Page 16 of Across the Sapphire Sea
The question ran through Elias’s mind before he said it out loud. He already knew the answer, but the words came tripping out anyway. “Will you drink my blood?”
“Would you like me to?” Valeri made the act sound like an offer, a gift.
“I should say no.”
Valeri lifted a finger and placed it on the tip of Elias’s nose. “You should say what you’d like.”
Elias shook off the condescending touch, taking the gesture for the dare that it was, and growled, “Then do it. Bite me. I want you to.”
A smile broke out on Valeri’s face, the dagger points of his two eye teeth on display. Elias drew in a breath. Before he could exhale, Valeri’s fist closed around a swath of his short hair and tugged, bending his head sideways, exposing his neck.
Heartbeat thundering in his ears, Elias fought not to whimper. He’d asked for this, yet a wave of panic urged him to beg mercy. He braced for pain, stiffening against the length of Valeri’s body.
“Relax, or it will hurt,” breathed the demon against the sensitive column of his throat.
Of course it would hurt. He was about to be bitten!
A token effort at loosening his muscles was all Elias could muster when instinct demanded him to push Valeri away and flee for his life. But something else loomed alongside that instinct. The desire to stay, to offer himself, to make a place for himself at the demon’s side, in his bed, and that urge wouldn’t be denied.
“Do it,” Elias cried out between gritted teeth. Waiting to be pierced was torture.
Valeri’s low chuckle sounded from very close to his cheek. He ran his tongue from the tender skin behind Elias’s ear to the junction of his neck and shoulder, leaving a wet trail in its wake.
Then he bit.
Elias had expected pain, and there was some, but it was muted under a pleasure so deep as to steal his air and curl his toes. He melted against Valeri’s chest, pressing himself in tighter for more, arms wrapped around the vampire to hold him in place. Keep him there forever.
Fire sang in Elias’s veins, liquid hot and molten, lighting up his every nerve and thrilling his senses. His nipples pebbled, and his cock swelled in his breeches. A moan escaped his lips. His eyes fluttered closed.
Lost in sensation, Elias didn’t know how long his demon suckled, only that he never wanted the miracle to end. If this was how he died, locked in a vampire’s embrace, he could make no protest. Death would be easy, to drift off in Valeri’s powerful arms, teeth buried in the flesh of his throat, and their cocks pressed together, trapped between them and pulsing. Elias could let go. He could sink. His body grew light.
Valeri tore his mouth away, and Elias cried out at the loss, boneless, unable to support himself without help. But Valeri didn’t let him fall. Strong arms held him up and steadied his balance. Elias leaned into the touch.
Valeri was kissing the place he’d bitten, laving it with his tongue, warm now from Elias’s blood.
His skin tingled. His balls ached. He held onto Valeri with what little strength remained.
When their lips met again it wasn’t the soft, gentle kisses they’d shared before the blood. It was fierce and claiming. Valeri’s tongue in his mouth, fingers squeezing the flesh of his lower back. Elias sucked and tasted salt and copper, the metallic tang of his own blood. He moaned.
“So sweet,” Valeri crooned between kisses. “So eager.”
Dizzy from blood loss, Elias sagged on his feet. “You took too much.”
Valeri’s laugh didn’t surprise him, but the savage incisors puncturing his bottom lip did. Elias let out a yip of pain even as the demon drew his injured lip into his mouth to nurse the wound.
“Sorry, but you’re impossible to resist.” Valeri licked the punctures closed, then kissed him again.
Arousal flared. Elias pressed their hips together. “I want you.”
“You’re exhausted. You’re barely standing.” Valeri bent down, thrust an arm behind his knees and another around his shoulders and scooped him up.
“Don’t care,” Elias mumbled.
“I do,” Valeri said into his hair as Elias’s head flopped against his neck. “Now, we sleep. Tomorrow, I’m yours.”
My demon, thought Elias as he was carried off to bed.
Mine.
