This Time Tomorrow (Phenomenal Fate 2)

Calling his name wasn’t even necessary. She’d barely pitched forward when he caught her against his chest, groaning. The primal sound was still ringing in her head when Elias spun on a heel at mach point vampire and flattened her against the bathroom wall, leaving her toes inches from the floor.

Their mouths were dangerously close. Hers panting, his hard. Predatory.

Roksana’s loins pulled taut, tickling a part deep inside of her. So deep and intimate, her thighs shot up reflexively to anchor the sensation. It didn’t work, though. No, it didn’t, because Elias caught her by the knees, settled her around his waist and pressed his hips into the cradle of hers. One forward pressing step forced a gasp out of her mouth, right against his lips.

Elias is hard for me.

He’s really, really hard. For me.

She was in nothing but a drenched T-shirt that had ridden up to her belly button, sandwiched between a wall and muscles so tense, she braced for a snap.

“The way you fit me…” Elias said hoarsely, “…is obscene.”

Where was the lie? Her legs might as well have been molded to wrap about his hips, her breasts crushing to the mantle of his pectorals, their mouths on level. To say nothing of his steel erection. Even through denim, it pushed apart the lips of her sex. As if seeking its home.

“Remind me why you hate me,” he implored her, his nose burying in her neck to inhale. “Remind me why I’ll never have the right to touch you.”

Roksana’s heart lurched. She opened her mouth to recount the massacre in Vegas, as she’d done to him several times before, but no amount of willpower would force the words out. Instead, she found her fingers traveling through his hair, tugging the dark strands.

Without a direct command from her brain, her ankles locked at the small of his back.

“Roksana,” he warned, surging forward to grind her into the wall, his lips peeled back in a pained snarl. “You need to be careful with me.”

“Don’t you know by now that warnings only entice me, vampire?” she breathed.

Something akin to affection sparked in his eyes, before it was swallowed up once again by lust. Regret. “Remind me what I’ve done. Now.”

“Or what?”

He laid the flat of his tongue against her pulse and dragged it slowly up to her jaw, grazing her there with his teeth. “Or I’m going to unzip these jeans and finally fuck you.”

Now would be an awkward time to tell Elias she was a virgin.

Right?

Definitely.

“We are getting ahead of ourselves.” Roksana blurted, her body flushed, heated, her lips full and aching for contact. “What about kissing?”

A mixture of shock and hope shone in Elias’s eyes. “You’re asking to kiss me?” An eyebrow went up. “Voluntarily?”

Of course he was surprised. He should be surprised. This vampire was supposed to be her enemy and she was all, yeah, but can we, like, make out and stuff? Silly girl. “Technically I owe you a favor for teaching me how to play poker,” she said, sliding even further into irredeemable territory.

Even as his hands molded to her waist, keeping Roksana steady for a grind from his hips, he shook his head. “I’m not collecting a kiss as a favor.” Eager lips raced up the slope of her throat, forcing her head back. “It’ll give you an excuse later to say you didn’t really want it.”

“Not if you use the favor wisely,” she said, finishing on a whimper when he lapped at the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Her legs moved restlessly around his hips, her core contracting, heels digging into his hard butt.

Elias pressed their foreheads together and remained silent for several beats. Then his eyes lifted to hers and there was so much gravity swirling in their depths, she held her breath. “Here’s the favor I’d collect from you, Roks. Forget for a little while that you hate me.” He crowded her tight, tight to the wall. Their lips brushed and the flesh between her thighs turned even more slick. Desperate. “Just forget for five minutes, huh? Whether you’re letting me touch you or not. Just forget.”

“See, I knew you could be creative,” Roksana hiccupped.

His big hands raked down over her ass, kneading it roughly, using that hold to rock her against his lap. “How are you going to spend your five minutes not hating me?”

The seam of his jeans dragged over Roksana’s clit and her eyes almost crossed. “Y-you know how.”

“Uh-uh, baby. Need to hear you say it.”

“Kiss me, vampire,” she whispered.

The second Elias’s lips opened over hers, pressure bloomed in her throat. There was a part of her that wondered if she’d exaggerated their connection in Vegas. Exaggerated the perfection of their kiss. But when their tongues brushed and they melted into one another like chocolate in a saucepan, the truth became wildly obvious. Her memory hadn’t been doing Elias’s kiss sufficient justice. He was infinitely better.