Crimson Truth (Onyx Assassins 4)

Her thighs locked and trembled as she climbed that peak again and she threw her head back, exposing her throat.

I bared my fangs.

“Take it. Whatever you need,” she urged, her nails scoring my back with delicious twinges of pain.

I struck at her throat, my fangs sinking deep, and her taste flooded my mouth. She was pure fucking moonlight. Sweet and rich, the power in her blood tingling across my tongue, addicting me with one fucking sip.

I thrust faster, harder, and she came, her body clenching mine as she rode out the high, locking down on my cock until the coiled pleasure I’d kept at bay shot down my spine.

Stars. I saw stars as I came, losing myself in her with hot pulses as I drank at her throat.

There would never be enough. Not of this. Of her. Never. She tasted like bottled starlight.

I drank and drank until we were both limp.

Her heart slowed.

Shit.

I jerked my fangs from her throat, my eyes flying toward hers. They were blurred, and not in the well-fucked way. No, she was weak from the blood loss.

“Jocelyn?

“I’m okay,” she promised with a soft smile.

The beats of her heart stuttered. I’d taken too much.

“Fuck. Hold on, baby.” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How the hell had I let this happen?

I scored my wrist with my fangs and held it to her lips. “You have to drink. I took too much.”

Her lashes fluttered and her eyes closed as the first drops of blood landed on her pale lips.

“Drink now, Jocelyn!”

Those violet eyes met mine. “So bossy,” she whispered, but her lips latched on, her swallows weak at first.

Relief flooded me as she moaned and drank in earnest, color returning to her cheeks before she pulled away, licking her lips.

I sealed the cut with a flick of my tongue, and cradled her face. “Are you okay?”

“Better than okay.” She grinned, her eyes clear and bright as she swiveled her hips, reminding me that I was still inside her. “I never thought I’d like that, but I love the taste of you.” She ran her tongue over her lower lip, catching a stray drop.

“So fucking hot,” I muttered, then kissed her deep, tasting the combination of our blood and groaning with pleasure.

“If I beg, can we do it again?” she asked, smiling into the kiss.

“We already are.” I rocked into her, already hard and she gasped.

Once hadn’t been enough. Twice, either. By the third time, I admitted I was an addict. By the fourth, I knew we were screwed.

When the sun came up and the steel shutters closed, I didn’t know how to let her out of my bed, so I didn’t.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

10

Jocelyn

The taste of honey and cinnamon teased my tongue, and hunger washed over me so much my mouth watered.

I stretched as my mind lazily awakened, the soft feel of Benedict’s sheets tickling my bare skin. A delightful soreness pulsed between my thighs, the evidence of everything we’d done last night aching there with my increasing hunger. Goddess damn me, I’d never been fucked like that before. And I knew it wasn’t merely a vampire thing. It was a Benedict thing.

His mouth, his tongue, his scent, the taste of his blood, his perfectly predatory body…all the pieces of him had seemed made for me last night. He’d worshiped my body, then punished and worshiped it some more. He’d stolen the breath from my lungs and all the sense I possessed until I was so thoroughly wrecked for him I didn’t know how to think around it.

Stretching again, I finally opened my eyes, smoothing my arm across the bed, reaching for the only thing that could stop the gnawing hunger in my soul. To hell with the consequence, I’d figure all that out later. Right now I only wanted—

My eyes widened as my brain fully awoke.

The bed was empty. Benedict’s side was neat, as if he hadn’t spent the night fucking me senseless.

But the lack of vampire wasn’t what had my heart thudding against my chest hard enough to break the bone.

It was the swirls and sharp edges of black ink blazing across the soft skin of my inner forearm, just below the crook of my elbow.

I’d seen the mark before, had traced the lines of that mark with my tongue last night on Benedict’s body. It was his mark.

“Oh, you think you’re so funny, Benny!” I snapped at the air, fully expecting him to pop out of his bathroom, laughing his ass off at the prank he’d pulled.

But he didn’t appear, not even as I sat up, the sheet pooling around my hips, my bare breasts peaking from the chill in the air.

I licked the pad of my thumb and rubbed at the mark, my pulse ratcheting at the slight tingle I could feel beneath the ink.

No, no, no.

I swiped at it harder, but the ink didn’t budge.