Page 27 of Zomromcom

It wasn’t such an insignificant shift. And she’d rather take a risk than let someone else give him what he needed or experience that kind of intimacy with him.

Fine, then. “Bite me.”

He didn’t react. Didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Unlike her, though, he could see in the dark, and she knew those sharp eyes were trained on her face. She could feel them, as hot as the summer sun on bare, tender skin.

He wouldn’t spot hesitation in her expression. Wouldn’t locate even a whisper of unease.

“Feed from me.” Her doubts had been vanquished, leaving only desire and demand. “Make it feel good, and make sure I remember how good it felt.”

A rough sound from deep in his chest rumbled through her. She basked in the sensation, arching and rubbing her body against his, until his hands caught her and held her in place.

“You need to be certain.” His mouth swept to her temple and pressed there hard enough to emphasize the firmness of his teeth behind his soft lips. “Are you?”

She cupped the back of his skull and pressed him even closer, until those tempting lips parted and his incisors became an insistent, sharp prickle against her skin. A featherweight more force, and she’d draw her own blood.

“Don’t you dare leave me hanging, Euro Chad,” she whispered against his jaw, then licked its jutting edge. “If I’m satisfying you, you’d better satisfy me too.”

He didn’t move. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she said, and nipped that arc of bone.

In an eyeblink, before she was aware of moving or being moved, she was upright and straddling him, perched atop his lap with her knees indenting the sofa cushions on either side of his hips.

To sleep, she’d stripped down to a clean tank and a fresh pair of panties, and the velour of his boxers swept against the insides of her thighs in a soft caress.

His broad, strong hands gripped her ass and pressed her down firmly, grinding her clit against the solid ridge of his dick through two layers of fabric.

She gasped and involuntarily spread her legs wider, dropping deeper, rubbing harder.

The rhythm he set with his sinuous hips was unrelenting and carnal and voluptuously slow, and she followed his lead.

She chased the drag of his hard cock between her legs and the jolt of heat and electricity with each rock of her own hips, each scrape of her fingernails against his satiny skin.

She clutched his shoulders and used his immoveable strength for leverage. For her own pleasure.

“Such a hot little chatte.” His breath dusted her earlobe before he bit down. Hard enough to pinch deliciously, but not hard enough to draw blood. Yet. “When I finally get inside you, you’ll burn me alive, my Edie.”

“And you’ll thank me for it.” With the next sway of her hips, the perfect pressure and friction, white fireworks burst behind her eyelids. “Won’t you?”

He didn’t respond in words. One hand remained on her ass cheek, pressing and squeezing and urging her on.

The other circled her wrist and guided her arm above her head, twisting it slightly, until the knob of her elbow pointed away from him.

His fingers slid through hers and twined.

They were holding hands up in the air. He was holding her hand.

Tenderly. Loosely enough to offer little resistance if she tugged away from him.

It felt as intimate as his fingertips slipping through her vulva had the previous day.

Then he ducked his head, his lips teasing the sensitive skin inside her raised upper arm and sliding toward her inner elbow.

He nipped there, forcing a needy sound from her throat, and began slowly lowering their interlaced fingers as his mouth dragged over her prickling flesh.

He drew a trail of heat along her inner forearm with his tongue, her nerves firing to life inch by inch.

At her wrist, that agile tongue traced precise, branching lines. Her veins, she dimly realized, and shivered. He was mapping her veins in the darkness, leaning his forehead against the knot of their hands and nuzzling against her with his nose.

His mouth sealed over her pulse point and sucked, his tongue swirling. She moaned aloud for the first time, long and low, arching back to grind harder against his cock. Desire had transformed from a tease to a fiery ache between her legs, hunger and emptiness and need .

He stopped moving, stopped rocking and licking and squeezing her ass.

In that stillness, two sharp, needlelike spots of near pain became recognizable. His fangs. Her inner wrist. His final, silent demand for consent before he bit down and swallowed.

Her grip of his shoulder eased, and she slid her palm toward his nape, cradling the back of his skull. She held him there for a heartbeat, still and quiet. Suspended in the moment.

Then she used her hold on his head to press him forward, tighter and harder, until his teeth broke her skin. Until her blood flooded his mouth.

“Yes,” she said, and slid her tongue over the rim of his ear.

The faint sting of penetration was her last moment of discomfort.

After he bit into her wrist, there was only the sweep of his own soft tongue and the way each suck and swallow felt like he was drawing directly on her clit.

There was only dizzy heat and the glide of a knowing hand up her spine and their fingers clasped tightly together.

He was everywhere, and he was everything.

The fire that scalded her flesh and the chill soothing her burn.

The pitiless, grinding rhythm pushing her toward pleasure and the slide of gentle fingers in her hair.

The smell of copper, the tang of sex, and the waft of lavender from the shampoo they’d both used.

Quiet suckling and his sharp, loud inhalation against her skin when she cupped her own breast and pinched her nipple and made a lost, raw sound deep in her throat.

Salt on her tongue as she licked his neck and the sweetness of his hand in hers.

It didn’t take long. The glow of heat between her legs expanded and exploded, and she rubbed her clit against his dick frantically, shamelessly, gasping as the tension and need fractured into shuddering hitches of pleasure.

His hand was on her ass again, still sliding her against his cock, while she panted and twitched and trembled. Her head tipped back, and she basked in all the pleasure he brought her, all the pleasure she’d claimed for herself.

When the pulses slowed at last, she slumped on his lap, damp with sweat.

“Holy gods and goddesses,” she rasped.

With one final lick, he raised his mouth from her wrist. The two small wounds left by his teeth didn’t even bleed, as far as she could tell. He brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles, and she could feel his smile against her fingers.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

His dick was a steel bar between her legs, which couldn’t be comfortable for him.

Despite her boneless state, she maneuvered herself a few crucial inches to the side, reached down into his boxers, and gripped him in her free hand, squeezing tightly.

He grunted at her first stroke and groaned after her second and orgasmed with her third.

His body formed a gorgeous arch beneath hers, and he came with every muscle locked into place, trembling and taut. He didn’t seem to breathe for a few seconds, before he began dragging in desperate gasps of air like someone who’d been deprived of oxygen for far too long.

After a long while, he sagged against the sofa cushions. Then, lurching forward, he sealed their mouths together. She swallowed down the purr of his lingering pleasure and licked her own blood from his tongue. Did it taste metallic to him too? Or was it salty? Sweet?

His release was slick and cool against her fingers, almost silky, and when he cupped her between her legs and stroked gently over the cotton, her body contracted in pleasure one final time.

He made a sort of pleased hum, his thumb passing lightly over her clit.

She wished she could see his expression through the darkness.

Wished she could read his mind and know whether this intensity was normal during his feedings and sexual encounters.

Whether it was about his being a vampire, or about…

them. Max and Edie. The two of them, specifically, rather than a predator who’d learned to please his prey and enjoy himself in the process.

After a minute, she broke their kiss and wiped her palm on his underwear, because silkiness was rapidly becoming stickiness.

There was a meditative silence, and she could almost feel his eyes on her again. After a few moments, he let go of her hand, and she heard the faint pop of lips against skin.

She felt nothing. So whom or what was he kissing?

Befuddled, she squinted in the darkness, trying to figure out what in the world he was doing. Then he lightly pressed a fingertip against her wrist, on the exact spot where she’d urged his teeth into her veins. His movement was deliberate and precise, his touch whisper-soft.

Suddenly, she understood.

Using that fingertip, he was kissing her wound and making it better. Just as her mother always had. Just as Edie had once done for him.

Her eyes prickled, and she exhaled shakily as he interlaced his fingers through hers once more. After a moment, he slid his palm from between her legs and claimed her other hand too.

“You made me come in my velour boxers.” He sighed. “It’s not especially comfortable.”

She snorted. “If you’re waiting for an apology—”

“No, no. Merely requesting that the next time you make me lose control, you do so while ma bite is inside you, entirely uncovered, or at least encased in a breathable fabric.”

Her laugh echoed in the near-empty space, and she squeezed his hands, suddenly inspired. “No…one…comes like Gaston—”

“Human. This is neither the time nor the—”

“—spurts on bums like Gaston. In his—”

“I did not spurt on my own ass. Just because some of it ended up back there—”

“—boxer shorts, no one—”

“Godsdammit, Edie.”

***

After Edie and Max each took another speedy shower and dressed—Doug had cheerfully offered to wash their dirty clothing overnight, and they found the pile of clean, dry laundry just outside Pottery Barn’s back room—she hastily gnawed on some Pizza Jerky from her bag.

Max asked whether the plasticky-looking foodstuff contained meat, and she enjoyed his look of horror when she told him she didn’t actually know.

And then, right on time, they gathered their belongings to leave just as the sun rose.

“Max…” She frowned, settling her cross-body bag into place.

“The siren still hasn’t sounded. How is that even possible?

The government has camera footage of the compound.

Wouldn’t they have noticed the zombies leaving?

And even if the cameras were disabled, wouldn’t there be telltale satellite images of the area? ”

“I assume whoever tampered with the bridges also tampered with all electronic surveillance measures. Somehow.” Arms akimbo, he tipped his head as he considered the matter.

“Do you want us to visit the breach site ourselves before we leave the Zone so we can pass along firsthand information about the scene?”

Her head was shaking before he even finished speaking. “No. Our priority has to be reporting the incident and getting help as soon as possible. Investigating why and how the breach happened can wait until no one is dying.”

He inclined his head, and they turned for the store’s back entrance. On their way out, she patted the top of the couch lovingly.

He shot her a questioning look, and for some reason she was willing to tell him. Maybe even wanted to tell him.

“A couple years before the First Breach, my parents went shopping for a new couch. They’d intended to get something cheaper, but there was this one sofa in Pottery Barn we all loved.

It was just so comfortable, and Dad argued that the slipcovers made it a practical choice, despite the expense, so…

” She smiled slightly. “It took three separate trips to this mall, to this store, but they finally ordered the couch in gray velvet.”

“This couch.” His broad hand skated over the sofa’s rolled arm. “This design.”

She nodded. “We had it in our living room until…”

Until it became ripped and blood-soaked and unsalvageable, slipcovers or no slipcovers. A reminder of everything she wanted to remember and everything she needed to forget.

He didn’t push her to finish her sentence. Instead, he studied the piece of furniture, a line drawn between his brows, then nodded and took her elbow as they left the store.

A rosy predawn glow brightened the winter sky.

Belinda, Austin, and Doug were waiting by the dumpsters, their weapons sheathed.

Austin handed Edie the measuring spoons, which she tucked into her duffel, and Doug passed her a white bakery bag filled with something that smelled like cinnamon and sugar and deliciousness.

When she hugged him, he gave her a gentle squeeze. “Be careful, friend. Email me when you’re free to troubleshoot my cupcake soap.”

“I will. Thank you for all your help and the amazing tour.” She stepped back. “As soon as we leave, go inside and secure the door, okay?”

Doug’s smile crinkled his eyes. “Will do.”

“Just as a reminder…” Belinda’s eyes narrowed on Max, and not in appreciation this time. “I know who you are. If you fuck us over in any way, I’ll—”

“Murder us both in the grisliest possible fashion,” he finished impatiently. “Yes, we know.”

She smirked. “Good.”

“Good.” Max turned back to Edie. “Ready?”

“Yes. Just…” The counterfeiters knew what to do. But she had to say it anyway. “Please stay on guard. You should continue the zombie patrols until you get an all clear from the government. And remember, the creatures aren’t the only threat you need to worry about. Whoever set them loose on us…”

She shook her head, too angry and disgusted for words. Whoever set them loose had unleashed destruction and violence, knowing innocents would die. The zombies couldn’t help their condition, but the unknown saboteurs had chosen to do harm with conscious intent.

They were the true monsters.

“Of course.” Austin shook her hand firmly. “Good luck.”

“Don’t worry, Edie.” Doug’s sweet smile widened then, turning sharp and pitiless, and the machete he unsheathed from somewhere in his clothing gleamed. “We’re prepared to kill anyone or anything we need to. Gladly.”

“Okay.” Holy gods and goddesses, why was that even more unsettling than Belinda’s threat to murder her and Max? “That’s…good. Right. Um, Max? You’re ready to go too?”

“Yes,” he said, his palm firm on her lower back, and he didn’t need to tell her twice.