Page 13 of Too Brazen to Bite (Gothic Love Stories #5)
Cain brushed the pad of his thumb along the soft curve of her cheek. When she tilted her face into his hand, he sank his fingers into her glorious hair and pulled her close. He dipped his head, intending to cover her mouth with his, but found pleasure in the sweet torture of anticipation.
He slowly feathered his parted lips across hers. Not quite a kiss, not quite a taste... just the lightest pressure, to tease them both, just as he had done this morning in the kitchen.
When he angled his mouth for another pass, she nipped his lower lip between her teeth.
The bite was sweet and quickly over, but Cain was as good as trapped. His muscles locked. His cock hardened. And when Ellie ran the tip of her tongue across the flesh she’d just bitten, Cain’s whirling brain relinquished all hope of gentlemanly restraint.
Opening his mouth to the kiss, he surrendered to the moment.
One hand cradled the back of her head, keeping their mouths firmly together.
His other hand slid along the tumble of soft curls to her waist. He splayed his fingers across the gentle curve at the base of her spine.
She clutched his shoulders. He drew her to him, until not even a whisper could pass between them.
With the tips of her breasts pressed into his waistcoat and the bulge of his cock throbbing against the folds of her skirt, Cain expected reason to intrude upon the innocent young lady nestled against him and send her fleeing.
Instead, she wriggled closer as if she, too, found the friction delicious.
A tiny moan of pleasure escaped her lips, vibrating against his tongue and sending chills along his flesh.
Her arms twined about his neck, locking their bodies together.
Her increased heartbeat, her rapid breath, the delicious sting of fingernails clawing for purchase against the tailored smoothness of his jacket—the sensations were dizzying, invigorating. Unexpected.
She wanted him. She wanted him.
He’d been concentrating so hard on battling his own desire that he hadn’t recognized the unexpected treasure that had been bestowed on him.
Rather than emotionlessly Compelling an equally emotionless blue-blood beauty into the shadows for a nip-and-forget, a lass whose company he actually enjoyed had sought him, entrapped him, kissed him... of her own free will.
Her tongue toyed with his because she loved the interplay as much as he did. Her arms locked ever tighter because she, too, had no intention of letting go. And her kisses... Lord help him, he hoped they’d never stop.
Cain reveled in the feel of her body against his, He wished he could Compel all this damn fabric to disappear, so he could feel Ellie’s bare legs wrapped tight about his hips.
He was feverish. He was shivering. He was strangely, impossibly alive.
He kissed her again and again, unable to resist the scent of her skin, the spice of her kiss, the promise of pleasure in the accelerated beat of her heart.
He lifted her in his arms, higher, higher, until his kisses fell against the source of the intoxicating rhythm.
Each pounding heartbeat seemed to lift the arc of her breast closer, to press harder against his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, until he was no longer aware of anyone or anything except the salty sweetness of her skin and the rich aroma reducing his brain to animal instinct and uncontrollable desire.
Her breath ruffling his hair was an irresistible aphrodisiac. Hot, humid, undeniably human, and erratic enough to expose her increasing passion, if her legs locked around him and her fingers digging into his back had not been signal enough.
The tip of her tongue touched the sensitive skin hidden behind his ear.
In response, he laved his own tongue across the trembling curve of her breast. She pulled the lobe of his ear into her mouth, ran her tongue across the captured flesh, then drove all conscious thought from his mind when she sucked the curved edge between her teeth.
He responded in kind and suckled her plump breast, drawn to the beckoning heartbeat beneath that warm, white flesh.
This was heaven. This could leave a mark. This could make his?—
Oh God. The potent seduction playing out upon his earlobe changed from gentle nibbling to a gasping, carnal bite. Cain couldn’t have prevented his instantaneous reaction if he’d wanted to.
In the time it took her human teeth to entrap the lobe of his ear, his fangs exploded from his mouth the way his cock longed to leap from his trews. His upper incisors pierced the top of her breast, impaling her flesh, and finally, finally, tasting that hot, sweet blood.
He tightened one hand on the nape of her neck, the other on the curve of her arse, grinding the full length of his imprisoned cock against the waves of silk protecting her innocence from his lust.
He suckled her hungrily, dizzy with desire and the addictive taste of her blood.
He would rip this infuriating silk from her frame.
He would rend his ridiculous vestments at the seams. And when nothing, not even passion-scented air, was between them, he would lock his teeth to her neck and penetrate her with his shaft and his fangs while she moaned in ecstasy.
Ellie gasped... but not in ecstasy. She went from fiery blaze to lump of coal in the space of an indrawn breath.
She jerked from his arms before he had time to react—he, a vampire with allegedly superhuman instincts—and because she turned before his fangs had had a chance to retract, the retreating tips scraped across her white flesh, leaving twin trails of raw red where invisible pinpricks might have stood.
She clasped pale hands across her mouth, her shocked eyes screaming her fear and horror. The choked sob from behind her palm extinguished his passion more effectively than freezing rainwater.
She knew the truth.
He was a monster.
And he could not let her leave the conservatory with the knowledge.
“Ellie,” he said, torn between smiling in an attempt to display a normal row of teeth, and the knowledge that his pearly whites were currently stained pink with her blood.
He rallied all the power vested in him to do the one thing that would protect them both: obliterate the memory of the sweetest tryst of his life.
Forget, he commanded silently. You didn’t see any fangs. You didn’t feel any fangs. I am not a vampire. Cain hesitated only briefly before adding, I made unwanted advances. You gave me a proper setdown. Stay away from me, Ellie. Stay far, far away.
He reached out to straighten the drooping shoulder of her gown.
She turned and ran.
Cain blinked. First Ellie had seemed all but immune to Compulsion, and now all of a sudden his unspoken command to stay away lit a fire under her hems as if?—
Ah, hell. As if she’d just discovered her suitor was a bloodsucking vampire.
Cain righted his breeches and gave chase.