Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed 10)

"The way we came together before," he rasped thickly, then bit off a harsh curse. "It was your first time. You deserved something better. I had no right - "

She silenced him with another kiss, more demanding than his had been. When she lifted her head to look up at him, there was no regret in her fiery eyes. Only need. Open and honest, shameless need. "You gave me exactly what I wanted."

"Did I?" He touched her face and hair, marveling at how she could look so damned sure of herself and yet so heartbreakingly innocent at the same time. "What about now?"

Her eyes smoldered even brighter. Behind her parted lips, her fangs were even longer now, sharper. Exquisite white points that made the feral vampire in him snap at its feeble tether. She stepped in close, the heat of her body touching his skin like an open flame. Her palm was between them, soft fingers trailing fire along his abdomen, then down toward his arousal. Her gaze on his, Tavia wrapped her hand around the girth of his shaft and stroked it from base to tip and back again.

Chase couldn't bite back the growl of approval that erupted from his throat.

He killed the water and opened the shower door.

Then he scooped Tavia up into his arms and carried her out to the bedroom in a few long strides.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DESPITE HIS BODY pulsing with obvious need, he placed her down on the bed as if he thought she were made of glass.

His transformed eyes were throwing off fire, heating her skin as he let his gaze roam over her face. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a growl. "This time, we're taking it slow." He prowled up onto the mattress with her, crouched on all fours above her like a big cat. "This time, I want to give you what you want ... but not until you're screaming for it."

Oh, God.

The anticipation of what he might mean was nearly enough to undo her. She lay back and let him touch her, his fingertips skating from her forehead, cheek, and chin, to the tender hollow at the base of her throat, where her pulse hammered in rapid beats. He took his time studying her, tracing the flaring, arching tangle of color on her skin.

"So beautiful," he murmured thickly. "How could you be led to think you were anything less than perfect? I could kill Dragos for that reason alone."

She heard the restrained fury in his voice, felt it in the hard pound of his pulse, which all but filled her ears, filled her senses. But his touch was gentle, reverent. So very careful. The first brush of his lips across hers was warm and indulgent, a lazy crawl that sucked all the breath from her lungs. His tongue slipped inside, sweeping between her teeth before testing the sharp tips of her fangs. True to his word, he took the kiss slowly, not breaking contact until she was melting beneath him, awash in the pleasure of his mouth on hers.

"You taste like heaven," he drawled against her parted lips. "So pure and clean and bright. God, what you do to me."

She couldn't speak, could only fist her hands in the quilted coverlet on the bed and hold on as his kiss traveled lower. His lips and tongue were moist and hot on her breasts, teeth and fangs grazing her pebbled nipples as he moved down her body in a maddening, pleasurable path. He kissed her belly and tongued the indentation of her navel, and then his mouth was drifting over the flare of her hip bone and down onto the tender flesh of her inner thigh. She moaned as his warm breath fanned her sensitive skin. Gasped as his slick tongue traced the cleft of her body. Shuddered on an indrawn cry as he began to suckle the tight bud of her sex, kissing her with the same slow, sensual attention he'd lavished on her mouth.

"Feels so good," she whispered, her fangs sharp and cool, the long points filling her mouth. Tavia arched into his kiss, her hips moving of their own accord, every inch of her alive and on fire, his to command. She couldn't fight the pleasure he stoked within her, could only let herself go as he brought her to the sheerest height of sensation, then tumbled her over the edge. Her orgasm splintered at her core, spreading its light into her limbs like warm, sun-spangled rain. She let it carry her away, leaving all the hurt and ugliness of the past twenty-four hours long behind her as Chase's mouth continued its blissful assault on her senses.

She was still panting, her body still reverberating with pleasure, as he climbed onto her with hungry eyes. His lips were glossy with her juices, sweet with the taste of her own climax as he caught her mouth in a deep, bone-melting kiss. Their fangs tangled and clashed, the scrape of their razored tips an unexpectedly erotic sensation.

Tavia's body was molten, needful for more of him even before the thrumming heat of her release had yet to ebb. She clawed at his back and shoulders as he kissed her, feeling the swell of another climax building. Its deep ache made something animal rouse within her. She nipped at his lower lip, a bite nearly hard enough to draw blood. Her voice felt like ash in her throat, hardly recognizable to her own ears. "I want you inside me."

His answering growl was a rumble that vibrated in her bones. "Patience," he rasped, his glowing eyes flashing with dark amusement. "I haven't showed you all the other ways I can make you come."

He caught her lips in another long kiss. This time, his tongue went deep, filling her mouth as he reached down between them and inserted his fingers into the tight sheath of her sex. He probed her in rhythm with his kiss, pushing deep into her core while his hot mouth plundered her from above. Her body clenched around him, trying to hold him inside even as the friction of his movement made her thrust and mewl with pleasure.

"You're so wet," he murmured hotly. "You feel like silk. So hot and tight around my fingers. I could come just feeling you like this."

He moved his hips against the side of her thigh, the thick ridge of his erection as hard as steel but smooth as velvet. She wanted to feel him filling her, desire for him making everything female inside her coil with greedy hunger. She exhaled a wordless protest as he withdrew his touch, but then the slick pressure of his fingertips met her clitoris and her cry became a choked gasp, sensation jolting through her. He stroked and rubbed the sensitive little knot, swirling his thumb over it as his fingers delved back into her cleft. Her climax came swiftly, ripple after ripple, her sheath contracting in tiny waves. Her voice was ragged, torn from her on a shout of release that she tried to muffle in the strong curve of his neck.;It's okay," he murmured, sweeping aside the limp strands of her hair. He lifted her chin, bringing her red-rimmed eyes up to meet his gaze.

God, she was breathtaking. Even wrecked with distress, her face spattered with dried blood and grime from the clinic, eyes wet with tears and puffy from crying. Chase looked at her and realized he'd never heard her laugh. Had never seen her smile. Since she'd been with him, she'd gone from terrified to outraged, then anguished and confused to lost and alone. Now, utterly destroyed.

Yes, there had been passion between them too, but even that had been fierce and raw-edged. He'd taken something precious from her when he allowed things to go as far as he had. The sex and the blood - her first time knowing either one - and he the selfish bastard who'd greedily enjoyed the pleasure in both.

The guilt of that pressed down on him as he gathered Tavia into his embrace and rocked her as she cried against his chest. "None of my life before was true," she said, her voice thick and choked with tears. "I thought I could deal with it, but it hurts so much. Everyone I knew was lying to me. Using me. All my life, they were betraying me."

Chase caressed her head and back, smoothed his rough palm over the tangled silk of her hair. "You'll be okay," he told her. "You're strong, Tavia. You'll come through this, I have no doubt. And there are people among the Breed who can help you."

Not him, surely. He'd done enough damage where she was concerned. And even though it felt good to hold her, felt somehow comforting to feel her arms wrapped around him as she wept, the embers of his hunger kindled just below the surface of his calm. It was a struggle to tamp it down, to curb the fevered glow of his irises as Tavia lifted her head to meet his gaze. "You want to know the irony in all of this?" She bit off a strangled sigh. "I loved her - the Minion that Dragos assigned to be my family. I loved her like she was my mother. I even loved Dr. Lewis. They were the two people I trusted most in this world, the only people who really knew me. I thought they were protecting me, making me better." Another sob tore loose from her throat, raw with pain. "They would have killed me if Dragos wanted them to. I didn't mean a thing to either one of them. Not to anyone. That hurts even more than the shock of learning what I really am."

Seeing her in such anguish, Chase wanted to deal a little death of his own. The two Minions who'd betrayed her were already gone, but Dragos still had a brutal end coming to him. More than anything, Chase wanted to be the one to deliver it - prolonged and bloody, the more violent the better.

But he was careful to keep his hands tender as he brushed the pad of his thumb over a smear of soot that rode the delicate angle of her cheek. He swept the marks away and couldn't resist touching his lips to the furrowed center of her brow. The smoky tang of the clinic explosion clung to her skin and hair. Dried blood from the battle with Dragos's Hunter stained her clothes and dotted her face in dark, rusty speckles.