Ember sat on the top step in the chill of the stairwell, their respective apartments her backdrop.
‘How long are you going to wait?’ Harry had asked when he’d dropped her off in the alley, outside what she would now make her home again.
‘The rest of the day. All night. Don’t worry though, I’ll be at work on time in the morning.’
‘Who said I’m giving you your job back?’
‘Harry, that place will crumble without me. Just admit it.’
He’d smiled. He’d laughed. A laugh that promptly faded. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’
‘This is my home, Harry. This district is where I want my life to be. And it’ll be better now. I know it will.’
‘But the research. All those things that matter to you. Making big changes for the better.’
‘I’ve decided to start small. It can be just as impactful. Besides, maybe I’ll just find more inventive ways of trying to find the answers to the bigger picture. Maybe the answer doesn’t lie in a lab at all. Maybe that’s where they’ve all been going wrong.’
‘And Nate. You’re sure he’s the one you want?’
‘He was willing to die for me, Harry. That’s got to earn a bonus point, even with you.’
He’d laughed again, but his eyes had just as quickly glazed over with sobriety. ‘If he doesn’t show up?’
‘He will,’ she’d said, trying to sound convincing, even to herself.
But now that was waning. Three hours later, her confidence was wavering. Even Casey’s text message had only raised a minor smile, the celebratory cheers at having received the news she was staying brashly dominating the screen in a splurge of excitement.
If nothing else, she’d see to it that her and her mum were OK now. As soon as she got her money back, she’d see they were all okay.
A key turned in the lock at the foot of the stairwell.
Her heart skipped a beat before pounding.
Despite the shadows of the recess below, she’d recognise him anywhere.
Nate stepped onto the bottom step, fully in view, and gazed up at her.
Her pulse raced. She remained rooted to the spot. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He’d never looked more handsome, dressed in an open-necked black shirt and dark jeans. There was something about his stance too, his composure – something authoritative, controlled, decisive. But there was nothing sexier or more entrancing than the look in his eyes as they remained locked on hers.
His ascension up the steps was relaxed but focused as Ember promptly rose to her feet to greet him.
She wasn’t going to say anything. It was time he did the talking. It was time he let her know how he felt.
But seemingly Nate wasn’t in the mood for talking either.
Rarely had she backed away from him, but she retreated a little then – not only to give him space to join her, but also in anticipation of what he would do next.
He reached for both her hands simultaneously. She knew he would feel them trembling, but it didn’t put him off. Instead, there was the subtlest, almost undetectable, upwards curve of his lips as if he was not deterred in the slightest by her anxiety.
Palm-to-palm, he interlaced their fingers. He pressed her back against the wall, caused her breath to snag as he did the same with her hands, pinning them either side of her shoulders.
Behind slightly parted lips, he dabbed one of his extra incisors with the tip of his tongue, reminding her of exactly what he was.
And she felt not an iota of fear. Even as she gazed into his mix-matched irises that had terrified her as a child, she felt nothing but her pounding heart, the heat burning in the pit of her abdomen, his cool hands firmly holding hers, the wall against her back.
And as his lips finally closed over hers, her heart stopped. Damp heat rushed to the apex of her thighs, thighs that he parted with his own.
He slid her hands together above her head, holding them there with one of his as he freed his other to gently clasp her jaw.
The tenderness and depth of his kiss, his cool, firm, adept tongue, made her lose sense of the space around her; made her momentarily forget where she was, what she was doing.
‘Last chance,’ he said, almost in a whisper, as he pulled his lips back from hers just a little.
‘You’re not getting away from me that easily,’ she replied.
He smiled – a playful, dark, lethally masculine smile. ‘I could say exactly the same about you.’
Her stomach flipped.
Seconds later, he’d snapped the fragile band of her knickers, had unfastened his jeans and lowered his shorts.
Still holding her wrists pinned above her head, his free hand clasped the back of her thigh, lifting it outside of his.
He was neither tender nor brutal as he entered her – just enticingly forceful, deftly balancing his desire with her ability to take him. And she gasped at every inch of his slow but unrelenting penetration until he filled her to the hilt, his lips as breathless against hers as hers were against his.
His playful nip of her lower lip followed by another enticing hint of a smile in his eyes was the final push for her to relax.
He released her hands only to lower her onto her back on the floor beneath him, one hand clasped to the nape of her neck in the process, the other still holding the back of her thigh to keep hers parted around his.
The cool air of the stairwell caressed her bare breasts as he ripped the front of her dress open, tore the fragile band between the cups of her bra.
His hands were even cooler as he slid them both simultaneously down her neck, her shoulders, both her breasts, his thumbs sweeping across her hardened nipples on his way down to clutch her hips to move her into the position he wanted her in.
He pinned her hands to the floor either side of her shoulders again. He lowered his head to look to where he was still buried inside her.
He gazed back into her eyes, deep into her eyes as he withdrew only to enter her again and again, causing her breath to snag repeatedly at the sensation.
He found his rhythm alongside finding hers, her abdomen clenching in response, her wet heat that now coated him allowing him inside her with increasing ease so that her discomfort subsided amidst her growing pleasure.
And as his tongue, as his mouth, found each breast, each nipple in turn on his journey to her collarbone, to her neck, she couldn’t stop looking at him. Couldn’t stop taking in the hunger behind his kisses and licks and nips, the escalating need behind his deeper, harder thrusts.
If she wanted to change her mind, she knew it was then. If she wanted him to stop, she knew that was her last chance to ask.
But the moment escaped her no sooner had she thought it.
He licked her first, right along her artery, as if she was coated in something sweet.
She felt her breath shudder. She clenched her hands in his.
‘I’d like to be able to reassure you it’s not going to hurt,’ he said softly against her ear, his cool breath caressing her lobe.
She instantly tensed.
Nate didn’t linger.
His bite was controlled, steady, but deep and unrelenting as if he was savouring every moment of it. But the intensity of the pain of it was like one she had never known.
She jolted. He didn’t suppress her from crying out, her voice echoing around the shadows of the solitary stairwell. Neither response put him off.
As he fed, she could feel the blood being drawn backwards through her veins, her heart aching a little, her extremities feeling numb. But she could focus only on him inside her – buried deep in her sex, his rhythm increasing along with his feed.
Sensations like none she had ever felt consumed her body. Her mind emptied. The tiniest of prickles danced over her skin, caressing every inch of her. She felt the tension hit. She felt her abdomen clench. Her orgasm made her cry out again, created sparks behind her eyes as she squeezed them shut; as she felt him come into her as he drew her blood into him.
Never had she felt more complete. Had never felt more sated as her body fell lax in his arms.
The sensation of his incisors leaving her skin again was just as painful, even in her languidness, appeased only by the look in his eyes as they locked on hers again.
As he subtly licked the remains of her blood from his lips, it was anything but repulsion she felt. And as he lowered his lips to hers again, the metallic taste was anything but disconcerting too.
His kiss was tender, reassuring, before he gently withdrew, rolled onto his back beside her.
She closed her dress over her. Pressed her knees together. Lay staring up at the ceiling as the minutes crept past.
He reached for her hand. He held it against the floor between them. He interlaced their fingers again.
It was an affection that made her smile. A connection that reassured her everything was going to be just fine.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked a few minutes later.
She turned her head to look at him. ‘Where we go from here. You?’
That pensive frown was back. ‘How easy it’ll be to knock through our bedroom walls and make it one apartment.’
She lifted herself onto her elbow as she turned on her side to face him. She couldn’t help but smile as warmth flooded her. ‘You don’t waste any time, do you? Anyway, it’s a bit presumptuous. I don’t even know your surname yet.’
He brushed a few loose strands of hair away from her eyes, his gleaming in a way she had never seen as he gazed deep into hers. ‘It’s Haven,’ he said. ‘Nate Haven.’