Page 30 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

MALACHI

“ W hat about you?” Vicious blinked up at me, blue eyes hazed from her release, cheeks flushed the most beautiful shade of pink as I cupped a hand around her firm ass and held her tight.

This is perfect. I have everything I need right here. Go back to sleep, little slayer.

She had no idea what she did to me, how much pleasuring her meant to me. I wanted to capture her every sigh, every breathy moan, every single blissful second of our lovemaking and bottle it up for later. Despite what she might think, I didn’t care about anything but pleasing her.

“I’m not leaving you unsatisfied.” Her hand slid down my chest, my abdomen, fingers dancing lightly over every divot and bulge until she traced the hard line of my hip. “I’ve been thinking about how good you tasted. And how much I want to taste you again.”

My cock jumped, even when I told the eager bastard to stand the fuck down , and she grinned, then slid down on the bed, her lips following the path of her fingers, soft and wet and so perfectly plump.

Vicious, stop, we can just go to sleep, you don’t have to…

Fuck. My body arced up off the bed when those lips closed over the head of my cock, her mouth sucking and sucking, tongue teasing over every thumping vein as she took more and more of me inside.

I’d replayed what we’d done in Brendan’s office so many times I could recount every second in perfect detail, but this…this was sublime. Pleasure made my muscles tense and jolt, the bottom of my spine tingling, my balls tightening as I fought to make this last.

Vicious hummed as she worked me, glancing up at my face to gauge my reaction, my claws shredding the sheets, hips thrusting as if I had no control over my body.

Because I didn’t.

Evangeline was my master, and I answered to her, only to her, commanding me with every flick of her tongue, every brush of her hands across my overly sensitive body. I was on fire, burning for her next touch, the next teasing caress.

Vicious, stop. You have to stop or I’m going to fucking…

You belong to me, Malachi. I claim you, heart and soul and body.

Those words opened something up inside of me, some dark, closed off place that had been locked down tight.

My eyes rolled back in my head as I came apart for her, a sweating, straining animal beneath her touch, completely and utterly lost as I spilled everything I had, talons buried so deep inside the ruined bedding I thought I was floating as she swallowed me down, taking everything drop, her fingers digging bloodied crescents into my thighs.

Fuck.

You taste like power. She licked her lips, peering at me with her head tipped to the side, her lips wet and puffy. Like the darkness of this place come alive. Rich and salty and you make me want to eat you up.

My breath was uneven, my heart pounding erratically when I gathered her against me again, hands slightly shaking. I didn’t deserve her, I didn’t deserve this .

Every perfect moment felt stolen, like I was thieving time away from our future, and sooner or later, fate would come with a reckoning.

But…I dipped my head and buried my lips in her hair.

Every time I was with her, I could forget who I was, could forget I was a monster, focusing on that tendril of gold connecting us, delicate and unbreakable at the same time.

She was mine and I was hers and my heart had never felt so full as it did right now.

I want to know everything. I tugged her onto me, so her head lay on my heart, her arms wrapped around me, legs tangled with mine . I want to know every second of your life, until the first time I saw you at White Chapel.

And she did. I stroked her body as she told me about growing up with Silas and those uncles of hers, of the so-called training she received, glossing over the cruelty. Her voice shook when she told me about the night Aurora had snuck her and Angel to safety, and then, later, when he’d found them.

Her death was not your fault, Evangeline . I pulled her closer, wishing I could smooth away her pain, take away these terrible memories.

That falls on Silas’s shoulders, along with every other evil act he committed. I should have killed him and your uncles long ago , I brushed my fingers down her delicate spine. I think about that almost every day, that if I’d killed them, they never would have…

“Stop right there,” she said sternly. “Blaming yourself for what’s already happened…no good will come of that, Malachi. ”

Perhaps not. I was quiet, and then— tell me the rest. I want to know.

“God, those days were hard, after mom died. We had so little, and we wished for so much,” she said, her voice turning drowsy. “That’s all we did, was wish, because we couldn’t do much else. Angel, predictably, always wanted her own library.”

I nuzzled the side of her face. “What did you wish for?”

“So many things, I’ve forgotten…but mostly, I wanted to live on a lake,” she snuggled closer, her leg thrown familiarly over mine, like we were an old married couple.

“A lake where I could see the sunsets and sunrises reflected in the water. Where I could sit in the early morning, before the world woke up, and just…bask in the quiet. There’s a different kind of peace, by the water, and I always wanted to know what that felt like.”

I could picture her, hair down around her shoulders, eyes dreaming, staring off into the distance, the glow of the sun turning her skin gold.

“Anything else?” I asked, trying to figure out how I could build a lake here, out of sand and shadow.

“Swans. I’d love to see swans. Do you know they mate for life? Like, they get heartbroken if the other one dies.” Her words grew slower, slurred, “Such a sad story, but so beautiful. I think swans and a lake would be perfect.”

She fell asleep in my arms that night, and that was the first time I left her.

Left her there while I went to search for a way to send her back home. But no matter how many times I searched the castle, I couldn’t find a way out.