He unleashed an anguished whimper. Thank you.
Kate sucked in a breath at the way he seemed to respond to her thoughts. Without conscious thought, she stroked his hair and turned her head to watch him. The darkness and the angle of his face concealed the feeding, but Kate didn’t need to see it.
She felt it. In every cell of her body.
Chapter Four
The more Kate gave in to his need, the more she perceived the movement of blood where they were joined. And the longer he sucked the lifeblood from her, the more she became almost inebriated with the feeling of his hands and tongue and fangs on her. In her.
Arousal spiked through her body, hot and unexpected.
Kate arched under him. Her fingers tightened in his hair, but not as before. This time, her grip encouraged and embraced him. A moan tore up her throat. She wasn’t even sure what she needed, she simply knew her body yearned for something more. From him. With him.
What was happening to her?
A big hand squeezed her hip and Kate jolted at the pressure. He shifted his position again, bringing the weight of his chest hard against the increasingly sensitive nerves at the junction of her thighs.
She thrust her hips upward, helpless to resist her body’s growing need. The heat between her legs was all the more noticeable for the cold air surrounding them. But the longer he fed, the hotter she got, as if there was a cocoon surrounding and protecting them. All Kate could feel, all she knew, was the two of them intertwined in a moment more intimate than any she’d ever experienced.
Over the sound of her panting breaths and his wet sucking, she swore she could almost hear something like purring, a low growl of deep satisfaction. The soft rumble added to the electricity building between her legs.
Around her, the world spun until it blurred. Within her, a white-hot energy pooled low in her belly. Never, ever had her body threatened to go to pieces this fast. It was as if his very presence had flipped a switch inside her. He shifted between her legs again. Oh, God. Oh, God, if he didn’t stop, she was going to explode.
He whimpered, trembled. Kate shook off the heavy haze of her arousal and forced herself to lean up onto an elbow. His head shook on his shoulders, as though he struggled to hold it upright.
She remembered the shredded appearance of his neck and winced in sympathy. “You could—” Kate swallowed thickly “—let me sit up and lay with your head in my lap. It’ll be easier for you that way.”
His mouth stilled against her, but didn’t release.
“It’s not a trick,” she said. Kate pushed herself into an awkward sitting position, and the vampire moved ungracefully to allow her. His head lolled back onto her thigh, one hand still forming a manacle around her arm. She looked down into his face, burning with the desire to see him more clearly. His eyelids fluttered and sagged as if they were too heavy to lift, and ultimately fell closed.
When she was as settled as she could be with him sprawled over her legs and lying in her lap, she stroked his forehead back over his messy hair. “Okay, just hurry. You need to get out of here. And leave me some.”
His mouth and tongue moved languorously against her skin. The sensation ricocheted up her arm and through every vein, spiking the fire raging within.
My guardian angel, he intoned in solemn Russian in what she now knew without question was his voice.
Her heart squeezed at the reverence of his thought. “Well, I don’t know about— Oh, shit.” Warmth flooded over her thigh. His blood. His neck seemed to leak as fast as he drank. Icy fear snaked down her spine. “You’re bleeding really badly.”
Her gloves and his cap were long gone.
Kate only had one thing left: she unzipped her parka and shrugged it off her free arm. Frigid air flooded into the bubble of warmth she’d imagined surrounded them and made it hard to breathe.
A scuff, from the far end of the alley.
Kate froze and tilted her head, listening.
It sounded like… Her ears strained. Footsteps?
Fear erupted in her gut. Couldn’t be the ambulance. There had been no sirens. No vehicle noise. And why would the paramedics be so purposely quiet?
Brilliant red rage displaced the fear and set her senses on high alert.
All her calm disappeared and morphed into stone-cold protectiveness and fierce possessiveness. He is mine. And no one will take him.
Operating on instinct, Kate’s hand found and removed the SIG from her jeans, a dark satisfaction flooding her as she returned the decocking lever to its live position. She was so damn glad he’d gone for her left wrist, leaving her dominant hand free to shoot. If necessary.