Page 10 of Gates of Rapture
He turned, his eyes widening.He seemed to freeze as he stared at her in disbelief.His nostrils flared then he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if in pain.His body shuddered.
Only then did the forest scent of him rush at her, forcing her to step back and back.This was so different from five months ago.She didn’t understand what she was seeing or what was happening to him, what he had become.But the scent she recognized.
Oh, dear God in heaven,that scent!
She breathed in, taking a lung-expanding breath, drawing in the sweet, yet bitter and very male tendrils of herbs and fir resin.Desire moved through her, a wet wash of sensation.Her nipples hardened and puckered almost as though she had already orgasmed.
Her knees felt so weak.She ached fiercely and suddenly.
She felt a breath on her neck and opened her eyes.
The beast was in front of her, leaning down from his increased height, and sniffing.His breath came in hot swaths over her chest.He licked at her neck.His hands found her arms and pinned her then slid up to her shoulders and in a quick harsh movement ripped her gown from top to bottom.
“Leto,” she whispered, but her voice sounded hoarse.She didn’t know what it was she meant to say to him: to tell him to stop or to keep going, or to pause, or to take her.
Yet none of it mattered.
She also knew that he wasn’t in control of himself and that the floor was made of stone.It seemed absurd, but just as he pushed her down—in a movement so hard that she was flying backward—in her sensible Grace way she folded a mattress beneath her, the one she had slept on in Beatrice’s house.
Still she landed hard, with so much warrior, part beast, part vampire, on top of her that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.Oh, but that stone would have hurt.
He had hold of her head now and shifted her in an abrupt movement so that her neck was exposed.
Oh, God.
She needed this.
He pushed her knees apart.She didn’t resist.How could she?With every breath she took, more of his scent ripped through her brain.She spasmed deep within, needing him, ready for him.Her hands fumbled for him, reaching, and just as she took hold of him ready to guide him into her, the tips of his fangs paused on her skin.
Slowly, he drew back, as though the touch of her hand on his erection had stopped something.He looked at her, his blue eyes wild and intense.She knew those beautiful eyes, so sharp and clear, extraordinary.His eyes were the same.Leto’s eyes.
He waited, trembling.
She understood.And in that understanding, that he was asking permission, more tears tracked down her cheeks.“Take me, Leto.Take me now.”
He dipped down quickly.His fangs struck and as he began to drink, he pushed her hand away and pumped against her until he found her entrance, then he pushed hard.She cried out but it wasn’t pain, it was a strange and wonderful kind of relief.
She was so wet and ready that as he began to drive into her and to drink from her, as she slid her hands up and down his swollen muscles and weeping wing-locks, as she sank her fingers into his strange long hair that moved restlessly about his shoulders, she came and screamed and came over and over again.
***
Leto felt as though he’d been on a long journey and had finally come home.Grace’s blood was a sweet-meadow elixir down his throat that hit his stomach and fired his veins.
His beast-body had control.He wanted to pull back and hold her tenderly in his arms, cradle her, comfort her, apologize.But he couldn’t, and her cries that sounded like a bird on the wing, and were full of pleasure, forced him to thrust harder still, to savor the way she gripped him as she came then eased up.
His stamina surprised him but now that he had her beneath him, like hell he was taking this fast.That he shouldn’t be doing this at all was something he would grapple with later, but right now, with her meadow-sweet scent pouring in waves over his brain, he was doing what he was meant to do.
He drew out of her and pulled his fangs back.He hated leaving her neck, but he had other things in mind.
Her lids were at half-mast, her lips swollen, her cheeks a soft peach color.She groaned and her hips lifted up toward him, her hands clutched at him.
He chuffed and breathed at her.Her nostrils flared and her back arched.He moved down her body, biting his way so that she jerked from side to side, avoiding, begging.He reached her abdomen and the muscles rolled, her pelvis arching.
She smelled even more meadow-sweet, and he bit her hip bones and began his descent.She thrashed on the mattress.Oh, a mattress.Smart move.
He couldn’t believe his brain functioned at all.
He reached her mons and opened his mouth wide.He took as much of her as he could and sucked hard.
