Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(66)

No sooner did that comparison strike me than I remembered Aleric’s words—“It’s dinnertime.”

Oh… goddess, no. Surely, they wouldn’t… Surely Warin didn’t expect me to… The short note that’d accompanied my dress flashed before my mind’s eye, and the blood drained from my face.

Yeah. Yeah, those could most definitely have been the words of a man who knew he’d have to put his teeth in my neck, but didn’t want me freaking out about it before it was too late to back out.

“Come to me, little one,” he said, breaking off my spiraling thoughts. I twisted to grab his offered hand, because I couldn’t exactly throw a fit in front of the watching vampires, and got to my feet. I did manage to throw him a pretty convincing death glare as I straightened up.

Warin ignored it and motioned for me to straddle him. I arched an eyebrow at him, but he simply looked at me with calm expectancy.

Alrighty then, if he really wanted this to get as awkward as it could…

I lifted my skirts enough that I could climb onto the armchair, a knee on each side of his thighs. His strong hands went to my hips, steadying me as I lowered myself onto his lap.

His muscles were strong, his clothes shielding me from his cool flesh. When I looked up, doing my best to force down the blush trying to take over my entire body at the intimate positioning, I captured his gaze—and the knowledge that a few hundred people were watching us faded to the background.

Warin’s blue eyes were wholly focused on me, and his expression was no longer cold and distant. There was so much gratitude, so much regret… so much of everything in their blazing depths that it nearly stole my breath away. He was still silent, but in that moment, we didn’t need words. His gaze was begging me for my consent. To remember my trust in him.

Swallowing hard, I nodded once. My anger was gone, and in its place was only a low-set fizzle of nerves.

Warin’s sigh of relief was almost imperceivable. He slid his hands up along my waist, letting one brush my curls off my left shoulder. Exposing my neck.

I drew in a deep breath and closed my eyes tightly, waiting for the inevitable.

“Look at me, Liv,” he said.

I obeyed, unable to resist the gentleness of his voice, and was once again captured in his blazing gaze.

Warin leaned his head back a little and opened his mouth. A sharp snick made me gasp, and I bit my lip hard at the sight of his sharp fangs. There was no denying what he was now. A creature of the night, made to kill.

And yet… he was still Warin.

His hand by my neck rubbed soothing circles over the tendons there, making my skin sing with an odd sort of anticipation. Not so much fear for the pain, but… something else.

When Warin wrapped his free arm tighter around me and pulled me close to his chest, I realized what that something else was.

There was no holding back the blush that set in when the crisp scent of night air and musk that was so uniquely Warin hit my nostrils. Yeah, there was no mystery to why I was suddenly feeling all kinds of excited about what was going on.

Dammit, Liv, control your ovaries! This is not a sexy moment!

Warin moved his hand from my neck for a moment, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt.

Not. A. Sexy. Moment. Nope, nope, nope.

“Bite me,” he rumbled in my ear.

“What?” I croaked, sure I’d heard him wrong. I mean, wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around, or had there been some sort of a misunderstanding along the way here?

“My shoulder,” he said, and I could have sworn I heard just the huskiest of notes to his voice this time. “Bite it. Hard.”

Okay, then.

Hesitating, I leaned in as close as I could get, desperately trying not to think about how I was smushing my breasts against his chest, and put my mouth on his shoulder. Here goes nothing.

Warin groaned when I bit down, and I immediately pulled back. He closed his hand around my neck, forcing me down again. “Harder,” he commanded.

I obeyed, biting down hard with my blunt human teeth. Warin groaned again, but this time there was no mistaking it for pain. Apparently I wasn’t the only one getting some pretty inappropriate enjoyment out of this.

That knowledge should have made me feel awkward as fuck again, but… it didn’t.

“Harder, Liv,” Warin whispered hoarsely, keeping his hand locked around the back of my neck. “Make me bleed.”

I didn’t hesitate this time. I bit his shoulder as hard as I could, spurred on by Warin’s hitching breath and his tight grip on my body. And then my mouth filled with hot, sweet, liquid, and suddenly Warin wasn’t the only one moaning. A flash of recognition sparked at the back of my brain as I latched onto the wound and sucked hard, knowing with every fiber of my being that I needed his blood. Needed it to mix with mine, to erase every worry, every painful memory until there was nothing left of me except the purest bliss.

There was a sting at the side of my neck, but I barely registered it while I drank deeply of Warin’s blood. I whimpered in protest when, much too soon, Warin detached me from his shoulder. It took me several deep breaths before I came back from orbit, but when I did, my senses were flooded with an entirely different sort of pleasure.

Warin was sucking at my neck, his soft lips raising goosebumps down my arm. Occasionally he would lap his tongue over my throat, and the sensation went straight to my clit. We were both rocking, slow and in rhythm, as if moving together to music no one else could hear. There was an unmistakable hardness nestled right at my crotch, pressing firmly against my panties, and I had the wild thought that if I reached between us and undid his pants now, he wouldn’t stop me.