Page 93 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Chapter 23

Cirri

He was the line between pleasure and pain—first there was the pleasure, the sense of being cradled like spun glass by a creature who could so easily destroy me. The scent of him, so familiar and yet still so exciting and new. The soft, warm velvet of his skin over the hard, brutal lines of a fiend’s warped body.

And then there was the pain, accompanied by a frisson of fear.

The sharp, hungry stab of needles in my throat. The first piercing of the skin, my nerves alight with fire and ice, the prick of his claws against my hips, pulling me closer. The shiver of vulnerability creeping down my spine.

And then the pain melted back into pleasure, a seamless transition between the two.

Because I trusted him, completely and without reservation, and once I’d accepted that Bane would never deliberately harm me, it was easier to submit to his hunger and power. What once filled me with horror now seemed a simple thing: to feed him, to become his, to let my blood fill his veins.

Crushed against him, letting the syrupy haze of the venom spread through my body and fill me with warm, lethargic delight, I wondered why I had been so afraid.

Because this was Bane, and he would never hurt me. He loved me enough to learn my language.

The warm trickle of blood crept down my neck, spilling into the hollow above my clavicle; Bane’s forked tongue lapped it away, his lips caressing my flesh in a way that raised goosebumps all over my body.

Even in the haze, I felt that I sat astride a titan, entirely at his whim and mercy, and it became too much effort to hold my head up. I let it fall back, the sensation of floating overtaking my loose limbs as heat flooded the rest of me.

Things seemed more clear as I floated, the rush of blood becoming a pale background sensation. I wanted him, and I wanted to love him, and I wanted him to love me. It was so simple. Not too much to ask for. Why waste my life prevaricating on the ifs and buts when it was all so obvious?

I laced my hands around his neck, the ridges of his spine hard under my fingers, and pushed myself more fully into him as he took another deep draught from my throat, pain and pleasure intertwining so deeply I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. The pinch of his teeth, the dizzying feeling of my blood being drawn out—it drew a gasp from me, and if I’d had a voice, I would have whisperedyes, more, take more and take me.

If he was mine, and I wanted him, then I wantedallof him. He couldn’t hide his own intense lust; his cock throbbed against my core, nothing but our clothes in the way.

Why not get rid of them? So simple. So obvious.

My arms felt like they were moving through molasses, distanced from my body as I raised my hands to Bane’s shirt. From somewhere far away I realized I was just fumbling at thebuttons—my fingers didn’t quite want to work the way I wanted them to.

Bane growled low in his throat, the rumble of it reverberating in my chest. He ran his tongue over my pierced neck in a slow, smooth stroke, sending shivers down my spine that had nothing to do with apprehension.

“What are you doing, sweet one?” he asked softly.

I temporarily abandoned the buttons as I told him,I’m taking your clothes off. I want all of you.

Were my words right? I had no real idea; my mind had focused entirely on the simmer of pain in my throat, the floating sweetness in my veins, and the fact that I wanted these damn clothes to vanish so I didn’t have to think about buttons or how they worked.

Bane’s throaty chuckle, more thunder than laughter, sent another thrill of heat through me. My breasts had tightened enough to ache under his touch; the gown I wore was a severe impediment to feeling those warm, deadly hands on my flesh.

This was not a chuckling matter, not in the slightest.

I arched my hips forward, grinding myself against the iron rod between my legs, gasping again against his bloodied lips as pleasure zipped through me—even with these pointless clothes in the way, he was thick enough to ride against, my clit humming with need.

This time he didn’t laugh. He snarled, hands tightening on my hips to jerk me against him, his own hips bucking upwards. He was pulsing, so hard it had to be painful, the tingle in my pussy becoming a hot wave in my core.

“I can’t, Cirri,” he groaned, holding me in place. “I can’t hurt you.”

You won’t hurt me, I told him, panting as I fought off the edge. By the Light, there would be no pain; I was already soaked,writhing with need against him. Didn’t he see that it would hurt more to deny this?

Bane’s bright amber eyes were like a cat’s eyes in the darkness; gleaming and predatory, his hungry gaze wandering from my face to my bloody throat, down further to my pebbled nipples and everything hidden beneath the gown.

He exhaled, hands quivering. In some distant part of my mind I felt his claws and fingertips; they’d cut right through the cloth, shredding the gown. Good riddance to it.

But he made no effort to remove his own clothes. Instead, he gripped me around the waist, nuzzling against my neck, his tongue flicking out before his teeth pierced me again, white-hot and bright pain.

As he drank, he splayed his hand on my lower back and pushed in, forcing me to ride against him.

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