’d experienced before—and I doubted I ever would again.

Deep notes of sweet berries and smoke from the wine we drank earlier combined with the saltiness and savory flavors from the meals I’d prepared for her today. They mixed and mingled, colliding with that essence that belonged to only her...

And the hint of an ancient vampire that lingered in her blood, the little bit of Elias Bristol left over from when he saved her life twenty-one years ago...

One taste of this girl and I was fucked.

I’d never want blood from another source.

I moaned as I continued to draw from her, massaging her other tit with my free hand as I eased my fingers in and out of her slowly, pulling her back down to earth even as I crested the peak of my own orgasm.

Better than any fine wine I’d ever enjoyed, more powerful than even the hardest of drugs, my body hummed with pleasure as her taste danced over my tongue, down my throat, invading my senses with such intensity that I had to rip my mouth away as a cry of pleasure tore up my throat.

I wrapped my hand around the one she had loosely circling my cock, squeezed as I rocked my hips forward, then tilted my head back as I painted her stomach with ribbons of cum as I came harder than I had in all my many years.

I rode through my release, easing back down to earth with Jacqueline, then I leaned down and licked her breast clean, paying extra attention to the wounds so they’d heal without leaving even the faintest of marks.

Although, seeing her like this—red and blotchy, sweat slick and painted with my cum, her tits smeared with blood and marked by my teeth—reached something deeply carnal within me.

The desire to mark her body from head to toe, to cover her in my bitemarks so the world would know she was mine, was a heady, intoxicating appeal.

Pulling her nipple into my mouth, I sucked on it one last time and she hummed happily as her back arched, then, somewhere deeper in the apartment, there was a soft thud, followed by Gannon cursing under his breath.

I smirked as I curled up with Jacqueline and listened to her breaths even out as sleep took hold of her, then I laid awake thinking about how to solve a Gannon-sized problem so my big-hearted girl wouldn’t have to solve it herself.