The Vampire's Assistant(11)

“No.” Nikolas shook his head. “When you cut yourself on your résumé, the paper soaked up your blood and I scented it, scented you. It sent me into a bloodlust that did not clear until I drank your blood and started the bond between us.”

“What’s the rest of it?” Jon asked. “Something about eternity and the world?”

“I pledge myself to your for all eternity. You will be the only one in my life, rajaaka, for all eternity.”

“Seriously?” Jon’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

“Yes, I pledged myself to you. I can never have another, never love another. You will be my rajaaka until I draw my last breath. I will stay with you forever.”

Jon grinned. “Cool.”

Nikolas chuckled. “To the world, may we be one soul. Those are the last words of the claiming. It means our souls are merged. I am in you as you are in me, here…” Nikolas tapped his fingers against Jon’s heart then reached up to tap his fingers against Jon’s temple. And here, he finished telepathically.

“Ni–Nikolas.” Jon’s face paled. “You–you . . . .”

“I can talk to you mentally as you can with me,” Nikolas replied silently. “That is part of merging our souls.”

“Can you read my mind?”

Nikolas was elated to hear Jon in his head. His eyes stung with tears—something he hadn’t experienced in over a hundred years. He inhaled slowly, taking in Jon’s scent. It calmed him immediately, as Nikolas knew it would.

“I can hear you when you speak to me, but your thoughts are your own. You have to actually project your thoughts to me in order for me to hear them.”

Jon looked relieved. While Nikolas wished Jon didn’t want to hide anything from him, he understood. No one wanted all of their thoughts heard by other people, even their bond mate.

“Speaking in this manner is very intimate, rajaaka,” Nicolas continued. “No one but you can hear me and I can hear no one but you. This is something reserved only for bond mates.”

“Can you always hear me when I project to you?”

“Yes.”





Chapter Eight




“Do you know how weird this is?” Jon asked as he gazed up at Nikolas.

“I have a fair idea, yes.”

Jon knew he had to be in some sort of twilight zone or something. “You’re basically saying the scent of my blood drew you to me? And because of that, I am now somehow bonded to a vampire?”

“Yes.”

“And you need my blood to survive.”

“Yes.”

“And our souls are now bound together, we can talk to each other mentally, and you will never be unfaithful to me.” Jon arched an eyebrow at Nikolas. “Does that about cover it?”

“Well, there are the whole I’ll protect you with my life, I need to mate with you often so I don’t lose control, and I need you more than my next breath things, but yes, that about covers it.”

“Wow, you guys don’t play around with this shit, do you?” And that meant he was in a shitload of trouble.

Nikolas seemed so serious. “No.”

“So why do I ache when I’m not close to you?” Jon asked the question uppermost in his mind.

Nikolas smiled and stroked his fingers down Jon’s arm. “I told you, you need me as much as I need you. Now that we’ve bonded, we cannot be apart for long without needing to be together. The longer we go without touching, the harder it will get.”

“That kind of puts a new spin on not going to bed angry, doesn’t it?”

“I would prefer not to, that is true, but I suspect we will have our arguments. We have different personalities and will need to get to know each other, to compromise, if we want this to work.” The grin crossing Nikolas’s face made Jon shiver. “Be thankful. In the old days, if our rajaaka were human, we just chained them to a bed and held them captive.”

Jon felt his face flush as he thought about Nikolas chaining him to a bed. To have the big, strong man ravage his body while he was tied down and unable to resist? The thought sent lust rushing through him like a shooting star.

His gaze snapped up when he heard Nikolas inhale sharply. The blue of Nikolas’s eyes was starting to bleed out, red replacing the vivid color. Jon’s heart started to pound, but was it fear he felt now, or arousal?

“You want to be tied down?” Nikolas asked in a deep growly voice.

Jon’s face burned, but he couldn’t look away from the intensity of Nikolas’s gaze. He shrugged. “I’ve thought about it.”

Without warning, Nikolas lifted him into his arms. Jon yelped. The room flew by him as they raced through the penthouse. He laughed when he felt a mattress at his back, Nikolas’s body pressing him down into the plush surface. Strong hands gripped his wrists and held them up over his head.

“Rajaaka.” Nikolas’s voice was deep, rough, barely recognizable. His eyes glowed red.

Jon gave in to the sudden, overwhelming urge he felt and arched his head back, baring his neck. He cried out as Nikolas struck, sinking in his fangs. A flash of intense, mind-numbing pain quickly faded as Nikolas started sucking. Jon couldn’t help but buck against the man. His cock swelled as the pain turned to pleasure.

“Petjya,” he groaned, knowing Nikolas liked hearing the word. Jon spread his legs, and Nikolas settled against him. Jon planted his feet in the mattress and started pushing up against Nikolas. He could feel their hard cocks rubbing together through their pants.

Nikolas sucked harder. Jon thrust up harder. The intensity of the sensations racing through his body overwhelmed him. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands as he cried out, filling his pants with his unexpected release.

A split second later, Jon felt Nikolas’s teeth pull from his neck. He looked up just in time to see Nikolas arch his head back and roar. He felt an answering dampness seep through Nikolas’s pants as the man came.

When Nikolas looked down, his fangs were fully extended. Jon watched, fascinated, as a single drop of blood slid down one fang. Nikolas’s tongue stuck out and licked it away.

“Rajaaka,” Nikolas hissed, his eyes slowly turning from red back to their normal, vivid blue.

“You like the thought of holding me down, don’t you?” Jon watched in fascination as the man—who’d lived hundreds of years, and had probably experienced more sexual diversity than Jon could ever imagine—blushed. Nikolas averted his gaze as if he was embarrassed. Jon pulled his hands free of Nikolas’s grip and reached up to cup the man’s face.

“If I can admit I like to be tied down, you can admit you like tying me down, hmm?”

Nikolas chuckled. “I suppose so.”

“Can I feel your fangs?”

Nikolas hesitated a moment, but then he slowly opened his mouth, showing off a set of gleaming white fangs. Jon reached over and gingerly stroked his finger down one fang. His gaze snapped up to Nikolas’s face when the man groaned.

“Do you like me touching your fangs?” Jon whispered, fascinated by the play of emotions crossing Nikolas’s features. He could see the flush of arousal filling Nikolas’s face, despite the fact the man had come just moments before.

Jon grabbed the sides of Nikolas’s face again and pulled him down until their lips met. He purposely stuck his tongue out and gave one fang a soft caress, then the other. Nikolas groaned and opened his mouth wider, his entire body shuddering against Jon.

“You do like this.”

“It’s very intimate,” Nikolas croaked, “like you’re stroking my cock with your tongue.”

Jon liked the idea. “Can I get you to come just from doing this?”

“God, to have you lick my fangs while I fucked you.” Nikolas shuddered again and groaned. “I think I would die from it.”

Jon chuckled. “And here I thought vampires were immortal.”

“No, just very hard to kill, but that might do it.”

Jon licked Nikolas’s fangs again, overjoyed at the little groans Nikolas made each time he did it. Fangs were a vampire’s erogenous zone. Who knew?

“Rajaaka, please, you have to stop,” Nikolas groaned.

“I thought you liked this.”

“I do.” Nikolas grinned. “Maybe too much.”

“You can like something too much?”

Nikolas chuckled. “I’ve come twice in the last hour, rajaaka. I think I might need to save some of it for later tonight when I can get you naked.”

Jon felt Nikolas’s loss the moment the man rolled away from him. It felt like the temperature had suddenly dropped several degrees. He leaned up on his elbows and glared at Nikolas.

“I’m not sure I like this claiming thing very much, Nikolas.”

Nikolas looked up at him, eyes wide. “Why not?”

“How am I supposed to get anything done if I can’t be away from you?” Jon frowned and rolled to sit on the side of the bed. He pushed his hand through his hair, frustrated and feeling needy again. “I have to find a job, move out of my sister’s house. Gina and Ben are expecting a baby and—”

“You are my rajaaka,” Nikolas said as he waved his hand absently in the air dismissively. “What I have is now yours, just as if we had entered into one of your human marriages. My lawyer has already drawn up the papers. They just need your signature.”