Page 30 of Taste of Thorns

“Fuck,” I hiss, my hands curling into fists.

Eyes on me, she opens her lips wide and takes me into her mouth and then she’s sucking on me, her hands coming to curl around the base of my cock.

“I should have made this your punishment,” I say, grunting as she hollows out her cheeks and sucks me even harder. “Although, given how much you seem to be enjoying that, I doubt it would’ve been much of a punishment at all.”

She moans in appreciation and the sound has sparks of something I’ve not felt in years igniting around my body.

I cup her face in my hands, stroking my fingers down her cheeks and her chin to the blood thumping in her throat. I press against it, making her eyes roll around, light-headed.

The cold shadows stream from my hands, coiling around her body and she shivers with a mixture of desire and the temperature as she works her mouth up and down my shaft.

I let myself watch her for just a moment longer, tears streaming down her face, her mouth stuffed full with my cock, my magic wrapping her in its silky embrace. Then I’m pulling my cock from her mouth and dragging her back up. I don’t know how reliable this newly awakened cock is and I don’t want to waste what could be my one shot anywhere other than between her legs.

If I think she’ll slow down now, I’m wrong.

Her arms are wrapped around my neck and she’s kissing me hard, biting and nipping at my mouth.

I growl, pick her up and let her wrap her legs around my waist. Then I’m carrying her to my bed.

It’s bigger and better than the one in her room – although nothing compared to the regal beds I saw in the Princes’ tower last night.

She doesn’t seem to notice or to care though. Her gaze is locked on me, as I drop her on the mattress, and lower my pants and my briefs.

My cock is behaving just like it did in the old days. Hard, stiff, ready. Her eyes swim all over it, her expression heating as she wriggles down her leggings and her panties and reaches behind her to snap off her bra.

And then she’s spread out on my bed, her body pale against my dark sheets, despite the flush of blood across her skin.

I stand there and for a moment I can’t move.

This is everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve been dreaming of. Everything I’ve feared most.

I have to be honest with her. She deserves that from me.

“There’s a risk, Briony,” I say, my voice hard as steel, forcing the words from my mouth.

“If you’re worried about … I’ve had the contraceptive shot. We don’t need to use–”

“Stars,” I gasp, screwing up my eyes, my shoulders heaving as I suck in air to my useless lungs.

“Unless you … do vampires even have sexually transmitted infections?”

I let out a snort of laughter.

“I haven’t done this in a long long time, Briony. I can assure you, I am clean.”

When I open my eyes, I find her propped up on her elbows staring up at me, the green of her eyes darker than usual and turning me on.

“Then what do you mean?”

I stalk closer to the bed. When I speak my voice is a rasp in my throat. “The urge to hunt you down and bite you, Miss Storm, is fucking immense. An urge I’m always fighting every second of every minute that I’m with you. An urge I’m forced to overpower and contain.” I lean down over the bed, caging her with my arms, and she falls back down on the mattress. “If we do this, I don’t know how it will go. I think I can maintain my control. I thinkI can keep you safe from me. But this thing between us is so fucking strong, I don’t know for certain.”

“You want to hunt me down and bite me?” she whispers, trailing her fingertips down her throat.

“Yes,” I say, my fangs aching nearly as desperately as my cock and my empty belly. “I want to drink that sweet blood of yours.”

“Then why don’t you, Fox?”

I groan. “Because I am not a monster. I won’t hurt you.”