Page 56 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

Certain that Tobias was on the mend—his wound was now only half the size it had been before—I scooped his still unconscious body up in my arms, wincing at the moan of pain the movement drew from his lips, I ran as far and as fast as I could.

I made it back to the motel and up the flight of concrete stairs, with Tobias in my arms, only minutes later. Anyone watching me would have only seen a blur of speed. Most mortals would have probably chalked it up as being a trick of the light, something that was easily discounted and ignored.

I hesitated at the door to my motel room, realizing that I’d have to put Tobias down in order to fish the room key out of my pocket. I didn’t want him out of my arms for an instant.

I was being ridiculous, of course. I was completely exposed out here, with a full-grown man held in my arms like he weighed nothing at all, both of us covered head to toe in blood. Anyone at all could have seen us.

I glanced down at Tobias.

He was gazing up at me steadily, his strange violet-blue eyes dark and unreadable. “I can stand,” he told me. “You can put me down. Someone could see us.”

Though he’d practically just read my mind, I still felt unwilling to have him leave my arms. I needed his weight, his warmth, his heartbeat, to reassure myself that he was real. That he was okay. That he was still mine to keep.

Tobias smiled faintly, perhaps reading the reluctance on my face. “Don’t worry. It’s just for a moment.”

I nodded. He was right, of course. Reluctantly, I set him down. I steadied him, in case he fell—I had no idea how vampire blood actually worked, since I’d never had to heal anyone with it before—but he remained steady on his feet.

I unlocked the door. I was about to put my arm around him, to usher him inside, but he walked forward, into the room, without my assistance.

I closed the door behind us and flipped on the light switch, casting the room into a soft orange glow. I didn’t need it in order to see, but Tobias did.

He walked a few steps further into the room, then stopped. I saw his gaze dart around the small room, lingering on the bed for a moment.

Then he turned to face me.

He should have looked terrible. His lips, chin, and the front of his shirt were all covered in blood. His hair was mussed. But his eyes smoldered with desire and he was alive and vital. His heart beat in his chest and his pulse throbbed in his throat, but for once it wasn’t my hunger that made me notice it. It was the overwhelming relief that he was alive, that he was still here with me. That I hadn’t lost him forever.

He was easily the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life.

But there was still a knot of anxiety within me. I needed to see with my own eyes that he was okay. I needed to know that his wound was completely gone. That my blood had fully healed him.

As though he had somehow heard my thoughts, Tobias abruptly stripped off his shirt. His chest was covered in rapidly drying blood, but the skin below that was perfectly unblemished. And well-developed. He was lean and thin, but with broad, perfectly sculpted shoulders. His chest was smooth and well-defined, without being too muscular, which was exactly what I had always preferred.

He turned to show me his back. The wound was gone.

“You healed me. You saved my life,” Tobias said, turning back around. Shirtless, he took a step closer to me. His gaze met mine again and held it. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t let anything happen to you,” I managed, my voice barely more than a whisper. Now, with my terror gone, I felt rubbed raw and exposed. My body craved the reassuring warmth and weight of him against me. “I thought I had lost you.”

“Never,” he whispered.

My gaze dropped down, drinking his body in greedily, and I noticed for the first time that there was a bulge in his pants. My mouth went dry with sudden desire. I could tell through the jeans he was wearing that he was rock hard. That shouldn’t have caught me off guard at all. It was a perfectly normal reaction. An expected one. Vampire blood, even in small amounts, was an aphrodisiac to mortals. And he had consumed a lot of it.

A lot of me.

That shouldn’t have been so hot, but it was. And now he was here, in my room, hard and needing release. And I had him all to myself.

“Bryan…” he whispered, his voice gruff, taking another step closer. He trailed off, standing right in front of me. He swallowed hard, looking torn and miserable. I knew he wanted to kiss me. That he craved my body just as much as I craved his. But, even with my blood coursing through his veins, setting his skin aflame with desire, he still waited for me. If I had asked him to leave, I knew he would have.

I didn’t want him to go.

Filled with a sudden, crystal-clear certainty, I stepped forward, closing the gap between us. I slipped my arms around his waist, pulling him closer to me.

“Kiss me. I want you to.”

Tobias’s eyes went darker still with desire, and he put his hands on me, holding me against him. With the feel of his body against me, the response in my cock was immediate. I was suddenly hard and aching. His eyes danced with amusement mingled with his desire, as if he somehow knew everything that was going on inside my head. Then he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me.

His lips were surprisingly soft and warm. His kiss was sweet at first, searching and gentle, but it became more urgent and demanding. My lips parted, yielding to him. The world seemed to fall away until there was nothing else left except for him and I.

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