Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(60)

Her face relaxed. “You better get that furnace fixed so you can go back to your bed.”

“Yeah.” Axe pointed to the floor right at his feet. “Come here.”

She moved across the shallow, glowing space like a dream, the flickering orange light making her beauty mysterious and inaccessible even as she got so close he could count her eyelashes.

Reaching out, he brushed her hair back, tilted her head … and covered her mouth with his. Licking into her, he swept a palm down her shoulder and onto the small of her back—before bringing her into him with a hard jerk.

Greedy, he was so goddamn greedy … and he’d intended to start slow.

But that went out the fucking window quick.

Next thing he knew, he was shedding her coat for her, yanking her blouse out of the skirt, getting to the warm skin at her waist. Images of her with that human male made him rough, but she didn’t seem to care.

She was just as hard on him, dragging her hands through his hair, straining against his body, scoring his nape.

“Lie down,” he groaned. “You lie down, female.…”

Lifting her into his arms, he knelt and put her on what little softness he had to offer.

Too damn bad it was bedding and nothing else.

With an undulation of her body that nearly made him come, she brought her arms over her head and arched as he straddled her thighs. One by one, he freed the fancy buttons of her blouse.

It seemed like a crime to rip everything apart.

“What are these made of?” he said in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible.

“Mother-of-pearl,” she gasped.

They had nothing on her luminous skin.

As he slowly parted the two halves of silk, everything came to a crashing halt, all that hurry, hurry pulling up short as he hissed at the sight of her and clamped his teeth together. Her breasts were hidden behind lacy white cups, and the innocence and sexuality that combined together so perfectly was hotter than all the anonymous, extreme fucking he’d been doing for years.

“May I?” he heard himself ask.

Which was weird. But he felt close to a religious experience here as he loomed over her: it seemed unforgivable to enter any part of the temple without her express permission.

“Allow me,” she said.

With hands that only shook a little, she arched up again and reached behind her back … and then the cups went loose, her hardened nipples tenting them.

“Oh … fuck.” Was that him talking? He didn’t know. He was out of his goddamn mind. “Elise …”

You want to talk about torture. Watching her remove one strap and then the other while keeping the bra in place made the heartbeat in his cock go triple time.

And then she cast the barrier aside.

She was perfect. Just … perfect.

Dipping his head, he led with his tongue and licked at her nipples before sucking her in, one after another. It felt so fucking right to be crouched over her like this, worshiping her with his mouth, his body on the knife-edge of losing control, his blood pounding in his veins.

He felt so alive, but not in that manic way he usually did when he was in the middle of fucking.

As he nuzzled at her breasts, he had to rearrange his erection in his pants—it was either that or start singing the high notes. And then he went for the fastening at the back of her skirt, and she helped him by rolling her hips to the side. Yes, he wanted to tear the thing off her pelvis, preferably with his teeth, but again, he wasn’t going to … and not just because she needed something to go home in.

Patience had its rewards.

As he suckled on her and made her moan, he took off her skirt, hose, and panties at the same time, sweeping them down her long, long legs.

Then he sat back.

Under his hot gaze, she brought her arms up over her head once more and moved for him, stretching, twisting, the firelight bathing her skin with illumination that was like a hundred of his hands over her flesh. And oh, how the reality of her flesh was better than his dream: Her breasts with their straining nipples, and the flat plane of her stomach, and her bare sex, and her creamy thighs, were all blowing the doors off the hypothetical version his subconscious had coughed up the other day.

Moving his hands down her from collarbone to hip, he caressed her body … and then followed the path with his mouth—stopping at her belly button.

Looking up her body, past her spectacular breasts, he found her lips parted as she panted and stared down at him, her eyes wide and wondrous as if she had never felt like this before.

Peyton’s voice came into his head: Because you’re going to fuck her and leave her ruined.

Axe shoved the words and the tone out of his head, intending to go down on her until she knew exactly how beautiful he thought she was. And then he would …

No. Actually, he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to complete this act. He wasn’t going to end with him inside of her.

He was just going to pleasure her with his mouth and his tongue and then he was going to …

Fuck.

Fuck.

Axe sat back, even though pulling away from her was like peeling off layers of his own skin with his fangs.

“What is it?” she whispered. And then she smiled. “Do I get to see you now?”

When he didn’t answer her, she frowned and sat up.

God, the way her breasts hung, so full and ready for him—it nearly distracted him enough that he could keep going.