"It could be, but I've never been the one to do the most sensible thing." He nosed at her throat. "I've never had to deny my beast anything. Ever. Now that it seems I have to," his voice was still raspy, "I'm out of control."
"I like it when you're out of control. I like it when you're beastly. We can be monsters together."
Her words sent electric jolts of pleasure through him, thinking of all the ways they could be monstrous together. He imagined hunting with her, chasing her through the pitch black of some cold winter night. He salivated at the thought, his teeth elongating in his mouth as the edge of the Change crept over him.
"You break all the chains humanity would put on me."
"Parker, a beast as glorious as you should never be in chains."
He managed to rein in his beast, and his dick, enough to establish control. "If they weren't waiting on me for that war council... the things I would do to you."
"Why don't you do them to me afterward? We might as well enjoy our current situation, right?"
He nipped her neck with his human teeth and she shivered. "Might as well."
Only, they didn't move. He still had her pressed against the wall, and her body was still arched against his in carnal invitation.
"We should go," he said.
"We should," she agreed easily.
His wolf growled at the idea of letting her go. He wanted to mark her again. He was pissed that his mark hadn't stayed. How to explain to the animal side of him what his logical mind accepted? He didn't know.
But she seemed to. "Your wolf, he's angry his mark his gone."
"That seems to be the problem."
"What are you waiting for? Mark me again." She turned her head to the side. "I like it. No, correction, I fucking love it. It's like an orgasm all on its own."
"I've heard it's painful."
"Just enough to get me off. Do it."
The beast didn't have to be told again. His Change overtook him and he sank his jaws into her bared throat. Her acid blood burned his tongue, but the burn had become an addiction. He loved the taste of her.
She spasmed in his arms, and the scents rolling off of her were pure lust. "Don't stop," she gasped. "More."
He kept his teeth clamped around the curve of her neck until she stopped shuddering and tried to pull away. He released her and his wolf settled down, contented. Not so much for his cock. He was hard enough to hammer nails through titanium.
Her face was flushed, her hair a mess. She looked like she'd just been fucked and fucked hard. The mark on her neck was healing slowly.
She put her hand to the wound, still breathing heavy. "Damn." She licked her lips. "It just keeps getting better between us. Will you come find me after the council so we can finish what we started?"
"I don't know that I should bite you again so soon. Our bites are known to be poisonous to each other."
"It doesn't seem to be so with us. I haven't felt these things you make me feel in... it's been so long, I don't know if I've ever felt them. It's like a drug, and I want it again as soon as I have my hit."
"Who am I to say no, then? I've always been an accommodating lover," Parker said, his veneer back in place.
"It's wild how you do that."
"What?" He arched a brow.
"One moment you're all owly growly ready and able to tear someone's face off and the next, you're this playboy who hasn't a care in the world. I want to ask which one is the real you, but they both are, aren't they?"
"That's the duality of the man and the beast, I suppose."
They walked the rest of the way in a comfortable silence. When he finally got them to the R&D wing, he knew he had to make a quick exit, or he wasn't going to leave her. He knew she was safe with David, but he wanted to stay by her side.
That wasn't the beast, it was the man. He wanted to stay with her because he knew this couldn't last forever and he wanted to drink down every second they'd been given.
Chapter 6
She had no idea what to expect when she met David Rutger.
Belle hadn't had any real interactions with other vampires in so long, this was a balm she hadn't realized she needed. It was strange, the way all of her senses were at war with themselves.
Her survival instincts told her to run, but her logic said to stay. Her heart, however, demanded another kind of connection.
So she hugged him.
He returned the embrace with a gentle, almost fatherly sort of affection. Or what she rather imagined fatherly affection felt like, how she'd built it up in her head. She couldn't remember her father ever hugging her.
Yet, she missed him all the same.
"It is so very good to meet you," David said as he released her. His eyes were bright with a predatory gleam so common to their kind. He seemed to regard everything with a fiery intensity that wasn't common among their kind. Cold predation, sure. But there was a fire in this creature that burned hot and bright, it radiated out of him in waves.