Page 97 of Love Bleeds
Chapter Thirty-Four
Feeling Crimson's lips on my neck, sucking my blood, was maybe the weirdest thing I'd ever experienced. Weird in that it was a sensation unlike anything I'd felt before, but it wasn't bad. I struggled to find an appropriate qualifier for it. Especially because it was getting more and more difficult to think.
It was so much easier just to let my mind drift, to lose myself in the moment, in the way Crimson held on to me as he drank. I always had the hardest time shutting my mind up, but right then, it was easy.
I was where I belonged, and I was doing the right thing.
And I was enjoying it too.
The way Crimson's lips moved against my skin made my hair stand up, sending shivers down my spine. This wasn't the right moment to be thinking about getting intimate, but all my blood that wasn't flowing into Crimson's mouth was making its way down to my groin.
This was so, so different from the time Nicolai had bitten me. I'd been gripped by terror then. I'd been scared of it happening again. That even if it was Crimson who bit me, I'd be terrified.
I wasn't, though.
I trusted Crimson. One-hundred percent. He could do whatever he wanted with me.
There were many things I wanted him to do to me.
My eyes drifted close as I surrendered control of my body to Crimson, knowing that he wouldn't hurt me, knowing that he'd been scared too. We were so close now, not just physically, that I could almost hear his thoughts, feel his feelings as clearly as my own. He'd wanted me for so long. Too long.
I'd been too blind to see it then, but I saw it now. All those suppressed needs, all that pent-up desire.
All that love.
I wanted him to know that I loved him too.
I couldn't move, couldn't speak, but I hoped that the sentiment would translate anyway, if I focused on it. That he could pick up on my feelings just the same way I could pick up on his.
I love you,I thought, chanting the phrase inside of my head, again and again.
A comfortable warmth enveloped my body. A sense of peace.
All of my anger, all of the hurt I'd been carrying around fell away from me. There wasn't any room in my heart for them now. Not when my love for Crimson took up every last inch of space, and then expanded outward too, taking over my whole body until it was the only thing I could think about, the only thing I could feel.
That, and how much I wanted to get even closer.
How much I wanted to feel more than just his teeth in me.
I'd never had thoughts like that before, and if my mind had been functioning normally, their intensity might have shocked me, but I wasn't shocked now.
While Crimson was sucking my blood from my neck and desire pulsed through me, the urge to feel him buried inside of me seemed completely natural.
Suddenly, I found myself wishing I could move, if only to reach for myself.
But then, something strange happened. Memories flooded my mind. Too many for me to process all at once. They were memories of me and Crimson. No, of me and Damian, back before he'd been a vampire. It wasn't just memories of me and him, either, it only appeared that way at first because I was in most of them. We'd always spent a lot of time together, ever since that day we'd first met back in elementary school. But these memories went back farther than that, to his kindergarten days, to the days he'd spent trying to get rid of the latest nanny so he could pry the covers off all the electronics in the house to see what made them tick. I almost had to laugh, seeing how frustrated he got at being caught again and again.
He'd always been such a geek, right from the start.
When the tidal wave of memories washed away, I noticed that Crimson's teeth had left my neck, releasing me from my paralysis. He was breathing hard. I wanted to ask about what had just happened, but didn't know how, so instead, I moved back an inch to study his face. He was still pale, but some color had returned to his skin. He didn't look as sick as he had when I came in, anyway.
Thank God.
I couldn't stand to see him that way. All my promises to keep a cool head be damned. I couldn't stand by and let him suffer. Not after everything we'd been through.
"You shouldn't have let me," Crimson said, as if he could read my thoughts. "Do you haveanyidea how hard it was for me to stop just now?"
I shook my head, because I hadn't felt scared for myself at any point. "I thought you were going to die."
