Page 55 of Bound in Blood

I shift awkwardly on the chair, and the wood creaks under the uneven spread of my weight. “So you’ll cut your tongue while you’re feeding on me? Like you did the first time, and like we do with Ophelia?”

He rocks his head from side to side until his neck cracks. “Or you could bite me if you would prefer.”

I grip the sides of the chair to prevent myself from falling off it. If I prefer? Fuck yeah, I prefer.Unconsciously, I lick my lips. I refuse to voice my desire to bite him.

He arches an eyebrow. “I can still read your mind, pup. Even without our bond.”

Shit, I forgot to block him out of my thoughts, so unused to the need to do it around him. I clear my throat.“You’ve never allowed me to bite you before.”

“Do you want to bite me, Xavier?”

I push my chair back and stand, coming face-to-face with him. His warm breath dusts over my forehead. “You know I do.”

He tips his head to the side, exposing the skin at the base of his throat. His blood pulses in the thick vein there, making my fangs ache with hunger and desire. “So do it.”

I sink my fingernails into my palms, searing deep grooves into my flesh, fearful of what I’ll do if I put my hands on him—and what he’ll subsequently do to me as a result. His masculine scent saturates my senses, and I lick my lips. A growl rolls in my chest.

I inch closer, and he doesn’t move away, not even when I bring my face close to his neck and inhale, my nose skimming over his skin. His blood calls to me, and my mouth waters to taste him. He threads his fingers through my hair. “You should definitely make this count, pup.”

His tone seems to carry a threat, but I don’t care. I’m already drooling with the mere anticipation of tasting him. My fangs graze his skin, and he hisses out a breath, tipping his head back farther like he’s daring me to take a bite. And how I fucking want to. I’ve thought about this very moment frequently for over two hundred years but never dared to imagine it would become a reality. Because Alexandros Drakos does not let his sireds bite him. He sure as fuck doesn’t let his least favorite one do it.

But here we are. I close my eyes, focusing on my senses of smell and taste and allowing him to overwhelm me. My fangs throb with their own pulse. And when I sink them into his delicious flesh, there’s the most satisfying pop of my teeth puncturing his skin before his rich, coppery blood floods my mouth, coating my tongue, my gums, my teeth. I suck greedily,and his power flows through my veins, viral and potent and life-affirming. His short fingernails dig into my scalp, and he groans. He fucking groans—a sound full of pleasure and desire—like he’s enjoying this as much as I am. Even though that’s impossible because this is fuckingeverything.

Unable to keep my hands to myself a second longer, I palm the back of his neck, pressing his flesh into my hungry mouth. I suck harder, feeling feral. Unrestrained. Powerful and powerless at the same time.

Then his solid hands are on my chest, and he shoves me. I stagger back, his blood dripping from my mouth. I take a few more steps backward, licking him from my lips, before my back hits the wall. The look on his face is nothing short of murderous, and my heart beats double time in my chest as he glares at me. “My turn, pup,” he says in a low, menacing growl.

Tension crackles in the air between us, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was nothing dangerous about his intentions at all. But… the look on his face can’t be what I think it is. I desperately wish our bond was present so I could read him a little easier, but he needs to be the one to cement it back in place. He unbuttons his shirt, revealing his toned torso inch by delicious fucking inch and sending endorphins hurtling through me. “You were so convinced I treat you differently from the other boys, Xavier?”

I swallow, my muscles rigid as the power in his blood races furiously through my veins. Afraid to move in case he stops doing whatever it is he seems to intent on doing. He doesn’t give me a chance to answer, not that my mouth is capable of forming a word right now. “And on some level, I suppose you would be right.”

I knew it!

His eyes shimmer with something I don’t recognize. Or perhaps I recognize it all too well, but I’m too afraid to admit it.Afraid I’m wrong because it might break me if I’ve misread what this is. “Because youaredifferent.”

He tugs his shirt off and lets it drop to the floor as he takes another step toward me. The air is hypercharged, thick with pulsing energy and sexual tension. The fuck I’m wrong about this. Even if he denies it afterward, I know he wants me as much as I want him. He’s fucking stalking me, and I’m his willing prey, ready to offer up my throat and whatever else he asks for as soon as he says the word.

I lick my lips and stifle a groan as his taste floods my mouth again. It helps me find my voice at last. “Different how?”

He runs the tip of his tongue across his fangs. “Many vampires feed from and fuck the ones they sire, but I…” He shakes his head. “I suppose I wanted to try to recreate the family I once had.” His hands drop to his belt, and my eyes follow, watching intently while he unbuckles it. He opens his pants, and my dick almost explodes in my boxers.

My mouth waters to taste him again, my synapses misfiring with each move he makes. This has to be a dream, right? Alexandros’s pants slide down his muscular thighs, and he steps out of them and stands in front of me, his body barely an inch from my own. Motherfuck. He’s as hard as I am.

He slides his hand to the back of my neck and grips it possessively. “But I see now how foolish an endeavor that was. You are not my son.” He drags his nose along my throat, and I’m filled with nothing but hot, aching need. “But you are most assuredlymine. You will always be mine.”

He presses our chests together, and blistering heat sears my skin. His eyes are almost black as he bares his fangs and drops his mouth to my throat, and I wait in breathless anticipation as the moment seems to go on forever. A moment I have waited over two centuries for.

His hot breath dances tauntingly over my skin. “Two hundred and three years, and I can still recall the taste of your blood, Xavier. So tantalizingly delicious.”

He yanks my head back, exposing the full length of my neck, before his fangs pierce my skin. My entire body is overwhelmed with white-hot euphoria, and my already-stiff cock aches painfully. He sucks greedily, hand still firmly gripping the nape of my neck. My knees buckle, but his hold stops me from falling. Pleasure and pain and intoxicating ecstasy rage inside me. And I recall with excruciating agony the first and only other time he bit me so very long ago. The memory of how much he wanted me stings even as it ignites a fire deep in my core. His desire for me matched mine for him, and I now realize that this cruel bastard made me forget afterward.

I place my hands on his chest and push him away, but there’s no intent in my actions, and he doesn’t move an inch.

Stop fighting me, he commands through our bond, sinking his fangs deeper into my neck and sucking so hard my eyes roll back in my head.

Tears leak from my eyes.You’re back.

I never left you, Xavier.

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