Thunder and Lightning

“Bev.” He was overwrought with emotion. Lust, passion, desire, need…love. He felt it all. The need to protect her. To keep her safe, even from himself. He wanted to give her everything he possessed. Including his unbeating heart.

“Please,” she whispered as she continued to move with him. “Come with me. Now, Cane. I want to feel you. All of you. Please!”

His eyes locked with hers. She kept him focused there, holding him spellbound as everything inside him converged and erupted in a fiery, frenzied climax that seemed to shake the rafters, though he knew that was the storm’s doing.

“Oh yes!” she screamed as she came too, squeezing him even tighter, her body vibrating and convulsing with his. “Oh god, yes!” Her back arched. Her eyelids dipped.

“No, Bev,” he managed to grind out. “Don’t close your eyes. I need to see your eyes.”

He’d lose that last thin strand of control if she looked away from him, diverted his attention. He’d sink his teeth into her throat. Taste her intoxicating blood.

And damn his soul all over again.

Thankfully, she responded to his desperate plea. Kept her gaze on his, transfixed, as her own emotions flickered in the pale pools. He saw so much. And that’s what he focused on. As his body continued to tremble from the massive release of an eternity’s worth of pent-up passion, he searched the windows to her soul and found that the intensity of her feelings mirrored his own. She didn’t hide them or hold them back. She let him see how aroused and satisfied and…happy…she was.

One corner of his mouth lifted. Yeah, happy was a weird concept for him, but damn it. He felt thrilled to the core of his undead body.

Her hands shifted to his chest, her fingertips grazing his skin as they made their way up to his shoulders, his neck, his jaw. Which was clenched tight. She massaged it gently, on both sides.

He realized his entire body was rigid. Not limp the way it should be after the colossal climax he’d just experienced. He was still holding himself in check. Still terrified of the vampire he was.

Yet he was also wholly accepting of the man he was. The man Bev had made him tonight.

“You can’t even begin to imagine…” She started to say, then gave a slight shake of her head, still holding his gaze.

“Oh yeah, I can.” Christ. Even as his orgasm ebbed, he still felt on fire from head to toe. Still trembled from the overwhelming sensations that had consumed him. That continued to rage within him. “Just like you said.” He grinned at her. “It’s like being plugged into an electrical outlet.”

She smiled back. Warm and inviting. “Feels damn good.”

“Better than that.”

Whisking away a wayward lock of hair from his forehead, she said, “Thank you for not holding back any longer. I thought I was going to die from wanting you.”

They stared at each other, her words hanging on the sexually charged air. Wanting him could have been the death of her.

But no. He’d won. He’d kept the demon out of this.

“Sorry we didn’t make it to the bed.”

“I’m not.”

He chuckled. The sparkle in her eyes made him lighthearted. His personal victory made him less tense. His muscles loosened and he dipped his head to hers, brushing his lips across her soft ones before kissing her. Slowly. Deeply.

Her arms circled his neck, her body conforming to his again. He could stay here forever in this sexual bliss. Right here. Inside her mouth. Inside her body. Inside her heart.

When she finally broke the kiss, he groaned. She laughed softly. “Sorry, but I can hear that it’s starting to rain and I left the veranda doors open.”

She stilled in his arms, stared up at him as though something had just occurred to her. And it was a hell of a lot more dire than leaving the patio doors open.

“Shit.” The word seemed to fall from her lips, unbidden. Then her mouth snapped shut. She shook her head. Her eyes clouded with an emotion he couldn’t decipher. It all happened so suddenly. In a heartbeat, she was the one to turn rigid and guarded.

“Bev?” He watched the change in her, perplexed by it. “What’s wrong?”

Her eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment and she shook her head again. Then said, “Nothing I just…it’s…nothing.”

But that was a lie. He could see it. He hauled himself off her and lifted her back into his arms.

“The doors,” she reminded him. “The…rain.” Her voice cracked on that last word.