Page 57 of Vampire's Choice

Do not refuse me.

She sank her fangs into the artery, and took a marvelous swallow of his blood, rich and different. Maybe it would make her sick, like too much human food, but she’d risk that consequence, because it had been a long night and her mind said it was nourishment. It had a heat, a sizzle of magic in it, a metallic blend.

Though her sore body felt the impact of the climax, the pleasure overrode it. She bucked violently in its embrace. Merc’s hold shifted, one arm diagonally across her chest, holding her securely, keeping her sore shoulder immobilized.

When at last the climax started to ebb, she was still pulling on his wrist, though she was taking sips now instead of greedy swallows. She was just reluctant to stop, especially when he was stroking her hair.

He eased them to the ground, him on one knee, her legs folded under her, her body in the shelter of his as she drank. When she made herself be done, she licked his wrist, closing the wound for him with the anti-coagulants she had in her tongue. Her body was still vibrating, as if it knew there were plenty more “zones” for him to explore.

She settled though, quiet under his hand. He’d given her what he was going to give her, and she’d done what he’d required. It was unusual, the contentment of this moment. Nothing to do but sit there while he petted her.

“Would you like to fly with me?” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Are people going to see me naked?”

“No. We’ll go too high and fast for that.”

She rose. As she removed her shirt, he clasped her waist, caressing her navel, the arch of her rib cage. She liked his hands upon her, large, slightly rough palms, long fingers gripping her. Only when he removed his touch did she take off her shoes and socks and remove the jeans. Bra and panties followed. She could feel his attention on every curve and crevice revealed.

After she had a neat pile of clothes beside her, she reached a tentative hand toward his face. When he closed his hand on it and lifted it for her, allowing it under his control, she touched his lips, his cheekbone, his jaw.

“You’ve impressed me, Ruth. You haven’t opened your eyes. Do so now.”

When her lids lifted, his gaze was on her breasts, watching his fingertips trace the curves. It was unsettling, how he did it.

“You act…as if you’ve never seen a woman’s breasts before.”

He didn’t say anything right away. His slow gliding touches were making her tremble again.

“It’s…different,” he said. Before she could respond to that, he drew her attention to a small cut on her ring finger. “What’s this?”

“I caught it on a burr, on the metal scaffolding in the Big Top.”

“You don’t heal the way other vampires do.”

“No. But I do heal. Just a little slower. It was much deeper when I did it, earlier today.”

He stood, tall and strong, before her. “Arms around my neck and waist.”

When she complied, caressing the short hair at his nape and the heated skin at his waist, fingers playing beneath the waistband of his jeans, his arms closed around her. He slid them out the back flap of the tent and, before she had to be self-conscious about who might be watching, they were in the air, shooting upward like gravity wasn’t a thing.

“How much do you trust me?” he whispered.

“Not a damn bit.”

Dark laughter twined around her as he let her go. She was falling, spinning and spinning. When the velocity had compressed her lungs and scrambled her mind, he swooped up beneath her and absorbed the impact of catching her so she felt like a feather landing in the palm of his hand. As soon as she could speak, she was laughing, too. “Let’s do that again,” she said.

His eyes were on her face, her smiling mouth.

“We do this first. Hold on.”

He shifted her so her arms and legs were wrapped around his body. He opened the jeans, and then, her bare breasts pressed to his chest, he drove her still slick tissues down upon his cock. In that same slow, crazy, excruciating way he’d touched her.

He stretched and filled her, held her impaled as she arched back and a cry tore from her throat. As he started to ascend again, every pump of his wings shoved him deeper inside her, a thrusting and retreat that was bliss and torment. When they were so high she thought there was no more oxygen, he dove downward and spun. She tightened her legs over his flexing, taut backside, held on and cried out with every stroke inside her body.