Page 86 of Griffin Undone
Because you were afraid. And fear never helps a fucking thing.
“Okay, okay.” I took precious moments to once again remove the blood from her pale skin. Needing to feel her, to know with certainty that she was breathing and her heart was beating instead of guessing, I stripped my shirt, then her bra. Kat’s shirt was long gone, dirty and torn even before the blood. When I gathered her onto my chest and leaned back against the stray cushions I’d piled up behind me, her soft curves nestled against my muscles, communicating directly to my body. Her heart beat a light, irregular thump that caused my own heart to stutter. Cradling her head in one hand, I punctured my jugular with the other.
“Drink, Kitty Kat. Drink for me.”
I coaxed her mouth open and brought it to my skin. For a moment nothing happened, and my heart shuddered with panic. Then the light touch of her tongue seared my skin. A weak moan escaped her. Kat sighed, sucked, and the faint sound of a swallow reached my ears.
“That’s it.” My breath huffed out as Kat drew on me again, too gently, but there all the same. “Come on, that’s a good girl. That’s it.”
How long I sat there, every molecule focused on the slight pull of Kat’s mouth on my vein, I had no idea. If it took every drop of blood I had, I’d heal her. But it didn’t take every drop. Eventually Kat’s head tilted to a better angle and the suction increased. The trickle of blood dripping from her nose stopped wetting my shoulder. I let her feed as long as I could, gave her as much blood as I thought I could spare before I finally broke the hold of her mouth on my skin and raised her to take a look. Kat opened her eyes languidly, no bloody tears, no ticking of seizures. Still a bit weak, if the slow blinks she gave me were any indication, but better. She was getting better.
“Thank God.”
“Thankyou,” Kat said aloud. And then her eyes closed for good and she dropped into sleep. I lay, her slight weight atop me, her legs tangled with mine, and tried to remember how to breathe. My fingers traced along her spine, her hips, up to her shoulders, seeking out and finding the slopes and hollows that made Kat’s body the perfect fit for me. Her sides dipped in at the waist, where I gripped her, adjusting until we were settled squarely, pelvis to pelvis, her soft stomach cushioning my growing erection. Call me a bastard, but when she was this close—and when I’d come so close to losing her—I couldn’t help needing her. Wanting her.
And loving her, I realized, the shock reverberating through me like an earthquake.
I loved her. How fucked up was that?
Every touch took on new meaning, every breath a gift, knowing it couldn’t last forever. Because I couldn’t keep her. Kat deserved so much more than me. I knew her childhood, knew that she needed to belong. Knew Sun and the Archai clan could keep her far safer than a lone wolf like me ever could. That, I couldn’t change. I might be able to give up revenge against the people who’d abandoned me if it meant Kat’s safety was assured, but I could never go back. And even if I could, they’d never allow it.
How long I lay there, soaking her in and trying to forget a future even existed, I wasn’t sure. I finally drifted off. Sometime later, Kat woke me as her mouth found the rough skin of my throat. Her lips and tongue traced over the compass covering the scar Sun had given me. My life had been directed by that scar, every step mapped out from the moment I’d first heard my father’s scream in my head nine hundred years ago. But not Kat. She’d been a surprise, a gift. And no matter how short a time I had her, I’d engrave every moment into my bones, all the way to the marrow. The only good thing in my world.
And I had to give her up.
“Arik.”
The husky whisper said far more than my name. Kat shifted, sitting up. A groan escaped as her thighs spread wide to straddle my lap, centering her on my aching cock.
The sound brought a shy smile to her full lips. I reached up to capture it with a trace of my fingertip. “How’re you feeling?”
A deep breath pushed Kat’s naked breasts toward me. My gaze dropped immediately to her tight nipples.
“I feel good,” she said. “Naked.” Delicate hands rose to cover her round breasts. “Why am I naked?”
I pulled her hands away and stared, every drop of moisture disappearing from my mouth, making it hard to force words out. “Your shirt got dirty.”
“Oh.”
I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tugging it down until her eyes met mine. No tics. Her gaze was clear. Trails of blood had dried on her skin, but none of it was fresh. I nabbed the semiwet cloth from the table next to us and scrubbed away the evidence of how close she’d come to dying.
“You scared the shit out of me.” I’d said it twice now, aloud, greater evidence than anything else of how much the entire night had me rattled.
Kat dropped her head, allowing her hair to sweep forward and hide her expression. “I think you said that earlier. Did you?” Her hands dropped to my stomach, dug in. “I’m sorry. But Arik—”
“Shh.” I pushed the hair back behind her ear. I knew why she’d left; she’d been upset since the night with the gargoyle. I had no compunction about killing the fucker, but Kat wasn’t me. I should’ve known that—had known; that’s why I’d tricked her into it, after all. “It’s all right. I get it.”
The tension in her muscles disappeared, and Kat sagged down to lie on my chest. Her nipples scraped against my skin. My palms landed on her ass cheeks and squeezed out the spike of hunger that coursed through me.
When she rose the slightest bit to look me in the eye, the move shifted her pelvis along my cock.
“Kat—” Only one word, strangled and gravelly. And then I chuckled. “Are you torturing me on purpose?”
“Maybe.” A pause. A hesitant but feminine smile curved her lips. “Is that okay?”
“You need to rest.”She needs to rest, so stop,I told my body.
My body lifted a metaphorical middle finger and told me to fuck off, right before it rolled my hips against the too-thick middle seam of her jeans.
