The Last True Vampire(60)
No kidding. Claire couldn’t imagine what it would be like to experience memories that weren’t hers, not to mention the obvious violation of privacy. She’d never thought about Mikhail’s endgame in all of this until tonight. He wanted to make her a vampire? “Why can’t I just stay me?” Was she really so bad as a human? “You said my blood is what’s important. That and the whole tethering thing.” Which she still didn’t fully understand. “Do I have to be a vampire, too?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Yes.” He gripped her tighter with the emphatic word. “I yearn for you. Every single fucking day. I want you unlike anything I’ve ever wanted in centuries of existence. You ask why I’ve put distance between us. Why I’ve shut you out. It’s because I can’t bear the thought of not having you. All of you.”
Every word from his mouth rang with truth. An intimacy forged between them that hadn’t been there before. If it was possible, it seemed to anchor them even closer together than they already were. He could have her. All of her just like he wanted. She would gladly give herself to him if it meant she could keep feeling this way.
“What if I am a Vessel?” Stranger things had happened.
“It is a myth. There has never been record of one, nor have I found memory of one in the Collective.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Mikhail.”
“I’ve taken your blood twice. More than I should have, and your strength didn’t flag. You learned to resist my power and can’t be compelled. Your life essence is an elixir to me; you returned my soul to me. I want to believe and yet … What if I’m wrong?”
Claire wrapped her hands around his much larger ones and squeezed. “But what if you’re right?”
He stiffened behind her and she let her head fall back on his shoulder once again. His fingers curled tight around her hips. “I can’t withhold myself any longer. I won’t. Give yourself to me, Claire. Submit.”
A rush of warmth spread between her thighs and Claire took Mikhail’s hand to guide it toward the waistband of her jeans. It didn’t take much to lose herself to him. A touch. The brand of his mouth on her skin. The heat in his whispered words. Her fingers fumbled with the button and shook as she worked the zipper of her jeans down. “Touch me.” Sweet lord, her lips could barely form the words, she was so mindless with want. “God, Mikhail, I need you to put your hands on me.”
She couldn’t explain it, couldn’t identify the need that licked at her flesh and burned from the inside out. The connection that fused between them flared bright, arching and binding them in a way that Claire didn’t fully understand. She was helpless to fight it.
His hand plunged past the elastic waistband of her underwear and he cupped her heated and throbbing sex in his cool palm. Claire gasped at the sensation and he covered her mouth with his, swallowing the sound. Her nails dug into the back of his neck, and he groaned, his tongue lapping at hers, thrusting in a wild tangle that left Claire breathless and mad with desire. His finger found her clit, lightly circling the tight knot of nerves, and he pulled away, holding Claire’s face steady with his free hand while he continued to stroke her. “No male save me will ever touch you, taste you, enjoy the pleasure of your body. You are mine, Claire. My mate.” He flicked his finger over her clit and she cried out, her gaze locked on his. Silver flashed in his pupils and the intensity of his expression both frightened and excited her. “Say the words, Claire. Tell me you’re mine and no other’s.”
She could barely form a coherent thought, let alone speak. He slid his fingers through her slick, swollen lips and teased her opening. A desperate whimper escaped her as her hips thrust up to meet him. He pulled away, feathered the pad of his finger over her clit once again. A cruel, sensual torture devised to coax the words he wanted to hear from her lips. Was it a vow freely given if Claire was helpless to deny him anything?
“I’m yours.” The words pushed past her lips with little effort. “Whatever you want, Mikhail, you can have it. My body. My blood.” He already had her soul. “Anything.”#p#分页标题#e#
He guided one leg over the lip of the fountain and her jeans soaked through as she sank calf deep into the chilly water. Thighs spread wide, he urged her to lean back fully against him as his mouth forged a fiery path down her throat to her pulse point. Do it! The thought screamed through her mind with the scrape of his fangs. She shivered. Bite me.