He put his fingertips to her lips and shook his head. “You don’t put pressure on me. I put it on myself. I think about you all the time. Night and day. And that is not a bad thing. Despite my sins, I have been blessed with you in my life.”
“What a nice thing to say!”
He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“I’ll tell you how far gone I am. If you are destined to stay here in the past, that’s where I want to be, too.”
He nodded his understanding. “Then it is agreed. We are lifemates?”
“What else could it be?”
“Well,” he said, and grinned at her. “Lifemates are all well and good, but I prefer lust mates. At least some of the time.” He spread his knees wider, which caused her legs to spread and open her up to his erection, which was already prodding at her center, as if to remind her of their positions.
As if she could forget! With the warm water under her butt and the warmth of arousal beginning to course through her body, she had to agree. “Lust and love. I’ll take that.”
“Will you?” he asked, and lifted her by the waist up and onto him.
“Oh,” was the best she could come up with, a reaction to both what he asked and what he did.
He smiled and said, “We are going to be so good together.”
His pointy teeth had elongated into fangs, and she didn’t even mind, so far gone in love was she. “Going to be good? Hah!” she disagreed. “We are already good.” She wiggled her hips from side to side to show just what she meant.
“Whatever you say, dearling.” He groaned and rolled his eyes up in his head.
Her eyes were probably rolling in her head, too, like cherries on a slot machine. She already felt like she’d won the jackpot.
A hazy blue fog rose from his shoulder blades then and swirled around them, cocooning them in a scented bubble of peppermint/coconut bliss. They were in this world, but not part of it.
As Cnut leaned farther back and brought her with him, mouth to mouth, it caused his lower body to arch up, and his erection reached higher and wider inside her body’s sheath. When she thought she could take no more, her inner muscles shifted to accommodate whatever he wanted.
Their deep kisses and his deep strokes became a giving and taking of remarkable intensity. The lines became blurred between where he began and she ended, and vice versa. Truly, they became one.
If this was what lifemate loving was like, it was the world’s best-kept secret.
“I love you, heartling,” he said against her open mouth.
“Love you, sweetheart,” she said back.
Their rise to orgasm was a gentle evolution this time, unlike the fierce, tumultuous, previous ones, but no less powerful in intensity. Each time she became further aroused, he halted whatever he was doing. Then she reciprocated with soft caresses and rocking undulations until he made her halt. They kissed ’til they couldn’t breathe for their racing hearts. They tingled. All over.
When they’d reached and backtracked several times from the precipice, she whispered, “Bite me.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he whispered back, and when he sank his fangs into her neck, her own blood felt as if it was rushing, warmly, in waves through her body, heating her, making her skin simmer with sensation. They held each other tightly while they melted together, then reformed into one joined being. It was an illusion, of course, but no less real to both of them.
As she lay in his arms later, back under the bed furs in his bedchamber, she yawned and stretched lazily before snuggling closer. He was on his back and she lay on her side, half on and half off him. “How come you get to do all the biting? Do I ever get to taste your blood?”
Cnut’s callused palm had been caressing her back, from nape to buttocks. He stopped suddenly, and she could swear she heard his heart thump faster. “You could if you wanted to, I suppose,” he said. “Wouldn’t you consider it kind of . . . I don’t know . . . gross?”
“Maybe,” she replied and yawned widely. “It’s just that it feels amazing when you do it to me, and I just thought . . . never mind. Forget I said anything.”
He rolled over, so fast she almost fell off the bed. With a speed only a vangel could manage, he had her pinned beneath his body and growled, he actually growled. “Forget? Forget? M’lady, there are some invitations that can’t be taken back.”
Chapter 18
A HOMECOMING CELEBRATION
Reindeer steaks au jus
Whole roasted boar
Pickled lampreys, sucking mouths and all! (also known as vampire fish)
Bass stuffed with stale manchet crumbs, chopped venison heart, walnuts, and various other vegetables, including, yes, even turnips