Page 20

FIVE

Seleme

I may be a virgin.

But I’m no prude.

Clearly.

Because I’m standing here naked, taunting this man I barely know with not only my body but my words, too. And judging by his reaction, he is ready to taunt me back.

Somewhere, deep down, a small voice whispers that this can’t happen. It’s begging me to stop. It’s telling me all the reasons why I can’t have this man, no matter how much I want him, why I have to save myself for Alberto Messina. I can only conceive if I am a virgin. They will know. Somehow, some way they will figure it out. It will dishonor them in a way that can only bring harm to myself and my family.

If I do what I want to do right now—what I’m already doing—the pact will be broken.

They’ll take their revenge.

Help.

Somebody stop me, because I can’t stop myself.

But maybe, just maybe, the legendary ‘moon child’ isn’t like others. Maybe I’m different.

My entire life, the rules haven’t applied to me. I’ve been an anomaly.

It’s my only hope, and as irresponsible as it is, I’m going to count on it. I can conceive, even if I am not a virgin.

Maxim’s dark eyes are alive with the flicker of some barely restrained flame. He’s huge, towering above me as goosebumps cover my flesh, even as the heat of my apartment and the billowing steam from the shower swirl around us both.

My skin is still damp, my hair still dripping, and I feel the miniature rivers of water tickling the indent of my spine as he squeezes my wet hair and tugs my head back.

This must be what it's like to be intoxicated. Head spinning, it feels like my feet are stuck to the floor, unable to move, even as my rational mind tells me to flee. To retreat into the safety of the bathroom, where the running water might block out this pull towards him. To scream at him to get out.

He’s the first man to see me naked. The first man that has ever ignited the feelings I’ve had since I drew the first breath of his scent almost two weeks ago.

When he took my hand tonight, my knees nearly buckled. It was as though a lifetime of memories exploded inside me. But it was different; the images that flashed through my mind were full of hope. As though they were to come, not in the past.

My body trembles as the vibration between us makes my breath quicken and my core tighten. I squeeze my inner muscles, both willing the feeling that grows there to expand and at the same time praying it will go away.

Because I know, even through my thin hope, this shouldn’t be. The conflict wages a war inside me, pulling me from both sides of my being, threatening to tear me apart.

But when I hear his voice, my control evaporates.

“Fuck, you are perfect. Such a beautiful girl.”

“Girl?” I snap, pinning my eyes to his. His warm breath is on my cheek, his scent spinning inside of me until I think I might faint. “You think I am a girl?”

“You are. You are a girl. You are a woman. You are many things, Seleme, and if my instinct is correct, you’re about to show me all of them. All of you.”

The masculine depth of his words makes my belly flutter, and I reach up to twine my fingers in his black hair, holding on because I feel like I’m falling.

The thick ridge pressing into my hip throbs with need. I’ve never seen a man naked before, except on a computer screen, but I know what’s happening to him. I can hear his heartbeat and feel the flow and pump of his blood, especially down there, and it frightens me.

What if I’m unable to control myself when the lust ignites within me?

Until I come of age and my vampire side takes over, I won’t receive all the blessings and curses of our kind: my powers, my bloodlust, my immortality that will slow the ageing process to a near standstill... Most half-vampires don’t feed until after their turning, but it’s not unheard of. What if I kill him?

He brings a hand to my waist, slipping it to my lower back and driving the muscle of his thigh between my legs where the worst of the throbbing is driving me mad, and I’m gone.

Instinct takes over, my hips rocking against his leg as my neck aches from being restrained. We stare into each other’s eyes for another long moment, searching silently for something to set us both free.

When I don’t think I can take it one moment longer, Maxim’s mouth opens, and he whispers against my lips. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, little vamp. Tell me, and I’ll leave.”

An electricity buzzes between us, and it twists the muscles in my back as my thighs tremble and I slowly writhe against this man I barely know. The nickname he’s adopted for me only makes my head swim and the feeling of intoxication grows.

“I don’t want you to kiss me,” I say. It’s untrue. I’m daring him to call my bluff, gazing into his eyes, waiting for him to do what we both know he’s about to do.

“Liar,” he seethes, and as I open my mouth to answer back, he frees his hand from my hair and grips my neck, pushing my face forward until our lips meet. A silent boom thunders from my chest, rippling up and down and outward until my body feels numb and yet more alive than it ever has.

It’s like his hands are everywhere at once, holding me to him and then moving over my flesh, sending my nervous system into a frenzy.

I can’t do anything but kiss him back as his hands cup my breasts. Fingertips pinch and roll my bare, tight nipples as his leg moves against my now drenched sex, a tightness I’ve never felt before gathering there until I’m whimpering and shaking into the kiss.

His tongue is warm, exploring my mouth as his breathing comes faster and faster, speeding in time with our bodies as they shift and move together, synchronized like a symphony.

I grind down on his leg, scooting myself higher and higher until I feel the imprint of his hard length with each sway of my hips.

As I move myself round and round until it makes him growl, I hear his heart like a drumbeat inside of me. The rhythm moves me, makes me hornier, needier, wanting to finish what we’ve started.

He breaks us apart, leaving me panting as his mouth comes to my neck, and I throw my head back, the vision breaking inside me of how my mother must have felt when my father did the same to her.

Except.

He was the taker and she was the taken.

That’s how it works between humans and vampires.

Or that’s how it’s supposed to.

The knot in my stomach tightens as Maxim kisses and bites at the nape of my neck, making me writhe and moan as his hand slides down my back, cupping my ass and squeezing, driving my body back and forth against him.

“You’ve been driving me crazy, running by my house at night. Did you know that?” His deep, masculine voice sounds pained as I twist my head and take his mouth in another kiss, by my own choice this time. “I’ve followed you. Watched you.”

His tongue parts my lips, and I wind mine around his but gasp when his hands cup my backside, lifting me up and off of him before slamming my back against the wall beside the open bathroom door.

With his face hovering just in front of mine, I’m unable to distinguish the different emotions I see there. Anger maybe? Frustration? Restraint, for sure.

But, there’s something else. Longing. Caring. Possessiveness in his wild eyes. This isn’t just a moment for him, it’s more. We may have only met a few hours ago, but it feels like we’ve known each other for a lifetime.

His hand brushes over my hip as I gasp, and he moves it down along on my bare flesh, tickling the small patch of hair between my legs. Then his fingers stall, leaving me holding my breath.

“Do you touch yourself?” A single finger plunges down, brushing my outer lips and making me gasp. “Here?”

I shake my head and answer on a pant. “No. There was never any...” I moan low, trying to hold onto the thought. “No desire...”

“Has anyone else touched you here?” The thick finger pushes apart my soaking lower lips and finds a spot that sends a cascade of desire through me, making me mewl and melt.

My head falls back and my eyelids flutter.

Jesus. That feels so good.

I shake my head, wanting this moment to never end as Maxim’s lips lower to my chest again, then my shoulder, kissing along my flesh until they are on my neck.

His finger moves down at the same time his mouth zones in on another secret center of pleasure, kissing and licking my neck until I’m muttering gibberish and wondering where these feelings have been all my life.

“Thank God,” he groans, licking my ear. “This spot here? It’s my new favorite thing in this world.”

I nod as he circles my clit, and things are twisting inside of me until I feel like I’m about to fly apart into a million pieces.

“That feels so good,” I stutter, needing him to know.

“You’ve never felt that before?” He rubs the sensitive nub over and over with his fingertip, his words dripping into my ear. “Never felt this…”

“Ah. God. Jesus…” I push my chest outward, my back arching as another finger pushes just inside me and the pad of a third presses down on the hardened spot I never want him to stop touching.

I want to say more, but the words stick in my throat, desperate for freedom.

“You like me touching you, don’t you? You know, I’ve been thinking about this until it’s nearly driven me mad. Wanting to touch you. Wanting to know what you sound like when you cum. You’re going to cum, aren’t you? For me. Only for me.”

“Yes,” I gasp, trying to ignore the buzzing in my ears as his lips trap mine in a deep kiss.

The feeling between my legs draws all of my attention, leaving me barely able to kiss him back as my hands fly around his neck, clutching because I know my legs are close to useless.

I try to focus on his face, and what I see there both thrills me and makes me sad.

As his fingers give me such pleasure, lighting a series of tingling fires over my skin, my nipples, everywhere…all I see in his face is pain.

“Are you okay?” I swallow, the words barely making it out.

“Yes,” he answers through gritted teeth. “I’ve never been so okay. It’s just…fuck, it’s hard. This is hard.”

“You mean you are hard,” I puff out, and he lets out a rough laugh.

“That I am. But that’s not what I want you to think about right now. I want you to tell me how good you feel. How good I’m making you feel. How your drenched pussy is going to have its first orgasm…for me. By me. With me. Tell me, Seleme, tell me, and you’ll make me so fucking happy.”

It never bothered me before, that so many of the things humans find valuable and exciting did nothing for me. Including sex. I’m half human, but so many human characteristics seemed to pass me by. But now, it’s as though I’ve been sitting in the dark for my whole life, and someone just opened the door to the brightest, most magical wonderland, and I want to run and play and ride every ride.

His dark eyes crawl over me, waiting for my reply, and through the shaking and the lack of bloodflow to my brain, I give him what he wants. What he needs. Because I want to be the one that does that for him, as he does it for me.

“It feels so good. You feel so good.” The pressure builds with each word as Maxim’s finger pushes deeper inside of me, a flash of pain quickly being replaced by a rush of new pleasure when he finds some other magical spot inside me. “God, yes. I’m going to cum. For you.” I take a deep breath. “By you.” A gasp, then a shudder, and a moment later I’m coming apart. “With you.”

“Seleme. Fuck, yes.” His choked words hit me as my orgasm crashes over me.

My legs shake and give way. A dam breaks inside of me, and liquid desire gushes from my sex into his hand, dripping down my naked thighs as I hear his breathing turn ragged and curse words flow from his mouth in pained grunts.

I know he wants me. He wants to be inside me. And that thought only swells the pleasure as I clench around his fingers with another wave of ecstasy. His forehead comes to rest against mine, and in that moment I feel his pain.

His suffering.

“What do you want?” I breathe as soon as I can form words. “I want you, too.”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?" I snap. "What’s wrong with me?” My insecurity blossoms, sharpened by the fact that for a moment he made me feel I wasn’t so different after all. That I wasn’t some aberration, some freak, not fitting in either of my worlds.

His dark eyes go wide. “Why would you ask what’s wrong with you?” He shakes his head. “There’s not one fucking thing wrong with you. You’re perfect.”

All the years I spent avoiding contact and connection to any other living being compress around me, and I realize how much life I missed out on. Whatever this is that Maxim has unleashed, I want it all. I don’t want to keep waiting, to keep everything under control so no one will know who or what I really am. A girl trying to fit into two worlds when she knows she truly fits into neither.

“I want you.” I harden my words, knowing it may not be the approach that most women would use, but I’m tired of not showing anyone who I am. I’ll show them all. I’ll let the real Seleme out for all the world to see—starting with this strange mountain of a man who’s taken a piece of my heart...a piece I’m not sure I’ll ever get back.

“Such a sweet little vamp.” Maxim releases a long, controlled breath. “Trust me when I tell you that tight little hole between your legs owns me and my cock already. I want to bend you over that bed and fuck you into midnight.”

I grab his hand and press it harder onto my sex as he drives his middle finger deeper inside of me, making me moan as it fills me and I gasp his name. “Maxim...”

His eyes light, and I want to see them look at me like that forever.

“Say it again. Say my name while part of me is inside you.”

“Maxim,” I reply.

“Again.”

He pumps his finger up and down until rational thought is gone and his arm wraps around my waist, holding me to him until his heart beats against mine.

“Maxim.”

His mouth drops to my lips and he fingers me until I fly apart again under his grip. I thrash and call out, crying words I’ve never spoken before as my thighs clutch on his hand as his tongue winds in my mouth.

He makes me feel normal and exquisitely unique, all at the same time. Grounded, and yet ready to take flight into something new. He makes me feel safe and protected and at the same time free and flirting with a new sort of danger. The security I feel with him is unlike I’ve felt with anyone before.

Even my own father.

When I come down, his breathing is fast, his hips driving that hard length once again against me, and I look at his face. He looks more like an animal every moment. Nostrils flaring, pupils black with the intensity of a predator the moment before it tears the throat out of its prey.

“I don’t think I can put into words what I feel right now.” The look in his eyes does not match the softness of his words.

“Try.”

He shakes his head, his fingers slipping from me as they come up to trace the evidence of my own desire over my lips. When they are slick with my cum, he kisses me, moaning and lingering for a long moment before he withdraws.

“You’re going to have to understand, I nearly chased you down that first night you jogged by my house. I nearly chased you down and dragged you back with me. The draw to you was so strong it felt impossible, yet more real than anything I’ve felt in a long time. Ever. Every day it grew stronger, until now, now that I’ve touched you...” He sucks his fingers into his mouth, then brings them out and runs them down the curve of my jaw. “Now that I’ve tasted you, I know deep down I’ll never let you go. I’ll spend every second of every day wanting you. Watching you. Making sure you are safe. That no one else touches you. I’ll be a monster for you. Obsessed. And I know a woman like you deserves more than that. More than a crazy, obsessed beast. But the only other option is to not be with you. To watch you from afar, and I know that is also impossible. I don’t want to destroy you with my obsession, Seleme, but I don’t see any way around it.”

“I don’t want you to see a way around it. I want you to want me.”

“I’ll be on you like a dog. Watching you sleep. Watching you work. Watching you, always watching you.” His voice breaks, and with it my heart. He is alone. Like me.

Having him this close seems to settle something deep inside me, something that’s been restless for as long as I can remember.

I smile, bringing my hand to the side of his face as I trace my thumb just under his dark eye. “I’ve never had a dog, but I’m beginning to think I’d like one.”

“Dogs mark their territory.”

I bite my bottom lip, and that tightness knots my stomach again. He leans down and breathes me in, and once more I’m spinning.

“How?” I ask, the fluttering in my belly like a thousand doves’ wings taking flight.

“There are many ways. But the first…is like this…”

He brings his face to my neck, teeth raking over my flesh, before the sharp pain explodes as he bites down and everything goes black.