Chapter Eight
Amidst the fuzzy pleasure that clouded her mind, Ella heard Zane curse and the wondrous things he did to her body stopped.
She opened her eyes with difficulty and blinked. Then cursed.
“Bloody hell,” she said quickly losing her pleasurable glow as she saw Zane, his pants gaping, under attack. “Stop it, “she shouted. But the voices wailed in her head about keeping her pure and not letting the vampire desecrate her. Ella almost rolled her eyes. So licking her private parts was okay, but actual penetration wasn’t? Stupid ghostly semantics.
Hopping off the bed, she protected Zane the only way she could think of, by covering his body with her own. She wrapped herself around him, or tried to. The man did tower over her, but her shield ploy worked. The aerial attack stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled against his chest.
Cool fingers titled her chin up and Zane smiled down at her ruefully. “We’ve learned your friends have limits. Apparently your virginity is one of them.”
“No fair. It’s my body.”
Zane hugged her tight. “Soon, my impatient moonbeam. Felicia will teach you what you need to know and no longer will the voices act on your unwilling behalf.”
“It can’t be soon enough,” she grumbled. “Why didn’t you just bite me and suck one of them out? Felicia said that might work.”
“This is going to sound stupidly sentimental and human, but I felt your first time should be real. The bite makes anything pleasurable. I want your experience to be memorable because you feel and want it.”
A surge of affection, dare she even say love, rushed through her and she hugged him tightly. And he thinks he’s a monster. Boy, is he wrong. I’ve met monsters. He’s a knight in shining armor compared to them.
With dawn approaching, he led them back to the bed. Ella paused to shrug off the shredded remains of her dress. She’d lost her modesty a long time ago, but she blushed at the heated look on his face. Naked, she crawled into bed with him. Zane, for his part, still wore his unbuttoned trousers.
She snuggled up to him, her hand on the naked skin of his chest, stroking him softly and thinking about the unbelievably pleasurable things he’d done to her before their rude interruption. And while he’d sated some of her curiosity and passion, she still craved.
Craved Zane. She wanted to give him pleasure in return, she just wasn’t sure how to go about it. The occasional furtive glimpses she’d seen in the hospital were not exactly pages from a step by step manual for seduction. She decided to try and mimic some of the things he’d done to her. Leaning up, she placed her mouth on his flat nipple.
“What are you doing, moonbeam?” he growled.
“I want to please you.”
“You don’t have to do this. I can wait.”
“But I want to,” she said nipping him. His groan started the fire in her again and she enjoyed herself while toying with his nipples. But what she truly wanted to see and feel lay lower.
Straddling his thighs, she parted his slacks and gasped at the sight of his erection jutting from the top of his briefs.
“Touch me,” he groaned.
Tugging his briefs and slacks down with his help, she bared him completely. Oh, my god. Long and thick, his cock seemed to pulse. Ella reached out a tentative hand and rubbed the swollen tip of his penis. A pearl of liquid appeared. Emboldened, she wrapped a hand around him and his shaft jerked like a living beast. Zane moaned. She looked up to see his eyes closed and his face clenched tight as if in agony.
Leaning down, the tips of her hair brushing his groin, she licked the tip of his mushroom head, tasting the glistening drop. Zane sucked in a harsh breathe.
Pleased at his reaction and determined to do more, she took him in her mouth, unsure but willing to experiment.
“Moonbeam!” Zane shouted at her hoarsely, his hips bucking. Excitement coursed through her. She liked having Zane out of control. She sucked him awkwardly at first, but she quickly found a rhythm and method that had him thrashing and clawing at the sheets.
“Turn around,” he whispered. “Let me lick you at the same time.”
Ella shuddered and moisture pooled between her legs. Shifting positions, too aroused to feel embarrassed about this new intimate position, she positioned her moist pussy over his face.
She latched her mouth around his cock again even as his mouth found her core and licked. He gripped her by the buttocks, his tongue laving and sucking at her, and when her pelvic muscles clenched and spasmed in an orgasm that had her screaming around the cock in her mouth, he came finally in a hot jet that she swallowed eagerly.
Loose limbed and sated, she collapsed on him, her face on his muscled thigh. Gentle hands gripped her and turned her until she lay snuggled at his side, wrapped in his arms.
The whirring sound of the shutters closing signaled the arrival of the dawn. But Ella was already asleep in her dark prince’s arms.
* * * *
Zane woke to find Ella still cuddled with him, her silvery hair draped on his chest along with half of her naked body.
Tenderness filled him as he stroked the silken skin of her back. He’d known her such a short time and yet, already he couldn’t imagine life, or in his case un-life, without her.
She continually surprised him, and not just with her seduction of him the night before, which had surpassed every sexual encounter he’d had in his long life. He loved the fact that she accepted him for what he was. Or had so far. She had yet to experience or see how he fed. Would that be the act that finally toppled the pedestal she’d placed him on?
He didn’t want to find out. Easing out from under her, he decided to go feed now while she slept.
Once he could be sure of her affections, then he’d let her see this final aspect of his cursed existence.
Or maybe he’d hide it from her forever so that he’d never have to see the disgust he feared. He wasn’t sure his newly discovered heart could handle that.
* * * *
Ella stretched and smiled. Her body tingled, her skin sensitized and aware. Even the slide of the silk sheets against her made her squirm. Zane had woken her body to pleasure and now it seemed, she wanted to indulge again and again.
Speaking of whom, where was Zane? She’d slept soundly and late judging by the shutters that had already opened.
“He’s already moved on to greener pastures.”
“You are nothing to him.”
The voices yammered on and on, trying to plant doubt. She ignored them.
Showering quickly so as to rinse her sticky body, she dressed in a new outfit she found lying on the large wooden dresser. Then she went to look for her lover.
He didn’t appear to be in any of the main rooms so she wandered into the kitchen and found Anna along with a host of mouthwatering smells.
“There you are, lamb. The master said you’d waken soon. I’m just finishing up your food for you.”
“Where is Zane?”
“Around,” said Anna vaguely. “Why don’t you go sit in the dining room and he’ll join you shortly.”
Ella didn’t like that answer. She had more than a sneaky suspicion about what Zane was doing and she wanted to roll her eyes at the obtuse way they were going about to make her ignore it. He was a vampire. He had to eat. So logic said he was feeding and the fact they were trying to hide it meant they thought she wouldn’t like seeing it.
Which means he’s probably chomping on a girl. Not that the sex of his food source meant anything, but Ella remembered Zane telling her the bite was highly pleasurable.
And that fact, along with the continued whispers by the voices, put her in a jealous rage.
There had only been one place she hadn’t checked on the main floor and Ella marched there now, the closed door only making her rage simmer more.
The door swung open and hit the wall without her touching it and her hair waved around her head in a frantic dance as the voices chortled in her head.
“She’s finally going to kill him.”
“Stake the cheating bastard.”
Ella walked in and stopped dead and her jealous anger rose a notch as she saw Zane release the woman whose neck he sucked. He turned to face her, a look of horror on his face.
The brunette bimbo he’d fed on lolled on the couch, a look of rapture on her face.
Out of control, the voices acted on her behalf. They levitated the woman up from the couch and slammed her against the back wall. Her drugged look dissipated and she opened her eyes in panic.
Ella strode forward, her burning eyes fixated on the object of her ire.
Suddenly Zane’s broad chest blocked her view.
“Ella!”
She looked up at him. “Move away from the slut.”
* * * *
Confusion gripped him. When Ella had walked in, he’d thought her fury was a reaction to his feeding. But now, with her words, realization dawned. She’s jealous.
Zane wanted to laugh. His earlier fear that she would find his feeding habits disgusting seemed stupid. How could he have thought she’d be horrified? She hadn’t batted an eye when he’d killed someone for touching her.
She tried to step around him, but he wrapped muscular arms around her.
“She means nothing to me, moonbeam. She’s just a source of blood.”
“But she enjoyed it. Enjoyed you,” growled Ella, her usually clear blue eyes almost translucent with power, a power he could feel vibrating through her frail frame.
“No more then. If the thought of my feeding on a woman bothers you then I will feed on a man.”
Some of the tension left her body and clarity returned to her gaze. “I don’t want you to feed on anybody else. You’re mine.”
Instead of making him balk, her possessiveness pleased him. At the same time though, he heard the hurt in her voice. Zane hated the anguish his need for blood had caused her. “I wish I didn’t have to feed on human blood, Ella, but if I don’t eat, I will grow weak and die.”
Her soft hands came up to cup his face. “I don’t want you to stop feeding. I just want you to do it from me. I want to be the one to nourish you.”
The breath—what little breath he had in his undead body—left him in a whoosh. His heart swelled and the surge of love, yes love, he felt for this woman made him tremble.
“I will do as you wish. I can go without food for a while. But we’d better get to work on mastering your powers.”
“Thank you,” she whispered standing on tiptoe to kiss him.
Zane tightened his grasp on her and lifted her so she wouldn’t have to crane and returned her fierce embrace.
The truth? The only human he ever wanted to taste again nestled in his arms. Now, they just needed to ensure the spirits didn’t kill him when he attempted it.