Page 8 of Those That Are Lost (Hidden Vampires #2)

I watch her warring with herself as she takes a sharp breath, visibly shaking while fighting so hard not to break down.

The last few months have left her broken into pieces.

Yet, I see the steel cage she’s constructed to hold those pieces together.

Let me in Red, I silently beg her. Let me support you .

“I prayed for death too,” she continues, a tear breaking through her facade.

She quickly wipes it away. Her breathing accelerates as she opens up, each sentence coming out on a rushed exhale.

“I’d become a killer… I was alone and paranoid that Adicious or another member of that pack would be around the next corner…

Scared I’d end up back in that house.” She pauses.

“Sometimes I wanted to be back in that house just so it would end.”

“Red, no.” My voice cracks, and so does my resolve. I move toward her, closing the space as much as I can without actually touching her.

“I kept seeing your face,” she says almost robotically. Looking up at me, I see her forcibly shove her emotions back down until her eyes are dead once more. “You made me promise. I couldn’t end the pain because you made me promise.”

Her words shred me deeper than the blades the pack used on my body. I feel tears escaping my own eyes as I look down at the totally broken female before me. The image of her in the tavern tonight dances in my mind, how I’d thought she was happy. Free.

We’re standing so close our breaths are mingling.

With each inhale of her scent I am hit with her confessions.

Of how close I’ve come to losing her. How I may have still lost her, to her own mind.

Her coping mechanisms have kept her alive but are now locking her up tighter than the chains in that fucking basement.

“I’m so sorry. Red, I needed to get you out.”

“They were killing you because of me.” She surprises me with a burst of anger. She taps her fingers to her own chest.

“To get to you, to capture you.” I find a stronger voice. “I’ll stand between you and them. Every. Single. Time. ”

“I can’t live with that! Don’t you get it? I ran from you that night, I got us captured and you still gave your life for me.” Her hands move to my chest, gripping my shirt. I raise my arms so I’m bracketing her against the wall.

“I kept you in the dark too long. I made mistakes too. I don’t regret getting you out.”

“I should’ve stayed and fought with you.”

“No.”

“But you died!” She pulls on my shirt, those walls cracking once more as the pain she’s bearing washes over us both in a tidal wave.

“I’m here,” I tell her, trying to break through, bringing my hands to her waist to steady her. “I’m here, Red. You don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m so damned sorry for leaving you alone. I’m so sorry.”

She pulls back slightly to take a deep breath, the back of her head hitting the wall behind her.

I allow the space only because I want to see her face.

Her cheeks are pale, with several wet tracks streaking down them.

Her eyes, as they meet mine, are without the shutters once more.

I will the pain to transfer from her to me.

I want to take it from her. I don’t want those walls to come back up.

“Drop your glamour,” I whisper, scared she won’t heed my request. She hesitates for a second but then the magic falls away.

Her fiery red curls frame her delicate face, her light skin almost white.

I don’t give her the opportunity to pull away from me.

Unable to talk further, I try a different tactic to bring her back to me.

I slowly lower my head, watching her reaction the entire time as I brush my lips to hers in the softest of kisses. It’s a light, barely there whisper but I feel the zap of electricity anyway, the prayer being answered as she allows the touch. I nearly crumple under the taste of her.

She sucks in a sharp breath, but then to my relief she reciprocates and leans into my body, kissing me back with more force.

I push her further, demanding she opens up to me. She complies, allowing my tongue to seek her own. Delving deep and curling it with hers, I can’t help the moan that releases from my throat. I bring my hand up to cradle the back of her head, my fingers burying deep in her hair.

It goes from tentative to forceful in seconds. I feel her meeting me stroke for stroke and I revel in the heat of her. Our trauma might be something we need to work on, but this? We immediately slip back into the perfect rhythm with each other.

Red winds her hands up and around my neck, demanding. I quickly obey, moving to hoist her up by her thighs. She wraps herself around my waist, bringing our bodies closer until there’s not a single breadth of space between us.

A possessive growl rumbles through my chest at being between her thighs for the first time in months, at being between her legs again full stop as it had been far from a guarantee. Any blood not already in my groin rushes south, my hard dick bucking against the too tight fabric of my jeans.

The scent of her arousal snaps the final piece of my sanity.

Red shrieks in my arms at the speed I turn us and drop on the bed.

As soon as her back hits the mattress I’m pulling at the dress.

Not caring to safeguard the garment, I rip it straight down the centre.

She’s tugging my shirt too and we break apart just long enough for her to get it over my head.

I stand for the barest of seconds to rid myself of my jeans, shucking my boxers and socks with them. Red uses the time to wiggle out of the shreds of her dress. She’s not wearing a bra and her bare breasts bounce at her movement, drawing my attention.

As soon as I’m naked, I’m on my knees on the bed, towering back over her. I lean down and take her left nipple into my mouth, sucking on it. She arches up into my mouth, her breaths already coming in fast pants as she succumbs to pleasure.

My hands roam the rest of her exposed flesh, kneading her other breast, tracing her waist, gripping her hip. I can’t touch all of her fast enough as I release her nipple to plant open mouthed kisses to the swell of her breast and up towards her shoulder.

I feel her hips cant against my thigh between her legs.

My hand is immediately at her core, moving the fabric of her underwear to the side.

My fingers find her already soaked for me.

The touch sends a heady rush to my head and I groan again.

She moans too as I brush my index and middle digits up and down her opening.

Coating them in her arousal, I move up to softly circle her clit.

She twitches like I’ve sent shockwaves across her skin but she grinds harder onto my fingers, wanting more.

I play the sensitive bundle of nerves in the exact way I know will have her losing control fast.

Seeing her open to this, open to pleasure, when she’s been so guarded, fills me with hope.

She’s unguarded at this moment, feeling, letting me in.

The relief I feel at being able to see her like this make the muscle in my chest beat stronger.

Unable to have only my fingers on her I move down her body, my mouth seeking the soft flesh of her thigh, tasting each delicious inch, pressing my fangs to her skin with a series of open-mouthed kisses.

The sense of rightness settles in me.

For months, I’ve been lost. I’ve been searching and feeling this desperate itch in my bones, like part of me is missing. For the first time in far too long the world is turning as it should. I was made for her, my mate.

I need more .

Swapping my fingers for my thumb so I can keep pleasuring her clit, I slide my fingers inside her.

I feel her heat, her walls contracting around my digits.

My dick twitches, leaking precum, wishing it was what she was wrapped around instead of my hand.

I wrap a fist around the shaft and slowly stroke.

Pumping slowly in and out of her, watching every flex of her body, every breath she takes. I absorb it all as she writhes. Curling my fingers I drag them against her front wall and she gasps, throwing her head back.

“Fuck,” she exclaims as I do it again, speeding up slightly and pushing deeper with each thrust. “Ty, I… I’m already so close.”

Those words are the sweetest praise to my ears. I need to see her come. I need her warmed up and relaxed so I can bring us both home.

The sight of her exposed throat pulls me up her body, my baser instincts pushing to the forefront of my control.

I lean over to place kisses to her collarbone and into the apex of her neck.

I continue to send Red flying towards her release.

I release my cock and use her hip instead to grind against, needing her desperately.

I’m torn between wanting to watch her come apart at my hand or stay plastered against her, feeling inches of her skin against mine. The vein popping in her neck decides it for me as I move my lips higher, delivering a kiss to it as she cries out, the orgasm I’m delivering on her body taking hold.

Nipping at her skin, I almost tasting the flush of her climax.

My head goes hazy as I keep suckling on her throat.

Becoming hyper aware of my fangs, they throb for me to bite into her flesh.

Pressing the columns of them above the vein running down the side of her neck, the euphoria that hits is akin to the moment my cock erupts at the finish line.

I need inside her, in more than one way.

Removing my hand from her core, I rip the thin fabric of her underwear from her body. Without sitting up, I slide my body across hers so we’re flush. Moving entirely on instinct, nothing has felt more natural than this. I’m going to sink inside her and bind her to me.

“Ty, what are you doing?” Words that confuse me hit my ears.

Hands push against my chest. This isn’t right .