Page 40 of Until the Heart Stops
Curling my fingers, I rubbed them against her front wall. “Oh, it will fit, and you know why?”
Her mouth slackened as a flush crept across her chest. She was riding my hand now, the soft delicious noise of my fingers in her cunt music in my ears.
“W-why?”
I twisted my wrist and her orgasm took her in a wave. “Because we were made for each other.”
Before she could come down completely, I withdrew my hand and coated my length in her release. Gently I rubbed the crown of my cock up and down her slit, not bothering to fight my smile as she writhed beneath me, fingers digging into the fabric of my tunic. And then slowly I pressed inside.
My moan was deep, almost a growl. I saw stars when Islipped in another inch, welcomed by her scalding heat and desire.“Fuck.”
“Callum, oh, goddess,” Lilith gasped. “So full.”
I laughed and it was freeing to allow myself that small pleasure—to laugh in her presence. I brushed my mouth across her brow before dipping down to lick the blood drying across her throat. The wound was still open and I knew what would get her through this next part.
“Are you ready for me, my darling? Mind, body, and soul?”
Her answeringyeswas a plea. Lilith was babbling, magic sparking across her skin and hair, sending shimmering silver bursts around us. I pushed all the way in as my teeth slid back into the wound on her neck, the first pull of blood as I sheathed myself inside of her a rapture and a revelation.
It was instant, the bond. Deeper than it had ever been when she drank my blood. There was an overwhelming urge to protect, a possessive fierceness that had me pumping into her, desperate to fill her with my seed. And then there were her emotions, her desire and need for the same thing. Lilith wanted to protect me as much as I did her, wanted to possess me as I did her. We were lost as I took another deep pull. When her orgasm crashed over her only a minute later, her blood heated and sweetened.
I could see why the Covenant didn’t want us engaging in such an act. Because in this simple moment I knew I would never drink another human’s blood, that I could never return to the synthetic slop within Mael’s palace. With each draught our magic grew together until I could sense she could tap into my magic as I could hers. She would heal faster, call for me when she was in danger, and perhaps utilize my strength when hers waned. She was mine as much as I was hers.
And we would never be alone again.
Chapter 22
Sensation returned slowly.
First it was the satisfying ache between my thighs, then a tingling in my limbs all the way down to the tips of my toes, and finally the weight of a body on top of mine. Callum was humming, brushing his lips across my temple which tugging the ruby back and forth across the silver chain around my neck. He was still inside of me, buried deep, and the knowledge sent a spark of heat coursing through my veins. I clenched around him, moaning when his hips gave a thrust, his pelvic bone rubbing against me.
“Goddess, you feel so good,” I breathed, reaching up to trace the planes of his cheeks before settling my hands on his wide shoulders. “Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
He nodded, eyes dancing across my face and bright with the light of his magic shining within. “I knew your cunt would be my salvation, Lilith. I knew your body would be my safe harbor and your soul my mate.” Another slow churn of his hips that made my eyes roll back in myhead. “This is what fate feels like, my darling. That taste on your lips is the first ember of hope.”
Hope. I barely knew the word and yet now I understood it in its entirety. But in the same breath, I realized the ember would need more time to become a flame. Soon Callum would have to leave. Caging me in his arms, he rolled us until I settled on top of him.
“Use me,” he breathed, lids fluttering as I gave an experimental roll of my hips. The fabric of my skirts pooled around us, but he slid his hand beneath, fingertips brushing against my clit. “That’s it, Lilith. Take fucking everything.”
Dazedly I nodded, riding him slowly at first, pressing his fingers where I needed them most. And then I leaned forward, bracketing my hands on either side of his head, and moaned at the change in angle. With his free hand he reached up and tugged down the neckline of the dress to expose the curve of one breast.
Pain sparked across my skin, mingling with the pleasure until I was crying out his name desperately. His teeth in my skin were a drug, each pull of my blood into his body an ecstasy I had no proper words for. Pressure coiled tight as he released my sensitive flesh, lapping as blood pooled in the wound and cascaded over my nipple. Each pass of his tongue was a shock sending me spiraling.
“More beautiful than Amayah herself,” he rasped, thrusting up into me now, lips coated in red. “More powerful than the night and the day combined.Fuck, Lilith. I’m drowning in you and I never want to come up for air.”
His mouth latched over the wound on my breast and I cried out, spasming around him as my release tipped over the edge. I rode him wildly, only vaguely aware when he moaned my name, his release spilling into me again andagain. The scent I craved, apples and spice, was now embedded in my bones, my skin, slipping from my pores.
When our bodies stilled and silence reigned, broken only by our ragged pants, he tucked my hair behind my ear where it had loosened from my pin. Tenderly, he ran his thumb across my jaw, down my throat to the wound still oozing blood. He gathered it up on his fingers, slipping them into his mouth with a moan before biting down on his pads and returning them to the gash. My skin tingled as it closed then heated as he repeated the ritual on the wound at my breast before lapping up any blood lingering behind.
But he did not apply more of his blood to the wound to erase the small crescent scar. Instead, he leaned up and pressed a kiss to both marks. “Forgive me that I cannot bear to remove them.”
I shook my head and brushed my lips across his brow. “Forgive me that I would fight if you tried.”
A soft smile pulled at the corner of his lips and my heart. I traced the curve of it with a fingertip, wondering at the way it changed his entire countenance.
“I know we do not know one another well… But I grieve you every day we are apart and fear each moment together might be our last. I think”—I swallowed, firming my resolve—“I think you would be very easy to love and heart-shatteringly difficult to forget.”
For just a moment it was easy to see the unending centuries that he had been alive as his smile slipped. Through our bond his moment of despair almost knocked me over, but he cupped my face in his hands, fighting against the black tide by pressing his mouth to mine. This kiss wasn’t desperate as the others were. This was a kiss the faithful deposited onto the stone feet of the statue of Amayah within the temples. It was a kiss one gave to aletter before it was passed into a flame. It was the kiss a lover gave their beloved before the torch was placed upon their pyre.
