He pumped into her faster, and his grip dug into her hip, holding her steady as he fucked her. No…fucked was the wrong word. This was so, so much more.
Faster now, faster, and she was there again. She yelled out as he slammed his cock inside her deep and released into her in throbbing bursts. He gasped out and arched back, and she loved the look of sheer satisfaction on his face.
She felt the trickle of warmth from her neck just as her own orgasm rocked her entire system. She didn’t know what she was saying or doing or what noises came from her. All she knew was nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing in all her life.
What a beautiful addiction she was building.
His dick throbbed softer and slower in her, matching her own waning release, as he lapped at her neck gently. The sting went away, just as it had on her inner thigh.
All she could do was lay there and stroke the back of his head as he healed the damage he’d done. She knew he was healing it. Fixing the small puncture wounds. She could feel him mending the skin there as he lapped his tongue over her it. And when he was finished, he slid out of her and eased to the bed beside her. His eyes were still black, and his face tauter and more predatory than it had been before, but there was a reverence in his eyes. An awe.
“Beauty,” he whispered. And even though the word tapered into a chilling hiss, she reveled in the compliment.
He ran a finger down her scar and said it again, “Beauty.”
She didn’t know why, but tears pricked at her eyes. They burned a little, and she swallowed a thickness in her throat as she made a decision that would alter the way she viewed herself from this day forward.
“Evan?”
He brushed her hair from her face. “Mmm?”
“I don’t want you to fix the scar.”
Chapter Five
“Spill the beans,” Sadey demanded.
Dragging her attention from the memories of last night, Nicole stopped touching the side of her neck like a weirdo and asked, “Huh?”
Dawn was pushing the cart full of Halloween decorations and announced loudly, “It’s real freakin’ obvious you and Evan at least got to second base. You’ve been smiling to yourself all morning.”
“Plus, you have a bruise on your neck,” Sadey mumbled as she studied a package of fake spiderwebs in her hands. “You definitely fed him last night.”
“What’s second base?” Nicole asked.
“Uh, I think its grabbing boobs?” Dawn said, but her face was all scrunched up in confusion. Her blond hair, all piled in a messy bun, flopped forward as she shook her head. “Wait, no, I think it’s touching panties. Right? I’m Googling this.” She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth as she poked at her phone.
“Second base is fingering,” Sadey said.
“Nope, I was right,” Dawn enlightened them. “Titty touching. The internet says, and the internet never lies.”
Sadey rolled her eyes heavenward.
Heat crept into Nicole’s cheeks. “I can’t believe I slept so long today.” It was three in the afternoon, and she’d just rolled out of Evan’s bed an hour ago.
“You needed that sleep,” Sadey assured her, throwing a pack of pumpkin light strands into the cart.
“What are we doing again?” Nicole asked.
“You said the police told you to find normalcy as fast as you can so you can cope.”
“I feel pretty good.”
“And normalcy is decorating for holidays and drinking goblin punch with your new besties on a random Thursday evening.”
Nicole laughed and muttered, “Sounds normal enough to me. When do the boys wake up?”
She’d left Evan sleeping soundly in his bed but already missed him. When vampires slept, they slept hard. She’d had to wait for a full minute to see if he was even breathing.
“As soon as the sun goes down, they’ll start stirring. You won’t get to work on your bases tonight, though, ya little badass,” Dawn told her. “They’re going hunting.”
Nicole followed them to the next aisle of Halloween decorations. “Hunting how?”
“Well, the easiest way would be to plop you out on the edge of town and wait for Creepy Creeperton to find you and then stake his pasty ass, but in the meeting before dawn this morning, Evan declared that you aren’t to be used as bait anymore. And then he asked us to be your bodyguards when he’s not around you. So”—Sadey did a little butt-wiggle dance—“you get to hang out with us.”
“There’s only four bases, right?” Nicole asked quietly as she kept busy studying a pack of spider pencils.
“Haaaaa!” Dawn crowed. “I knew it. You got a homerun.” She danced with a spanking motion and sang a song that went something like, “Nicole got sticked and she felt a little prick, riding vampire di—”
“Okay!” Nicole interrupted in mortification. “Let’s put that song deep in the vault.”
“Deep,” Dawn said. “Deeeep in the vault.” She poked her finger through a hole she’d made with fingers on her other hand and waggled her blond brows while Sadey was doubled over, cracking up.
“Yep, we’re good here.” Nicole did an about-face and walked away from them.
“We will just catch up to you,” Dawn enlightened her, running behind her with the clattering shopping cart with the one wonky wheel. “For we are shifters and faster than you.”
Every other shopper in the immediate vicinity
