Page 22 of Grim’s Delight (The New Protectorate Syndicate #1)

TWELVE

Dahlia had been attracted to men before. She’d felt that gnawing touch-hunger of the lovesick and the bright spark of need for an attractive stranger. Nothing compared to the tension between herself and Felix.

It was the cruelest twist of fate that gave them the most combustible sort of chemistry she’d ever experienced.

“Felix,” she rasped, putting a hand on his chest. He looked calm, but his heart raced under her palm. “Stop. Whatever we had— Nothing can happen. Not anymore.”

Gods, she really hated the way her eyes welled up and her voice cracked. If she started crying, he’d think he’d won her over — a secret she’d been hoping to take with her to the afterlife, just to spite him.

But she was wrung out. There was nothing left to hide behind. Her entire life and identity had been swept away, and the part that upset her most was that she’d lost something she’d never wanted in the first place: him.

An irrational sort of anger crackled in her chest when he didn’t appear to listen to her. He just kept on coming. Felix pressed close, until his hands found her hips. He gave them a squeeze and guided her backward.

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” she demanded. “I’m a vampire, Felix!”

He slid his palms up and skated them beneath her loose, silky top. The heat of his skin burned a path over her fluttering belly and the curve of her ribs. “I am very aware,” he murmured, cupping her breasts with a greedy, possessive squeeze.

It was getting hard to think past the throb in her mouth, which had synced with the one between her legs. Her anger was there, but it was almost indistinguishable from the burn of lust as he delicately rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.

He hunched his shoulders enough to put his lips by her ear. “I should wait until my doctor confirms it tomorrow, but I’m just not that patient. I’ve waited years for this, pet. I’m not going to bite you tonight, but I am going to get a taste of you.”

“What are you?—”

She yelped when he abruptly dragged her shirt over her head and threw it aside.

Stepping back to get a good look at her, he continued in that same cool, unruffled voice, “There’s a lot you don’t know about being a vampire. It’s a good thing you have me to guide you, pet. Now… plant your ass on that couch.”

She didn’t mean to sit. It just sort of happened.

The light in the sitting room was dim. Only a gold glow was cast from the milk glass lamps on the walls. They threw long shadows across his face, and when he smiled down at her from his great height, all she saw was the dark hollows of his eyes and gleaming white fangs.

There was no reason for his slow crouch to be as hot as it was.

Felix took his time placing his hands on her knees and prying them apart.

Dahlia’s face went scarlet. She didn’t need to look down to know that the dove gray silk of her pajama bottoms was shamefully soaked. It clung to every fold and crease.

Situating himself between her legs, he lazily spun a finger in the air, gesturing toward her lower half. “Whatever these are called, I want you to order ten of them tomorrow. Never been a big panties guy, but I find something about the things it’s doing to your pussy extremely compelling.”

It wouldn’t have surprised her if he was rough with her. Felix was a man who took what he wanted, and he’d never been coy about the fact that he intended to sleep with her. Apparently not even the threat of her now inedible blood and risk from her bite changed that.

But he wasn’t rough. Instead, he smoothed his hands up her inner thighs, pushing them farther apart, and framed her cunt. Thumbs delicately tracing the damp outline of her folds, he purred, “You’ve had a rough night, pet. Let your man make it better.”

An electric jolt coursed through her from head to toe when he pressed the pad of his thumb down and rolled it in a slow circle over her clitoris. Dahlia’s toes curled in the expensive carpet as the wet silk slid over her sensitive skin.

“Felix,” she gasped, “that’s— We shouldn’t?—”

The fingers of his other hand feathered down to her silk-covered opening and gently pressed in. “Oh, we definitely should. We should’ve been doing this years ago.”

It would’ve been torture at any time, but now the steady rise of pleasure was accompanied by the pounding ache in the roof of her mouth and gums. Urgency made her squirm and clench her teeth hard.

She couldn’t speak anymore. Only breathy noises escaped her locked jaw as he dipped his fingers inside her again and again through the barrier of her pajama bottoms.

“My poor pet,” he crooned. “Look at how desperate you are. I’m not even touching you and you’re wiggling like you need to come.”

She’d hardly say he wasn’t touching her.

He’d thrust his fingers as far in her as the silk would allow, and he’d never stopped playing with his other hand, his fingertips skillfully strumming over the taut bundle of nerves.

He used the resistance and slip of the wet material like a master.

It seemed to amplify every sensation rather than dull it.

A particularly painful stab of pressure made her slap her hand across her mouth.

It seemed like the closer she got to an orgasm, the worse the pressure grew.

She would’ve thought it’d make chasing the edge more difficult, but it did the opposite.

With each flash of pain, she lurched closer to giving Felix what he so clearly wanted.

His smile was knife-sharp as he dropped a hand to the waistband of his slacks. The sound of his belt unbuckling made her core clench hard. “Something wrong?”

Her breasts heaved as she forced words out from between her clenched teeth. “I don’t know what’s happening. My mouth— It hurts. And I feel like something’s gonna happen if I don’t do… I don’t know. I don’t know what I need to do.”

She was mortified to hear it come out like such a pitiful whine.

Something flickered in Felix’s gray eyes. “It’s okay, pet. It’s all normal. This will help, I promise.”

She caught a glimpse of the ruddy, swollen head of his cock peeking out from the top of his briefs a moment before he rose onto his knees. When he freed it from its confines, he let it fall against the apex of her thighs with a wet slapping sound.

Something in her went still for all of a heartbeat before an animal sort of need exploded to life in her belly. Dahlia’s fingers curled into claws and dug into his bare forearms, forcing him to bend over her as he began to torture her with his cock instead of his fingers.

Firmly rubbing himself up and down her slit, he chuckled, “This really is the best night of my fucking life.”

Some small part of her rational mind still existed. It wailed in the background, telling her to slow down, to ask questions, but the roar of blood in her ears drowned out everything except her absolute focus on him.

Felix pressed his lips to her cheek. It was close to her mouth but just shy of a kiss.

When she tried to turn her head, desperate to taste him, he moved back.

“Sorry, pet,” he muttered, “I can’t risk my fangs getting too close to you until we get the all-clear.

I can’t imagine I’m wrong, but I’m not going to play around with your safety. ”

When she could only manage a confused, frustrated whine, he grasped her jaw and turned her face away, allowing him to drop a series of open-mouth kisses to her cheek and sweat-slicked neck.

Speaking against her pulse, his voice finally lost its cool composure.

“I know you want to bite, and I’ll let you as soon I can, but tonight this is just going to have to be enough. ”

Her muscles strained, trying to fight his grip on her jaw. Dahlia tried to thrash, to buck him off so she could move freely, but he was far stronger than her. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do or why she needed to move so badly until he mentioned biting.

Blind need eclipsed everything else. The need to sink her teeth into any part of him she could reach. The need to lock her legs around his waist. The need to feel him buried inside her.

And most of all, the need to feed.

Dahlia scored his arms with her nails, desperate to mark him as he nudged her shorts aside. “You’ll feel better if I fuck you,” he promised. Leaning back a bit, he firmly turned her face toward him again, but he didn’t release her. A flush made his pale cheeks glow as he pinned her with his stare.

He told her in a strained voice, “Your instincts are telling you that you need me. They’re telling you that you need to claim me.

They’re telling you I’m yours, even if the rest of you doesn’t understand what that means yet.

A bite would make everything better, but we can’t do that right now, so this is the next best thing. ”

His jaw clenched. It didn’t look like he wanted to continue, but he did. “If you really don’t want to do this, then we can stop here. I’ll put you in our room and lock you inside with some synth. I don’t want to, but I will.”

It didn’t feel like there was much of her left that was capable of understanding him, but some small measure of reason made it through the haze of lust and hunger that had overtaken her.

Do I want this?

Her body pulsed with an unequivocal yes. The rest of her had to dig deep to answer.

She would never admit it aloud, but she’d thought about sleeping with Felix hundreds of times. Even knowing what he was and what he expected, she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She doubted anyone subjected to his level of obsessive attention could hold out longer than she had.

The fact that she’d never given in to his dirty talk or taken their video calls further than a tease was a miracle considering how many dawns she’d gone to sleep with her hands between her legs, imagining it was his.