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“Give it to me, Juliana,” he grated against my breast before sucking the tip to a painful sting. “You know I need it,” he whispered up my throat. “Need to feel your sweet, sweet cunt clamping around my cock, choking me like you can’t live without it.”
“But if her presence makes you uncomfortable, I will send her away. Say the word, and it’s done.” “You’d fire her and kick her out on the streets if I told you to?” “You have no idea what I’d do for you.” His expression shifted to something dangerous and feral.
The walls I’d erected and the distance I’d kept over the years had been enough to contain my fixation and keep those feelings at bay. But now, as he stood merely a foot behind me, definitely watching me, my entire body shook with a tremor of warning. Like the silent flash of lightning in a distant sky, a storm approached.
She gave me one of those narrow-eyed looks that went straight to my cock. I wonder if she had any idea what her defiance and fury did to me. Likely not, or she wouldn’t still be glaring at me with murderous intent.
Obsessed, stupefied, besotted. None of them quite measured up to the truth, to the emotion that had wrapped an iron fist around my heart at the sight of her tonight. I wasn’t sure there had been a word yet created that could define what I felt for Juliana. The worst part of all is she had no idea.
I wanted nothing more than to soak in the dawning awareness sliding across her delicate facial features that something had changed between us. I was no longer going to play nice and give her space. I was done waiting for her to realize she could trust me. As her only lover. As her partner in life. As her devoted mate. It was time to erase the space between us and hunt her, woo her, worship her the way she was meant to be as my one and only.
“Time’s up, Juliana,” I whispered, grazing my lip against the top shell of her ear.
Time’s up, Juliana. Ruben’s deep, velvet-smooth voice rang in my mind like it had a thousand times since he’d said those words to me last night at the reception. There was no mistaking what he’d meant.
I was a patient hunter. I’d waited this fucking long, so I was going to do this right. No spooking my prey. No sudden movements to let her get away. I’d wait in the underbrush, let her get comfortable with my presence and my intent, let her circle and draw closer by small degrees. It would be a slow, deliberate seduction so that once she was within my reach, she’d be ready for me.
“You said it already. We weren’t together. You’d broken up with me. But I’d never broken up with you.” I had continued to behave as if she were still mine. All these long years.
I didn’t want to spend any time alone with Gentry on the elevator because I didn’t want to sour the mood by getting blood on my Italian Canali suit.
I never dropped her gaze in the glass, voice rumbling deep. “You’ve always been my queen, Juliana. You always will be.”
“There is one thing you cannot ever do again,” I growled, trying to rein in my temper, “and that is question my loyalty. There has been no one since you. And never will be again. No one.”
It was my own fucking fault. I wanted to be noble, to obey her wishes, and telling her that she was my true mate—my soulmate, my bloodmate—would’ve terrified her even more and sent her running even farther from me.
“I hadn’t realized business was doing that well.” “Yes, well, I’ve been very business-focused the past several years.” I guess he had been. “I’ve been focused on business, too, but the Cauldron isn’t bringing in private jet money.” He smiled. “Different businesses accrue different kinds of wealth.” “And what have I been accruing? Regulars and recipes?” “Friends and family. That investment brings more happiness than private jets.”
“Did you plan this?” I accused. His smile curled into wicked lines. “Yes. I planned for our rental car to break down and for our only sleeping arrangements to be at this tiny bed and breakfast where their bi-annual Tantric Sex workshop was taking place and would knowingly make you uncomfortable.” Okay, fine. This wasn’t a conspiracy against me. Unless fate itself was toying with me. I continued to glare at Ruben as if he were solely responsible for this awkward situation.
I was the one who’d warned him to keep his hands to himself, and here I was clinging to him like a damn koala bear.
“You don’t think blood-drinking is monstrous?” he asked silkily, his gaze anything but angry. Aggressive, yes, but not angry. More like hungry. “No,” I answered honestly. His eyes drifted away from mine, traveling southward with infinite care, stopping at the base of my throat right where I felt my pulse fluttering. “Are you ogling my throat, Ruben?”
“You’re going to sit here and tell me that what we have means nothing.” He pressed his body closer, forcing my head to tilt upward to look at him. “Ruben, stop.” “You’re going to pretend you didn’t love every second I was inside you, fucking this cunt that is mine.” He was raging, spitting cruelty in malicious words. “You’re just going to forget how you begged me to fuck you, over and over again. That you screamed and cried for me.”
“I’ll take anything you’ll give me.” Maddening desire radiated from every part of him. Then he dropped to his knees, his hands gripping my hips. “I’ll beg at your feet for a pathetic glance, a simple touch.” He coasted his open mouth across my belly, searing me through the thin fabric of my gown. “I’ll be your slave. Anything you want, Juliana. Just put me out of my goddamn misery.”
“What do you want?” I hissed, demanding the full truth from my vampire. A feral growl that would’ve frightened any normal, self-preserving person vibrated in the air. The sound merely tightened my nipples and coaxed a pool of warmth between my thighs. “Your cum and your blood down my fucking throat.”
She’d let me back in, and I’d kill any man who tried to take her from me now. I’d die myself before I let that happen. “Say, ‘Yes, Ruben.’” My fangs were painfully sharp. I scraped the tips right under her jaw along her neck without breaking the skin then licked the same path. Her breath came in panting huffs, strands of her hair blowing with each breath. “Yes, Ruben.”
“Mine,” I whispered around my sharpened canines, my blood burning and mind hazing at the unfathomable pleasure of being so deep inside her. “Fucking finally,” I ground out.
He shivered as he slid his thumb free of me then smeared his cum all over my slit, pressing some back inside me, his gaze fixed on where he spread his seed.
Smiling, I opened my parents’ door and led inside the only girl I’d ever wanted to bring home.
“Since the day I realized you were my whole heart, I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for one painfully paralyzing minute.”
“What?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t destroyed the room like a drunken rockstar. No spoiled celebrities throwing a rager here. Just my telekinetic witch under the influence of orgasmic euphoria that I was responsible for.
I vaguely heard a growl. He must’ve agreed with a nod or something. I wouldn’t know because I was standing there with my entire world in my arms, bleeding and unconscious.
“I was lost in another place and so confused,” I told him, voice rough with disuse. “But I had your heart, Ruben. I held it close to make sure no one could hurt it. No matter how hard they tried, I wouldn’t let anyone take it away from me.”
