Page 18 of It's in His Bite
I didn’t bother trying to figure it out.
With a palm on the small of my back, he eased me over the counter. The skirt of my dress rose high on my thighs, and he growled in approval. His hands trailed up my legs, feather light against my skin. I grabbed the edge of the counter as he guided me into my tip toes, my hold tight enough to whiten my knuckles. My body practically shook in anticipation.
When was the last time I felt this level of need? This all consuming desire that left me willing to be taken in a public part of my parents’ cabin?
The honest answer was never.
He dropped to his knees, his hands brands on my inner thighs. His lips were hot, his tongue irresistible. It took him only minutes to get me right to the edge, dangling over it.
“Landon,” I gasped, digging my hand into his hair. “Oh God, please.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
He eased one finger inside me and then a second. He curled them, and my entire being quaked. When he did it a second time, he bit the inside of my thigh, his fangs piercing the skin.
My back bowed as the orgasm ripped through me, stealing my vision and locking my muscles in rapture. I gasped hisname, and his lips settled over the bite. Each pull had another aftershock ripping through me until I was a shaking pool of myself, unable to hold my own weight anymore. His tongue swept over the broken skin, and then he stood up. He lay over top of me, pressing a kiss to the base of my neck. I couldn’t help the tremors as he slowly undid his belt.
Laughter cut through the cabin, faint but growing stronger. Landon froze. A door closed, and then another, and then my father’s voice was joining in on the laughter happening outside.
Landon dropped my dress and stepped away like he’d been burned. Those nerves clawed back up my throat, stronger than ever.
“I’m yours, right?”
I didn’t mean to ask it. I’d told him last night to tell me the truth, and he had. He’d told me the truth with his body, with his bite, with him telling me no other vampire was allowed to mark me. I shouldn’t need confirmation again this morning. Silence stretched between us. My heart was in my throat.
“Landon?” I looked over my shoulder. His face was frozen in panic and fear. “You said… last night. I’m yours, right?”
He didn’t say a word, his red eyes slowly dropping back to green as he looked at me and then toward the front of the cabin. And then he was gone.
The slam of the front door echoed through the entire cabin. Something twisted in my chest, that part of me that held the small, flickering flame of youthful optimism shriveling with the sound. I dropped my cheek to the counter, trying to find the will to stand up, to finish these cookies. Instead, tears slowly cascaded down my cheeks. I traced the small punctures on my inner thigh with a shaking hand, willing them to itch, to burn, to stop being the evidence of a vampire’s most coveted connection.
A connection he didn’t want.
I swallowed down the wail of emotion building behind my sternum and pushed off the counter.
The flame snuffed out.
I’d barely scooped out the first round of dough onto a baking sheet when the front door opened and noise crashed through the cabin. I pressed the back of my hand to my cheeks just to triple check they weren’t puffy anymore. I’d taken five minutes in the bathroom to clean up, putting on more makeup than I typically wore to try and hide the red mess left behind by the tears.
Both sets of bite marks on my neck were nearly healed, only a pair of faint pink dots of new skin on either side. The other two bites were hidden by the sweater dress I’d lowered back into place after he left me.
Left me.
The words threatened to tear through the hastily constructed walls around my heart, so I shoved them away. Rhiannon found me first, running straight to me. She took one of the scooped balls of dough and popped it into her mouth.
“Oh my gosh! I could smell the molasses. How can I help?”
I kept my head down, not trusting that my eyes would stay dry. “Probably not by eating one of the cookies,” I said, trying to keep my voice dry, trying to say the joke we always said when I was baking and Rhiannon wanted to eat the dough.
Her body froze, all her restless energy dropping into a singularity as she focused on me.
“Harlowe?” she asked, her voice cautious now. “What happened? Why have you been crying?”
She was my best friend. Just because she knew I had been crying didn’t mean it was obvious, right? God, I hoped it wasn’t obvious. Rhiannon pulled me into her arms, ignoring entirely the metal cookie scoop squished between our bodies. I closed my eyes, the tears burning as I forced them not to fall.
“Here!” Tessa said, her voice bright and happy, too. “Your parents are still outside. I convinced Mom to keep them out there so you had time to set this up. Where do you want…”
She trailed off. Something clinked on the island counter.