Page 19 of The Second Sight (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

Chapter

Fourteen

SEVEN

My house tour culminated at the end of the west wing’s long corridor, where a set of double doors carved with intertwining serpents marked the entrance to my private quarters.

I hesitated, my hand resting on the ornate brass handle.

In all my centuries, I had never brought any humans to my sanctuary.

Kasi stood beside me, her eyes tracing the intricate carvings, unaware of my momentary hesitation.

The scent of her skin, that intoxicating mixture of warm human and ancient fae filled my senses.

With a silent acknowledgment that crossing this threshold would irrevocably deepen whatever was forming between us.

Love, dare I say it. What was forming, was love.

I pushed open the door and led her into my most private domain.

My bedroom spread before us, vast and darkly opulent.

A massive four-poster bed dominated the space, its frame carved from ebony by an Italian master craftsman in the early 1700s.

Dark silk sheets and burgundy velvet hangings complemented the rich mahogany floors, which were softened by Persian rugs I’d acquired during travels in the 1850s.

Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the eastern wall, now covered with heavy drapes that blocked out the midday sun.

Antique oil lamps cast a warm, golden glow across the room, illuminating eras of collected treasures.

“This is incredible,” Kasi breathed, stepping past me into the room. Her eyes darted from the decorative ceiling mural to the antique writing desk positioned near the windows, a piece I’d owned since my human days, one of the few possessions that had followed me through the centuries.

“Most of these items have stories attached to them,” I said, watching her move through my personal space. Her fingers hovered just above surfaces as if asking permission to touch. “Some pleasant, others less so. All part of a life that’s stretched longer than I ever anticipated.”

She approached a small table near the bed, where a collection of personal items rested: a pocket watch that had stopped at the moment of my transformation, a small portrait miniature of a woman whose face I could no longer clearly remember, a leather-bound journal whose pages contained the earliest days of my vampire existence.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the journal.

I nodded, surprised by my willingness to share even this with her.

As she carefully opened the aged leather cover, I moved silently across the room, drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

The sight of her touching my possessions, standing in my most private sanctuary, awakened something primal and possessive within me.

She belonged here. She belonged with me.

I approached from behind, close enough that she must have felt the primal heat radiating from my body. Her head tilted slightly, recognizing my presence without turning. I leaned forward. My lips nearly touched the delicate shell of her ear.

“The journal entries stop after a decade,” I murmured. “Immortality makes record keeping seem, redundant after a while.”

A small shiver ran through her body. I placed my hands lightly on her hips, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her dress.

She leaned back into me, her spine pressing against my chest as her head tilted, exposing the elegant line of her neck.

This was an invitation, whether she realized it or not.

I pressed my lips to the spot below her ear.

I tasted the salt of her skin, feeling the flutter of her pulse against my mouth.

My hands slid around her waist, pulling her firmly against me.

The journal forgotten, she turned in my arms. Kasi’s fairy eyes found mine in the dim light.

Her pupils were dilated with desire. Her breathing came in short, shallow gasps.

“Seven,” she whispered.

I captured her mouth with mine, the kiss deep and consuming from the first touch.

Gone was the hesitation of last night’s initial exploration.

We had crossed that threshold already. Now hunger ruled us both.

Her arms wound around my neck, her body arching against mine as if seeking to eliminate any space between us.

I lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carried her the few steps to the bed.

I laid her down on the silk sheets beneath us. My body followed hers onto the mattress. Her dress had rose around her thighs, revealing perfectly smooth brown skin. I traced the curve of her calf and the hollow behind her knee. I caressed the soft inner flesh of her thigh.

“I want to taste you,” I murmured against her mouth. “Every single part of you.”

Her breath hitched. When she nodded, I began the slow journey down her body.

I savored each newly revealed inch of skin as I pushed her dress upward.

I paused at her stomach, pressing kisses to the soft plane just below her navel, feeling the muscles tense beneath my lips.

My enhanced senses picked up the subtle changes in her scent as arousal built within her.

These signals told me exactly how her body responded to my touch.

I slid lower, gently parting her thighs wider as I settled between them. The first touch of my tongue against her core drew a gasp that transformed into a moan as I continued, using centuries of experience to read her body’s responses.

My hands gripped her hips, holding her steady as she began to writhe beneath my movements. Her fingers tangled in my hair, alternately pulling me closer and pushing me away as the sensations threatened to overwhelm her.

I could taste the fae in her in her cream.

There was a subtle otherworldliness beneath the human flavor that made her uniquely intoxicating.

I took my time, bringing her to the edge of climax before easing my tongue back inside.

I extended her pleasure until she was practically sobbing with need, while my name fell from her lips in desperate pleas.

Only then did I allow her release, feeling her body shudder beneath me as waves of pleasure washed through her.

I raised my head, watching her sexy face as she came apart for only me.

Her eyes were closed, and her lips slightly parted, utterly vulnerable in her ecstasy.

Beautiful. Mine. Now and forever. I claimed it and so it will be.

I moved up her body while she was still trembling with aftershocks, my lips finding her neck once more. Deliberately, I let my fangs extend, just enough to graze the sensitive skin without breaking it. Her eyes flew open, meeting mine as she felt the sharp points against her throat.

“I could taste your blood,” I whispered, my voice hungry with desire. “Legend has it that fae blood is sweeter than anything I’ve ever experienced in centuries of living.”

Fear flashed briefly in her eyes, quickly consumed by a deeper hunger. “Will it, hurt?”

“A moment of pain,” I admitted, dragging the tip of one fang lightly along her jugular, “followed by pleasure you can’t imagine.” I pulled back slightly, looking into her eyes. “But not tonight. Not until you ask for it.”

Relief and disappointment warred in her expression. Kasi nodded, understanding I was offering her a choice. The control I was placing in her hands, only because I wanted her to be ready for that level of intimacy.

I captured her mouth again as I positioned myself between her thighs.

The head of my cock pressed against her slick entrance.

Despite the intimacy we shared only hours ago, I moved slowly, giving her body time to adjust to the intrusion.

Her warmth enveloped me inch by inch, a searing heat that contrasted with my natural coolness.

When I was fully seated within her, I paused, savoring the perfect joining of our bodies.

“You feel like the place I was meant to be. You feel like home,” I murmured against her lips. The words emerged as I tried to hold in these new emotions.

She wrapped her legs around my waist, drawing me impossibly deeper into her tight hole. “Then welcome home,” she whispered words that sent me over the edge.

I began to move swiftly, setting a rhythm that quickly had her gasping beneath me.

Vampire stamina and control allowed me to maintain the perfect pace, adjusting to her every response, reading the subtle cues of her body.

I wanted to give her maximum pleasure beyond measure despite being her one and only lover.

Her nails raked down my back, leaving trails of fire that would heal almost instantly but felt exquisite in the moment.

As her second climax approached, I increased my tempo, driving into her with carefully restrained force.

Just enough to push her over the edge without risking injury to her fragile form.

She cried out, her inner muscles clenching around me as pleasure overtook her once more.

The sensation, combined with the sight of her face transformed by ecstasy, triggered my own release.

I buried my face against her neck as I spilled my venom inside her, resisting the primal urge to bite, to claim her completely in blood. I’d never made love like this before.

Afterward, we lay tangled in the sheets.

Her head rested on my chest as her breathing gradually slowing to normal.

My body had already cooled back to its natural temperature, but I kept her close, savoring the warmth she radiated.

One of my hands idly stroked her hair, the other rested at the small of her back, feeling the gentle rise and fall of each breath.

“Is it always like this?” she asked, her voice soft in the quiet room. “For vampires, I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“This intense. Like the sex. Is this normal sex?”

I smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “No. What we just shared is unique.”

She shifted, propping herself up on one elbow to look at me. “Because I’m part fae?”

“Partially,” I admitted. “But more because of who you are. Who we are together. We fit together perfectly. Like it was destined, fated, ordained.”

She seemed to accept this explanation. Then she settled back against my chest. Her fingers traced patterns on my pale skin.

Her fingertips followed the contours of muscles that had remained unchanged for centuries.

I wondered what she was thinking, this young woman with fae blood, lying in a vampire’s bed.

Her world had been irrevocably altered in the span of a single day.

“I know I should be terrified,” she whispered, as if reading my thoughts. “Of you. Of all this.” Her hand made a small gesture, encompassing the room, the mansion, the supernatural world she’d been thrust into. “But instead, I feel alive. More alive than I’ve ever felt.”

I tightened my arm around her, drawing her closer to me.

The irony wasn’t lost on me, that a creature who had died centuries ago could make someone feel more alive.

I understood what she meant. In my long existence, few moments had felt as vivid, as meaningful, as the hours spent with her.

I was drawn to her the minute I saw her at the Fountain of Youth.

There was something that drew me in, not just her resemblance to my late wife.

Kasi wasn’t the first human I stumbled across that looked like my Basirah.

Yet something about Kasi called to me in ways I couldn’t understand.

“Rest,” I told her, pulling the silk sheet over her skin. “We have much to discuss when you wake. About the Yumboe people, about finding your mother. About what happens next.”

She nodded, her eyes already growing heavy with exhaustion. “Promise you’ll be here when I wake up?”

“I promise,” I replied, the weight of those two simple words settling on me like a vow. “I’ll be right here.”

As she drifted into sleep, her breathing deepened and her body grew heavier against mine, I stared up at the ceiling mural I’d commissioned in 1936, a beautiful depiction of night and day in eternal dance.

Fitting, I thought, for what was developing between us.

Kasi was day to my night, warmth to my cold, life to my death.

And somehow, against all reason and despite all the dangers that surely lay ahead, it felt right. She felt right and she was mine. She was a gift from the god I once believed in.