Page 90 of My Roommate Is a Vampire

I raised our joined hands until my lips met the cool, smooth solidity of his wrist, letting my mouth linger there. His lips parted, andoh, they had been so soft, pressed against my own lips. Even when his kisses had grown desperate. I wanted to taste them again, wanted to tease them apart with my tongue.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” I admitted. “All I know is that right now, I want to be as close to you as I can.” At some point, perhaps I’d want to imagine what a long-term future with Frederick would require of me.

But not just yet.

We hadn’t even been on an officialdateyet.

Giving in to temptation, I pressed a chaste, closed-mouth kiss to his collarbone, reveling in the feel of marble-like skin against my lips.

“Cassie,” he murmured, his voice thick.

Moving a little, I touched my lips to the underside of his jaw, and then kissed my way down his neck to a spot where, many years ago, there had been a pulse. To the place I suspected another vampire once had bitten him, centuries before I was born.

“Frederick,” I murmured. I opened my mouth, letting my tongue dart out to taste him. His skin was salt and musk, desire and cool night air.

He whimpered.

“If you want to do this andIwant to do this, why shouldn’t we?” I asked, though he wasn’t protesting anymore. I nuzzled at the sensitive spot where his neck met his shoulder, reveling in his sharp intake of breath, in the way his arm tightened around me, the way his fingertips dug into my side.

“Cassie.” His tone was half warning, half promise. On a shuddering breath his free hand came up to cup my cheek.

I sighed and leaned into his touch. Every nerve in my body was alight, sparking with anticipation. He had large, beautiful hands. Dexterous and strong. The thought of what they could do to me if he’d only let go...

It was a delicious torture.

“Please,” I whispered.

With that single word it was like a switch flipped inside of him. I could see it in his eyes as the remnants of his resolve cracked and crumbled away, and then all at once his lips were on mine again, his kisses as eager and as needful as they’d been at Sam’s party. He moved quickly, wordlessly, one hand at the small of my back and the other on my shoulder, gently guiding me backwards until I lay prone on the mattress once more.

“Oh, Cassie,” he breathed against my lips. He loomed over me, bracing his weight on his elbows, his forearms on either side of my head. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to my temple. Then he chuckled quietly, the sound so happy and full of relief it broke my heart. “I will never be able to deny you anything you want.”

When I’d imagined this happening, alone in my bedroom, I’d imagined Frederick as a quiet and tentative lover, as polite and refined with sex as he was in everyday life. But there was nothing quiet or tentative about him now. Now that I was lying beneath him atop his lush four-poster bed, his passion was a dam bursting in flood, as though until this moment he’d been holdinghimself back only with extreme effort. His relentless kisses left me breathless and reeling—and I welcomed it, my arms going around him as he kissed me, trying to pull him even closer.

“Cassie.” This time my name on his lips was a plea. He didn’t need oxygen, but he was breathing hard and fast against my neck like he’d just run a mile. Maybe it was muscle memory from the man he’d once been kicking in, now that we were here. His body lay almost entirely on top of me now, a welcome weight pressing me into the mattress. The feel of his breath on my sensitized skin made me shiver.

I wriggled beneath him, eager to feel him everywhere.

“Can I touch you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper, without lifting his head from where it rested in the crook of my neck.

I nodded, feeling like I might burst with anticipation.

His hand slid down the front of my shirt until he found my breast. I arched into his touch, and he squeezed—gently at first, and then, when he saw what his touch was doing to me, with firmer pressure. My breasts were a respectable size, but I fit easily and entirely within his large palm. My nostrils flared, my breathing coming hot and quick as sensation coursed through me.

“Frederick,” I murmured, intending only to encourage him to keep going. The sound of his name must have done something to him because hegrowledhis response. All his formidable powers of speech seemed to have fled as his free hand came down and cupped my other breast. He thumbed roughly at my nipples through my shirt and bra until they pebbled up into hard little sensitized buds against his palms, and then he kept going, and going, andgoing, until I was nothing but pure sensation.

“Oh,” I said, incapable of articulate speech. The soft velvet duvet underneath me served as delicious contrast to the sharp spikes of pleasure coursing through my bloodstream, the placidand even ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway a stark accompaniment to my uneven, rapid breaths. Frederick tore off my shirt and bra impatiently, tossing them to the floor like the hindrances they’d become. His low, desperate groan when he saw my bare chest ratcheted the coil of desire in the pit of my stomach to nearly unbearable heights.

“I want to taste you,” he rasped, raising his head. His pupils were fat with desire as he continued thumbing at my pink and straining nipples. “Everywhere.”

My incoherent moan was apparently all he needed by way of consent. He shoved my skirt up to my waist and then, with excruciatingly slow and careful movements, slid my underwear down my legs. Suddenly, I was half naked and splayed out before him, exposed and vulnerable. His eyes darkened further as he regarded me, his eyes trailing so hot and eagerly along my bare flesh I couldfeelhis gaze.

“I’ve imagined this moment more often than is strictly decent.” His voice was low and deadly urgent, his fingers tracing invisible patterns along my inner thigh. His touch was purposeful, moving closer to where I wanted him with every pass—but his movements were maddeningly slow.

And I was tired of waiting.

“Frederick,” I urged, wriggling on the bed to spur him on. “Please.”

But he seemed determined to take his time. “I’ve touched myself in my bedroom, thinking of you, just like this,” he confessed against the sensitive skin behind my right knee. “I’ve even gone to your bed in my dreams.” His hand slid higher, and higher, until he reached my aching center. He cupped me gently, reverently. I nearly arched off the bed with clawing, desperate need.

---