Page 58 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I’m losing who I am. I can’t feel this.”
“But I can,” Ashen says. His determination is unblemished by my honesty. If anything, it’s all the brighter for it. “I will help you find yourself again, Lu. I have enough love for both of us, until you are ready to change your mind.”
“What if I don’t?”
Ashen leans closer. The smooth pads of his thumbs follow my cheekbones so carefully that I think I could count every loop and swirl in their prints. “I have immortal time. I know a thing or two about waiting.”
I look into Ashen’s eyes and it takes just a moment to think it could be this easy. If I just let myself go. I could let him look after me. For a moment. An hour. One night.
I hear the chambers of Ashen’s heart pump beneath his bones. He draws me closer until my chest touches his, until I am warmed by his molten longing as it melts my walls away. Sparks swirl in Ashen’s eyes as they follow mine. “I love you, my vampire. No matter how you change, or what you lose, or what you gain. You are my Lu, always.”
The cannons, the ramparts, the blocks of stone that keep my heart out of my mind... they crumble away.
When our lips finally meet, this kiss is different. Stripped to something pure. It’s not just a wave of desire that breaches a dam to sweep you away. This is what it feels like when you have nothing left and you still risk yourself. When someone shelters your dimming flame in their hands. This kiss is love. I might decide I don’t want it. I might let it linger in a dark corner of my heart and hope that it withers and dies. But it’s there, whether or not I give it permission to exist.
Our tongues caress one another’s in this drugging kiss. I taste mint and vanilla. I taste the venom of desire. I trace the lines of tattoos across Ashen’s neck and pull him closer. His arms snake across my back and one of his calloused palms finds my bare skin beneath my sweater. Ashen sighs into my mouth as though his hands have missed my flesh. He raises me up in his arms and I hold his face between my hands.
Ashen pulls away to press kisses along my neck. “Let’s go back to the villa, vampire,” he whispers into my skin.
I shake my head and he places a lingering kiss on my jaw as though he disagrees. My voice comes out forlorn, like I suddenly don’t know how to solve the simplest problem before me. “I’m hungry.”
Ashen sweeps my hair aside and traces my pulse. “I know. You can feed from me.”
A ghost of a dark laugh leaves my lips and Ashen grips me tighter in his embrace. It’s so tempting after the hunt I’ve had. Maybe it makes me weak, but I don’t think this is an offer I can refuse. “You do meet the douchebag criteria,” I say, letting out a breath through a brittle smile when Ashen nips at the skin of my throat. I try not to sigh when his lips soothe the bite. “If this is your plan to get me to fall in love with you, it won’t work.”
I feel Ashen’s smile in his kiss as it carves a slow path back to my mouth. “My only plan is to make you feel every truth in my words. To bury myself in you and watch you come with my blood on your tongue and my name on your lips.”
My smile fades into desire as Ashen sets me down and shifts the hair from my face. He looks into my eyes with bottomless hunger and burning heat.
“When you fall in love-“
“-if-“
“Whenyou fall in love, vampire, it won’t be because of blood or magic. It will be a choice.”
“What if I don’t choose you?”
“Maybe you won’t. But I have to believe you will, vampire. Just as I have chosen you,” he says, breathing me in, warming my skin with his touch. I close my eyes and time slows, pulling the threads of pain from my heart and stitching it back together with brighter silk. “Sometimes, even demons have to have faith in love, my vampire. And I have faith in you.”
CHAPTER23
The darkness of the room is it’s own realm. And in this realm, Ashen is a different man. The power and shadows and decades of dark history are still there. But he seems unguarded. Though there are moments where he fights himself to keep hold of his defenses, he lets them down, one bridge at a time.
When the door closes behind him and the world is shut away, Ashen spends a long moment just watching me. I must look like the wreck that I feel like on the inside. Like a wick that’s almost burned out. But he watches me like he’s found something wild and rare and precious. Looking at myself reflected in his eyes, I don’t feel so damaged. I feel like what I have been for a long time. Unique.
The Reaper moves toward me with slow steps. Maybe he expects me to back away the nearer he comes. I guess I have done that a lot lately. But this time, I stay firmly rooted in place.
When he stops in front of me, Ashen’s eyes alight with a gentle fire. It doesn’t blaze the way it often does. It doesn’t turn black like when he’s enraged. It’s like a flame that’s been burning a long time, lapping at the air with gentle strokes.
Ashen’s hands come to my face and I feel the relief in his touch. I lean a little into his palm and close my eyes. It’s such a simple thing, a touch, but just as vital as air or water. My brain tries to shout at me to not give in, but in the end it’s not Ashen it surrenders to. It’s my own wounded heart, steeped in poison, that wins the war. It has a will to survive that even reason can’t contain.
“Ki murangen, naga ekimmu,” he whispers.I love you, my vampire. His breath floods my skin with tingling heat. His lips press to mine. I feel his words in his touch and I know he means them. Iknowit, beyond hope or faith. Maybe there are other things he wants that matter as much as I do, I can’t be sure. But his love, whether made of copper or glass, it’s real.
The kiss deepens and Ashen grasps the hem of my sweater, dragging it up my body and letting his fingers trace my skin. I break away and he lifts it over my head. My hands grip his arms as he reaches behind my back and unclasps my bra. He pulls the straps down slowly, first one shoulder, then the other, until it falls from my arms and drops to the floor.
I undo the buttons of Ashen’s shirt as our tongues sweep and explore one another’s. His hands touch every bit of exposed skin he can. They trace the lines of my ribs and the slope of my shoulders. They follow the foothills of my spine. They sweep across my breasts and trace slow circles around my tight nipples. When the last button is released, I push Ashen’s shirt from his shoulders and press my touch into every muscle as the fabric falls from his skin.
Ashen breaks away to trace his lips down my neck, kisses and little bites following my collarbone. He carves a path downward until he pulls my breast into his mouth, sucking hard on my flesh. My fingers lace into the soft, short hair at the back of his head and I trace his scalp with my nails. His moan echoes through the cavern of my chest as he circles my nipple with his tongue. When he moves to the other side, he drops to one knee and pulls my body into him, his hands splayed across the cool skin of my back.
