The way she said his name made him feel as though a thousand centipedes scuttled over his skin… yet… it lingered on the air, his name from her lips. A chain that bound them together.
"I did not come to you, Lilith. " It took all he had to make those words easy, smooth. To say her name to her face.
Her laugh, low like barely a breath, curled around him. "You always did need a bit of persuasion. Come here, Maximilian. Come to me. "
He stood, then forced his limbs to do his bidding and not hers… and leaned against the wall, settling one of his hands over his left nipple, touching his vis bulla. Thank God even she could not touch that.
A wave of strength flowed through him and he concentrated on it, pulled the force from the holy silver he wore.
And he turned, then, against the wall to look at her.
She lounged on a long white chaise. Her eyes—he could meet them for only a moment—were almond-shaped, beautifully lashed, deep-set… and blue ringed with red.
"Ah, you are more yourself now, aren't you, Maximilian? I much prefer you in your alpha state than that mass of weakness my servants dumped here last night. "
"Last night?"
She nodded once, regally.
"Is Rockley dead?"
"Rockley? Oh, no… no, my dear, I have other uses for him. "
Max closed his eyes. If the man had kept his mouth shut, and never told the vampire his name, he would be dead. And safe.
The connection to Victoria wouldn't have been made.
"Now, Max, my dear, it has been too long. You must come to me. " The liquid summons in her voice pulled at him. His hands and feet began to tremble with the effort of keeping them motionless, under his control.
Sweat gathered at his frozen nape, dripped down beneath his shirt. The scars on his neck burned and throbbed, responding to her call. >
Still he resisted. He rolled along the wall, away from her.
He felt her move; his eyes were closed in concentration, but he felt her come toward him. He steeled himself, felt the wall under his hands and cheek, and tried to grip it. It was too smooth.
Tall as a man, she breathed on him from behind. Her presence cloaked him, smotherin
g and stifling… and she was not yet touching him. One of her hands reached up—he felt the air move—and she touched his hair, smoothed it, stroked it, while she drew in her breath in a long, languorous caress… and exhaled.
She tipped his head to the side gently. He let her.
She stepped closer and now he felt her breasts and the curve of her mound pressing into his spine and his rear. He moved his hand between himself and the wall, touching the vis bulla, and breathed.
His neck was open to her; she was tall, tall enough to press her lips, one cold, one hot, to the skin there. He shuddered when she touched him. Closed his eyes. Waited.
She toyed with him. Laughed against his skin, breathed on its moisture, scraped him with one sharp incisor. Her heartbeat became one with his. She melted into him from behind. His shirt was wet everywhere; he could hear nothing but her pulse.
When she ran her long, sharp nails from his shoulder to the base of his back, he felt his shirt give under them. It fell away under her hands, and when she pressed up behind him again, touching his bare back, he wanted to let go. Stop fighting.
The smell of his blood from her scoring nails filled his nostrils… she closed her lips over the edge of his shoulder, where the cuts had begun, and where they were the deepest, and he felt her tongue slip through the wetness.
She sighed, and her lips curved with pleasure against him. "Maximilian… you taste like no one else. "
He marshaled his strength. "I do not consider that a compliment. "
Laughing in delight, she sucked hard at his shoulder. "Taste. " She pulled his head back at an impossible angle, and covered his mouth with her blooded lips.
He tasted it, the heavy iron flavor, her cold, slick tongue. He took her kiss and wanted more. Damn it. He wanted more.