Olivia stroked his face, smiling at him, keeping calm and embracing the warmth his protective behaviour stirred within her, letting him feel that it pleased her.
His eyes slowly changed from purple to blue and the points of his ears shrank, until his ears resembled hers again.
Loren stepped back, releasing her.
His blue eyes held hers, the warmth in them fading as new emotions formed in the link between them. Cold engulfed her. She could sense what he was going to do and she didn’t want to let it happen.
Violet and blue light chased over his body, highlighting every sweep and curve of his muscles.
“Don’t—” She reached for him but he disappeared. She turned to his friend. “Bleu—”
He teleported too.
Olivia sagged against the wall, conflicting emotions colliding inside her, leaving her in disarray.
Sable came to stand in front of her and huffed. “I thought you said he wasn’t a vampire.”
Olivia shook her head, eyes fixed on the ceiling in a thousand yard stare as she struggled to piece the barrier around her heart back together and cope with the sudden emptiness inside her that Loren’s disappearance had caused. The more time she spent with him, the stranger she felt when they were apart.
The stronger she ached for him to come to her and hold her close to him.
“He isn’t a vampire,” she whispered, adrift on the turbulent sea of her emotions, riding the storm and wondering when Loren would return.
Sable pointed at her. “Then explain that bite mark on your throat.”
Olivia’s hand shot to her neck, her fingers going straight for the healing puncture wounds on the left side, and her eyes dropped to meet Sable’s thunderous glare.
Olivia swallowed hard.
She was in trouble now.
CHAPTER 9
Loren’s apartments in the castle appeared around him. For once, he was glad that Bleu couldn’t teleport into them as he could and had to use the single access point in the courtyard like everyone else. He needed a moment to get his feelings back under control, crushing the ones that had ruled him back in the Archangel facility. A fierce physical need had come over him the moment he had felt Olivia’s feelings through their bond, sensing her jealousy and then her desire, and then he had lost control when Bleu had mentioned the vampire.
The thought of biting Olivia, the memory of her sweet blood and the intense pleasure that had invaded every cell of his body when he had tasted it, had sent him careening over the edge. He had lost his mind and had been on her before he had been aware of what he was doing. It had been too late then. The feel of her body pressing into his and her soft flesh beneath his lips had triggered an explosive combination of desire, need and a dark hunger within him, driving him to taste her again and take pleasure from her, and give her pleasure too.
He had wanted to please his female.
Nothing else had mattered.
The whole of his focus had been on showing her that he was able to satisfy her every need, and that together they could experience the ultimate bliss reserved for only mated couples.
She had reacted so sweetly to him too, her body heating beneath his fingers and mouth, arching wantonly into his. Her hips had ground against his in a feral, desperate way, her actions beyond her control. She had been a slave to her desire too, unable to do anything except seek the pleasure she needed and embrace their mutual hungers to find it.
Gods, he wanted to return to her and finish what they had started.
Loren spat out a dark curse and paced his rooms. His armour bit into his groin with each stride. He palmed his hard length through the black scales and fire flashed through his veins. A groan left his lips and he dragged his hand away. Bleu would be here any second to give him hell about what he had done with Olivia. He would hardly be able to deflect Bleu’s observations about him desiring the female if he was sporting an erection.
He turned on his heel and halted, his gaze on his bed. Images of Olivia laying naked and waiting for him there burst in his mind, taunting him. She would look divine tangled in the rich purple sheets, their colour contrasting perfectly against her pale smooth skin and her glossy chestnut hair. He groaned again, dug the heels of his palms in his eyes and rubbed them. He needed to get a grip.
He had thought he could handle being around her, but they had barely been together a few hours and he had attacked Bleu several times and had come close to biting her again.
Someone knocked at the door.
Bleu was being polite. That was never a good sign. Whenever Bleu was polite, it was because he was figuring out a way to berate him about something without overstepping the mark.
“Enter,” Loren said and paced back across the room, buying himself time to get his body under control.