Page 169 of Black Bird

“Text me the room number. We’ll be there in ten.” Sarah didn’t say goodbye, instead ending the call and dropping her phone to the table, taking her face in her palms. “So much for our date.”

“Sarah …” Athan soothed, sliding out of the booth and joining her on the other side of the table. He pulled her across his lap until her legs dangled over his thigh. She hooked one arm around his neck, and he supported her back with his other arm, smoothing his hand down the side of her face. “I promise you it’ll be the first of many,” he said, touching his nose to hers. “There’s no length I won’t go to make you smile like you’ve smiled tonight. What I had planned for after can wait.”

“I don’t wanna wait another minute to be with you.” She brushed the hair away from his brow.

“I’m not going anywhere, love. I promised you my life, remember? We’ve still got so much to do. Once all this shit is over, we’ll have nothing but time.”

“You never got your dessert.” Sarah frowned.

“Oh, I’ll get that later.” The drop in his voice had heat pooling between her legs.

“Fuckin’ right, you will.” She slid her tongue between his teeth, and he gently bit it before meeting it with his own. She could have started stripping him down in this pub when that kiss deepened, and his hands moved over her body.

“Get up, Sarah … before you I rip you apart.” Athan growled, gripping her thigh hard enough to hurt. She smiled against his mouth.

“Now, now … don’t make promises you can’t keep.” She moved against him, pressing her hip into his crotch.

Athan hissed through his teeth, turning his face and raising his hand. “Check please …Christ.”

Traffic was becoming a bit more congested in the later part of the afternoon, and Athan kept getting distracted by Sarah’s unwavering stare from the passenger seat. It wasn’t so much unnerving as it was hungry, and the fact that she’d just told him she couldn’t eat another bite implied that her stare was a hunger of an entirely different sort.

“You can’t keep looking at me like that.” He bit down on his bottom lip and flicked the turn signal on.

“Does it still count as part of our date until we get there?” Sarah asked, unbuckling her seatbelt. He teetered his focus from the road to whatever she was doing.

“I know what you’re doing.” This might have been the only exception to not being on two wheels. Sarah leaned over the console and went for his belt. “Sarah … you told him ten minutes. You keep this shit up and we’ll never make it to the hospital.”

“I’m sure you can get us there in ten minutes. Just drive.” His breathing quickened when she pulled him out, the mere touch of her hand enough to have him toe the line of his sanity. The top half of her body was in his lap, and her long hair brushed the skin of his cock as she lowered her head toward it. The car jerked slightly when she slowly took him into her mouth. Sarah’s chuckle hummed over his skin, and she raised her head. “Hands on the wheel. This isn’t a bike.”

His back pressed into the leather seat when she continued, and the tang of his own blood overpowered the aftertaste of bourbon. He hadn’t realized how hard he’d bitten his lip. “You’re gonna be my fucking ruin, Sarah St. James. I—fuck …” The car jerked again as her head bobbed and he nearly hit someone’s bumper at the stop light. She didn’t laugh that time, instead sucking harder. A deep groan rumbled low in his throat, and he kept one eye on the light while he watched her. Those tattooed hands wound around the base, gripping and working with perfect execution. She took him to the back of her throat and gagged. Athan swore under his breath. He couldn’t help himself after that. “Take it,” he growled through his teeth, grabbing a fistful of her hair. “Take all of it.”

Sarah’s eyes raised up to meet his, and she smiled deviously. “Make me.” Oh, she knew exactly what she was doing. She playfully ran her tongue around his head and barely touched her lips around him. Athan gripped her hair tighter and shoved her head down over him, pressing the gas when the traffic started moving and causing her head to forcefully sink further down. He felt himself hit the back of her throat and he gripped the steering wheel with his other hand, moving his hips and fucking her mouth. She reveled in it, reaching back to come out of her ripped jeans. God, she was an incredible thing. How could anyone not have absolutely devoured her blessed insanity?

In all the years he’d lived, he never imagined he could feel like this about someone. It didn’t escape him that everything about finding each other had been such a fucked up chain of events … after everything he’d done, she still was so determined to give him everything he’d never had. She had just told him the most impossible truth about herself. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that she was already part what he was, and he wasn’t sure what that would mean for their future. There had to be more humans like her. As many times over the centuries that vampires had slept with humans, he knew … there had to be more. But this one—this one washis, and even if it had taken him over two hundred years, he’d found the one his soul belonged to. Or maybe she’d found him.

Sarah slid over, straddling his lap, and leaning herself on his shoulder so that he could still see the road. A horn honked behind him, and he dismissed it, trying not to plow them into a light pole as she sank down his cock and took him by the chin. Athan hissed, his eyes darkening, making it ten times more difficult to watch the road. She forced him to do so anyway, handling his face and smiling while she rocked her hips. Five minutes. They’d be there in five minutes … if he didn’t completely lose his mind before then. “You’re not leaving this fucking car until I’ve made you bawl.” Athan gripped the wheel, and hung his arm around her back, meeting her pace as she rode him senseless. Those hazel eyes were wet with tears from her gagging, and she chuckled breathlessly. “You know that’s not what I mean, you damaged little fucker.”

“How long?” She grinned, forcing his face back to the road when he tried to look at her.

“Five minutes.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” She gave him no warning as she bit his neck, sending him into a frenzy that blindly wove him through traffic, and left him hardly able to remember the rest of the way to the hospital. The gas pedal was a victim to his fevered heel. His cock twitched, and he smelled blood—his blood.

“Sarah,” his voice strained, fucking her harder while he turned right. That five minutes was knocked down to three as he pulled beneath the parking deck and scrambled to find a spot. Sarah sucked on his neck to the point of delicious pain and her moans sent chills down his spine. He wasn’t sure what it would do to her, and his mind was at war with the erotic sensation of being fed on by his mate. He threw the car in park, rolling the seat backward and leaning her back against the steering wheelbefore taking in the dark smear of blood on her mouth. “Christ,” he groaned, unable to stop himself from finding it incredibly sexy. She couldn’t have taken much, he knew, but the darkness in those eyes showed enough. It didsomething. “You could turn …”

“What difference does it make now?” she asked, never ceasing to work those perfect thighs against his. “Don’t fucking stop.” She gripped the breast of his t-shirt in both hands, and they tore into each other like animals, the horn accidentally going off several times before he felt her tighten and the long moan of his name rang in his ears. He pulled her against him, driving into her ruthlessly as he followed right behind her and panted against her mouth, giving her every drop of himself. They used that last two minutes to will themselves calm and he pressed his head against hers.

“You … are so perfectly insane, Sarah St. James.” Athan huffed, kissing her mouth. She smiled against his lips, breathing heavily.

“Ibecameinsane … with long intervals of horrible sanity …”

Poe … she’s quoting Poe.

How was he deserving of this creature? What did he do that was so great that God saw fit to turn his face back to him? A deliverer of death, that dwelled within the deepest darkness? Athan swept his thumb across the corner of her mouth, the small stain of his blood disappearing with his touch. “I love you …God, I fucking love you to death.”

“It was an amazing first date, Athan Kane.” She smiled, kissing him deeply. “And I love you too.” She carefully slid off his lap, reclaiming her seat and pulling on her jeans. She’d successfully dumbfounded him. For once, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Sarah eyed him as she slipped the visor down and situated her long hair in the mirror. “Put that away … what’s wrong with you?” She grinned, turning her attention from his lap back to the mirror.

“It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.”

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