Camille tries to sit, collapsing back into me.
She blinks several times, regaining her strength with each passing moment. “Why didn’t you call for me to feed you? Why her, when you promised to love only me?”
Her level questions startle me, but I find the courage to tell her the truth. “It’s because of my love for you, I fed. I couldn’t risk losing control with you.”
Her hair drifts over my arms as she shakes her head. “You’re not a loose wire. You’re not losing control now.”
The thing is, every nerve in my body is vibrating with lust for her pumping blood, desire for her wet core. I want to take her, claim her, consume every ounce of her flesh until she is inside me, part of me, and we are one for an eternity. “I didn’t want you to see me like that, like this,” I hiss. “I’m so sorry.”
She raises from me, using her sleeve to wipe away the crimson residue remaining on my mouth. Then she presses her lips to mine.
Soft, warm, hurried at first as I open, letting her in, greeting and encouraging her tentative exploration. “That’s it, baby. I’ve missed this, missed you so damn much.”
I shouldn’t pick her up. I shouldn’t grab a fleece blanket and wrap her. I shouldn’t cuddle her close, our unbroken kiss on the verge of lighting us both on fire as I escape my quarters. I shouldn’t descend stairs until we’re deep in the catacombs of the underground beneath the PDU, and I’m confident our intimate reunion won’t be interrupted, nor will we be quickly found. But I’m a vampire, and she’s a human—my woman, my wife—and no man will come between us.
Camille
Ben presses his lips against my neck, every savage kiss, every hungered pant heightening my shock and pleasure. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”
“When I get done, you’ll have no doubts, Camille. I’m going to fuck you so thoroughly; you’ll believe we’re still in our wedding chambers.”
Ben’s words evoke memories, and he doesn’t disappoint. As if he’s living a lifetime in every moment, he fingers each button of my shirt, slipping the plastic disk through the hole until I’m bare and my nipples tight, waiting, wanting him to suck me. “Will your teeth hurt when you strike?”
He shakes his head, his soft auburn-tinged hair swishing about his ears. He bows over my body, easing me back onto the blanket and the makeshift pillow he’s plumped under my head. “No, baby. Nothing I will ever do with you will cause you pain.”
I feel so safe, so happy. My smile crimps my cheeks until they tingle. I didn’t realize until now how, in losing Ben, I misplaced the old me, the smiling me, the sunshine that used to burn so bright inside of me. I wrap my arms around his neck and twist my legs around his hips, pulling him so tight to my body, I gasp. “I want you inside me. I never want to leave here.”
In a blur of speed, Ben’s disrobed, bare, and very erect, standing over me.
I stretch my arms toward him, trembling in anticipation. I wave him forward, widening my legs to allow my husband entrance. “I’m never getting used to your speed.”
He settles his weight over me but stays silent, and for the briefest moment, I realize he’s tentative about our mating.
“You won’t hurt me,” I assure him, shaking my head.
As he finds his spot, I realize he’s warm, or at least lukewarm. “I thought you’d be cold.”
“There’s a lot you need to know about me. My body temperature is a steady eighty-six degrees, only ten degrees lower than humans.” He lifts my chin, anticipating my next question before I can even get it out.
“You thought because I’d died I’d be like a zombie, dead and cold. I still feel everything. I still cling to my memories of us. In fact, as a vampire, I’m able to know every memory of every other member of Riley’s coven.”
I place my fingertips over Ben’s mouth. Strangely, the mountains of questions don’t seem as important now. Or maybe, in the back of my mind, no matter how fantastic this time is, I don’t trust the peace, the pleasure.
Temporary.
I finally settle on the truth. “I don’t want our first time together after so long to have anyone here but the two of us. Not politics, not what you’ve missed, not what I’ve missed, not even your master.”
“Excluding Riley is trickier.” He glances away.
I catch the darkness floating behind his eyes, but I don’t want to cause him pain. He can’t help what he is any more than I can help than I’m human. I pinch his chin, letting my thumb rest in the dimple there. “Make love to me, as you are. I don’t care if a billion vampires see how much I love you, miss you, and want you. But this time, let it be between the two of us.”
His crushing mouth lands on mine as if I’ve accepted him in some fathomless way when he’d thought I’d run screaming. He doesn’t take his eyes off mine as I feel him hard at my slippery opening. So incredibly engorged, slickness painting his tip.
“I haven’t done this…”
My heels find purchase in his butt cheeks, and I pull him into me, sighing out my pleasure. “Oh, Ben…”
When he enters, he shudders, sweat tackles his shoulders, and beads of perspiration dot his forehead. He groans as he begins to move, in and out and in and out. But as he pumps into me, as his lips draw up over his fangs, as he moans, I know how long it’s been for him when he comes.
“Again,” I tell him. “You’re not human. Again.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t have to wait to catch my breath. Now,
