Page 57 of Bound in Blood

But sweet Ophelia would miss you so, he says in my head, his voice tinged with a laugh.

I didn’t mean to say that.

You have been saying a lot of things, pup.

Would you miss me?I ask without meaning to. It makes me sound weak and needy, and I fucking hate that.

He stops feeding and laughs out loud this time, his breath ruffling my hair. “Yes, I would miss you, Xavier. So I will not fuck you into the afterlife today.” He presses his mouth against my skin again, and I feel him smile. “How about I just fuck you until you moan my name?”

I sag against him. “I’ll scream your name if you want me to.”

He coasts his hand down my abs and holds my cock in a tight grip. “Whatever you prefer is fine. But I want my name on your lips when you come for me.”

“Fuck!”

He drives into me. “That is not my name, pup.”

“Well, I’m not coming yet,” I say, unable to resist pushing him a little.

He jacks me off and fucks me to the same deliciously torturous pace, keeping me on the precipice of ecstasy for so long that the need to come feels like a thousand shards of silver piercing my skin. And when I feel him teetering on the edge alongside me, he sinks his fangs into my skin once more, and we both fall over the cliff together.

“Alexandros!” It comes out somewhere between a roar and moan.

Good boyis the last thing I hear before everything goes black.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

ALEXANDROS

Xavier slumps against me, his eyelids fluttering, and I pick him up and carry him to the bed. My eyes roam his perfectly toned body. I was a fool waiting so long for this. More so for making him think he was the problem when my desire for him made me keep him at arm’s length, albeit unconsciously. That my coldness toward him contributed to the way he has underestimated himself all these years does not escape me.

The removal of our bond once again allowed me to truly see him for who he is—the same strikingly beautiful, addictively charismatic young man I first encountered so many years ago. The one who burned with shame because of his father’s cruelty to him. I took great pleasure in breaking every bone in that old man’s body before drinking him dry. But my desire for his son, which I kept buried for so long, came rushing back to me as soon as I saw him again yesterday.

“Sir?” Xavier’s voice cracks as he blinks up at me, questioning whether what happened was real or imagined. He is a paradox. Powerful and vulnerable. Confident yet so unsureof himself. I saw all of that and more in him over two hundred years ago, and it still captivates me now.

I sit on the bed beside him and run the pad of my thumb across his full lips. “Yes, I just fucked you, pup.”

His throat works as he swallows, his blue eyes narrowed in uncertainty. I have not been the sire he deserves. Nor the man. “It was…” He licks his lips and does not finish the sentence.

I crawl over him and press him down with the weight of my body. A groan pours out of him. Running my nose along the thick column of his throat, I inhale deeply, and his unique scent floods my senses. “It was what?”

He sucks in a ragged breath, his fingers skating up my spine until they find my hair. But his movements are cautious and unsure, and I suppose that is to be expected given our history. “Incredible.” He closes his eyes, as if embarrassed by his admission.

“I agree, Xavier.”

His eyes snap open, and the spark of hope that flares bright in his chest lights me up too. “You do?”

“Did I not fuck you as well as you have ever been fucked in your life?”

The corners of his lips twitch. “Yeah.”

I grind myself against him, my cock already stiffening at the sensation of his skin against mine. “And you think I did not enjoy it as much as you did? I am almost hard again, and that is all for you.”

His eyes shine with unshed tears. “Why did you shut me out? You made me feel like I was nothing.”

A growl of frustration rumbles in my chest, but it is aimed at my own shortcomings, not at him. I rest my forehead against his and speak through our bond.It was easier for me to ignore this side of myself with you, Xavier. And for that, I am sorry.

---