Page 17 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness (Grimm Cove #7)

Chapter Seventeen

Mina

Dracula?

He honestly wanted me to call him Dracula? Either the guy was going to the costume party Astria mentioned was happening tonight or he was a total mental case. Either way, he was damn fine to look at. A strong, stubble-covered jawline, full lips, broad shoulders, abs chiseled to perfection, piercing green eyes, and an accent that was to die for. Not to mention, he was tall. At least six and a half feet.

That was a super plus in my book. I hated being taller than men I was into and made a rule never to hook up with anyone shorter than me. That was part of what had drawn me to Henry. He towered over me too.

I had a slight moment of guilt thinking about Henry at a time like this. We weren’t an official couple or anything and we weren’t monogamous. He’d mentioned the idea of it in passing a few times but the conversation never went anywhere.

I had nothing to feel guilty about—right?

The Dracula wannabe standing before me made it hard to feel bad for wanting to do him. He was that perfect and tempting. His dark hair touched his shoulders, and I found myself wondering what it would be like to run my fingers through it. That thought spiraled right into licking his abs and then following his happy trail down to what I already knew was a sizable lower extremity. It had been pressed against me when I was straddling him.

I bit at my lower lip, unable to tear my gaze from him. I should ram my dagger through his heart and be done with him. Instead, I was standing here considering putting his hard on to good use. My other half—the part I’d been cursed with in Romania wanted to know every inch of him. It wanted me to bite into his neck and drink his blood. I was practically salivating at the thought of doing it.

My attention caught on the network of scars crossing his chest. Battle scars that spoke of a violent past. Had someone tried to claw his heart out?

Irrational anger blossomed in me, leaving me wanting to hunt and kill whoever had dared to cause him harm. It didn’t matter that moments ago, I’d been the one holding a dagger to his chest. I eased forward slightly, unsure of what I thought I was doing. Whatever it was, I had a feeling I was in over my head.

That didn’t stop me.

Everything in me screamed to trust him. To get closer. To touch him.

I inched toward him, little by little.

He stayed perfectly still, watching me with an intensity that should have scared me. Like he was afraid any movement might spook me.

I reached out, my hand hovering over his chest. When my fingers brushed over the scar that matched my own, electricity shot through me, and I yanked back.

His hand caught my wrist before I could retreat. Slowly, deliberately, he brought my hand back to his chest, pressing my palm flat against his scar. His skin burned hot beneath my touch, and my pulse sped, my heart feeling as if it might burst free from my chest.

His other hand cupped my chin, tilting my face up to his. He lowered his head as I rose onto my tiptoes, drawn by something I couldn't name.

He feathered his lips over mine in a teasing manner.

I growled.

He grinned.

I threw caution to the wind and kissed him fully, giving in to whatever this was between us.

There was nothing hesitant about the kiss. No testing, no slow build. No timid, virgin-like fumbling around. My mouth crashed into his, and he met me with the kind of raw, focused intensity that could cause spontaneous combustion.

He made a sound low in his throat—half growl, half groan—as he held my hand to his chest, his scar under my fingertips.

The urge to scale him, to climb through him, to be one with him was so intense it bordered on frightening. The rational side of my brain said I should stop kissing and start slaying. The rest of me was totally onboard with being as irrational as possible. In fact, it wished I’d be even more irrational.

I’m not sure how it is he didn’t cut himself on my fangs, but his tongue eased around my mouth like a seasoned pro. Like he’d kissed a thousand vampires before getting to me. The thought of him with another woman, vampire or not, left me yanking my mouth from his, my gaze colliding with his.

He released my wrist, cupping my face instead. “Nu te teme de ceea ce este ?ntre noi. Soarta nu gre?e?te niciodat?.”

I wasn’t sure what in the hell he’d said, and I didn’t really care. Between his accent and the way my body was humming with the promise of pleasure, I was basically putty in his hands. I wasn’t proud of how weak I was when it came to surrendering to the opposite sex, but the time for caring about such things had passed. Now, all I wanted was to feel his lips on mine.

Nodding without knowing what I was nodding about, I tilted my face up more, wanting him to take the lead. Needing him to be in charge—to dominate the situation. It was so unlike me that I should have run away, putting as much distance as possible between him and me.

As his lips crashed down onto mine, all thoughts of fleeing vanished from my mind. The next I knew, I was yanking his shirt off him and tossing it aside.

If he cared, he didn’t show it. Instead, his hands found my sides, and he broke the kiss momentarily. “Yes?”

Unconcerned with what I was agreeing too, I nodded frantically. “Yes! Hurry up.”

A bad boy grin slid over his entirely too perfect face.

“Dracula,” I said, going with his delusion because it seemed better to call him that than Guy-Who-Needs-To-Be-In-Me-Like-Yesterday. “Please.”

“Mmm, I like hearing you beg, lumini?a mea ,” he said, the words tugging at the back of my mind. I knew that from somewhere, but I was too far down the rabbit hole of need to sort out where.

“Then stop talking and start doing me,” I said before remembering where we were—in a cemetery. “Uh, preferably somewhere less corpse-adjacent. Wait, does being near you count as corpse-adjacent?”

His grin darkened, and his fangs emerged, driving home what he was. He grabbed my hand and brought it to his groin, holding it there for me to know exactly how ready for more he was. “Do I feel like death to you, Lumini?a mea ?”

I gulped at his size, my fingers moving slightly, caressing him through his dress slacks. “No.”

He kissed me again, so hard that his facial stubble rubbed against my chin and his fangs nicked my lower lip.

I gasped in his mouth and felt his tongue dart out and over the blood that pooled on my lip. My darkness blossomed, wanting more, wanting sex, wanting blood. I tried to pull it back—the bloodlust I worked so hard every hour of every day to control. It didn’t work.

My arms wrapped around his neck, and I was left standing on my tiptoes, desperate to be able to kiss him at a better angle. I was above average height for a woman, but he left me feeling small—dainty in comparison.

His grin darkened, fangs flashing. “As you wish.”

We didn’t walk so much as stumbled together in a frenzy of mouths and hands, tugging at each other’s clothing. He held tight to me as we cleared the cemetery boundary, moving just far enough into the trees to be off sacred ground.

The forest floor dipped suddenly beneath my feet, and I stumbled, taking him with me. We went down in a tangle of limbs and breathless laughter.

I landed on top of him, thighs astride his hips, my palms braced against his bare, hard chest.

His body shook, his deep laughter causing need to settle deep in my core. The man was basically sex personified, and I had a funny feeling that being with him would ruin me for anyone else. That he would be the standard I held others to from this point forward.

I didn’t even care. Some risks were worth it.

“I continue to find myself at your mercy, lumini?a mea ,” he murmured, utterly unbothered.

I stared at his full lips, heat pooling in my belly. “I highly doubt you’ve ever been at anyone’s mercy.”

I strongly suspected he could have killed me with ease if he wanted. That he’d been humoring me earlier and that should I ever have to go up against him, I wouldn’t be the victor.

“Before you,” he said, his smile fading into something softer, something real. “That was true.”

He reached up, brushed a lock of hair from my face, his fingertips grazing my cheek tenderly.

My chest squeezed. I wasn’t sure I liked how his words made me feel.

Vulnerable.

Since Romania, vulnerable wasn’t something I ever let myself be. Yet here, with him, a perfect stranger I should have been trying to rid the world of since it was my natural-born calling and all, I felt like letting my guard down was okay.

That he was a safe space.

Before I knew it, I was kissing him again.

The area around us grew darker. At first, I thought clouds might have eclipsed the moon, but then I realized the darkness wasn’t natural. It was behaving as if it were its own entity. I broke the kiss. “Is that your doing or should I get off you, find my dagger and await the next hopefully super-hot supernatural dude?”

His green gaze filled with flecks of black as he growled, his hands coming down on my backside hard enough to count as a spanking.

Oddly, I liked it.

A lot.

“ Lumini?a mea , do not hint at seeking out another,” he warned, squeezing my ass through my jeans. “I do not share well with others.”

“No,” I said with a grin. “Not something Dracula would do, right?”

A crease formed on his brow. “Your words tell me you do not believe I am who I claim to be.”

“Tell you what, you keep that darkness privacy thing you have going up, and you can be whoever you want to be,” I said, going for his lips again.

He gave my backside another swat.

I laughed against his lips. “Into that kind of thing?”

“I am into many, many things, lumini?a mea ,” he said, a dark note to his voice. “Before this continues, you must decide if you can accept that. If you can accept me, as I am. For I am far, far too old to change with ease, but for you, I will try.”

“Again, be whoever you want to be, and I’ll accept it, so long as you get naked and get in me,” I returned.

“ Lumini?a mea ,” he whispered. “This is serious.”

My darkness continued to claw at me, demanding I see to its needs. I nodded. “Yes. Serious. Can we do it now?”

He let out an exasperated breath. “ Lumini?a mea .”

I tried to focus on something other than the sound of his blood pumping through his veins and his full lips. “What do you keep calling me? It better not be something like pain-in-my-ass.”

He waggled his brows and kneaded my ass cheeks.

I laughed.

He grinned more. “My little light.”

My cheeks heated, and I realized I was blushing. What was with this guy? Was one of his vampire superpowers turning women who were tough as nails into mindless sheep? If so, he needed to hurry it up. He was taking too long to get to the good stuff.

“I have no other name to call you by,” he confessed, touching my cheek again. “Tooth Fairy does not roll off the tongue. Speaking of teeth, you should know, your fangs are adorable.”

My laughter bubbled up and out of me as I put my nose to his, enjoying this moment far more than I should. It felt like I was lying on a man I’d been close to for years. That he wasn’t a stranger or a vampire who I should be more worried about slaying than laying. “I don’t know. It has a certain ring to it.”

“You are trouble” he said with a wink.

“Takes trouble to know trouble,” I shot back.

He licked his lips. “Give me your name.”

“Mina,” I blurted. “My name is Mina. Mina Murray.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes, and I stiffened on him, wondering if he’d heard of my line of slayers. If so, was he going to freak out? If he did, I hoped he’d wait until after our clothes were off and the deed was done. “Are you all right?”

Something close to wonder slid over his handsome face. “I am sorry. I was just in awe of fate and how it can work in the most mysterious of ways.”

“Do any of those ways involve us getting naked anytime soon?” I asked.

He flashed another disarming smile. “All of them do.”

“Goodie!”

He chuckled and pushed my hair back from my face. “You should be aware I was well-acquainted with Wilhelmina Murray.”

I nearly groaned. “Listen, you’re super friggin’ hot, but if you want laid, you’re going to want to tone down the whole Dracula role-playing gig you’ve got going. I absolutely hate everything to do with the novel with a white-hot passion.”

His eyes crinkled with mirth. “Everything?”

“Oh, yeah, everything,” I said, nipping at his lips.

He caught my lips between his teeth with a speed that shocked me. He didn’t break the skin but he did hold it there momentarily, his gaze fanning the flames of my bloodlust. He released my lip and chuckled darkly. “Perhaps, I can change your view on the book.”

I snorted. “Doubt it. I have spent my entire life having people make fun of me for my name, asking me where my Prince of Darkness was and why I’d ever pick Jonathan Harker over him. And don’t get me started on the movie that had Dracula and Mina getting married and her being his reincarnated wife.”

“You are nothing like his wives,” he said evenly.

“Oh, gag, are you talking about those brides of Dracula chicks? What is it my sister called them?” I thought about all of Willa’s babbling about the novel but the hard press of Hot Guy’s erection against my groin was making me kind of stupid.

“The Weird Sisters,” he said.

I was impressed. He was a total Dracula nerd. Willa would love getting to talk to him. Though, she’d talk his ear off about the Harker character. Talk about a snoozefest of a dude. I’d never admit it to anyone but I’d take the Prince of Darkness over a letter writing lawyer any day of the week. “Yes. The Weird Sisters.”

He cupped my face. “ Lumini?a mea , they are not, nor have they ever been in my bed or I theirs. And they are not my wives. I am their… How do I say this without it sounding wrong to a modern woman? They are not ones that can be left to roam about freely—without supervision.”

I tried not to laugh. The guy was seriously into this role playing. Maybe he was a method actor or something. “Are you saying you’re their babysitter?”

He thought about it a moment and nodded. “Yes. I suppose that is what I am to them.”

I licked my lips. “Uh-huh, so tell me about them.”

“Now?” he asked, thrusting his hips up some, simulating sex.

“After,” I said, going for his lips again.

The next I knew, we were a mass of kisses and touches that left us making short work of our clothing. I didn’t even care that I was swept up with him.

Before I knew it, I was naked and straddling his hips. My fingers grazed his scar.

He kissed his fingertips and then pressed them to my matching scar, sending heat and need flaring through me.

Reaching between us, I took hold of him and adjusted myself, putting him to my wet core, my gaze never leaving his. I sank onto him and moaned, my body feeling as if the world had stopped spinning, as if it had come home—like it had been waiting for this moment—this man all my life.

His jaw went slack. His hands found my hips, and he dragged me down on him fully.

I cried out, trying to adjust to his size. My nails dug into his chest, causing blood to well. My bloodlust left me leaning forward, my tongue darting out and over the crimson liquid.

He cupped the back of my head, holding me gently to him as I rode him. “Te-am a?teptat o eternitate, Lumini?a mea.”

I had no earthly idea what he was saying and didn’t care. I was too deep in the moment and his blood tasted too good. What lived in me rejoiced, and I found myself kissing my way up his steely chest, to his scar like mine, and then to his neck. “Mine.”

I wasn’t sure why I said the word. I didn’t care.

I scraped my fangs against his tender flesh.

He hissed. “Yes. Bite us.”

Us?

I sank my fangs into his flesh. His blood ran over my tongue, and I growled in satisfaction before licking the area, watching it heal over quickly.

He thrust upward, hitting my sweet spot, leaving pleasure racing through me as we both found release. But he didn’t stop. His lips found mine, and he kissed me before moving his mouth to my neck. “Mine.”

When he bit me, I found another moment of bliss, my body tightening on his.

He moaned against my neck, sucking gently. When he released my neck, he licked the spot as I had done to him. “Flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood… You are mine , Mina Murray. Never forget that.”

“Mmm, cool,” I said, making a move to get off him.

The next I knew, I was flat on my back on the ground with him above me. “ Lumini?a mea , I am far from done with you.”

I laughed softly. “Extra cool.”