Page 71 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

The nightdress slipped from my shoulders, gathering around my waist. I arched into his touch, surrendering myself to him with a needful sigh. I could feel him everywhere. Even in the places he had not touched yet.

Then his eyes wafted up and met mine. “Where, Dorothea?”

I licked my lips, and just as I began to utter the words, he threaded his fingers through my hair, bent my head back across his palm, and kissed me.

He kissed me, and it was like lightning striking the ground. Harsh, brilliant, uncanny—a surging tide of warmth that made my soul yield. He kissed me with all of his body, all of his strength, with the intensity of a million stars, making up for all the years our lips hadn’t been kissing.

I could not think; I could not do anything but take him in, each breath, each silent moan, the unhesitant movements of his lips on mine. My mouth opened for him like a dayflower in the sun, my arms coming up to close around his neck, my bare breasts pressing against the firmness of his chest, my hips softening, falling into alignment with his. I had never felt more right in my life. That was the only word in my mind as I felt his tongue flicking, tasting, discovering my mouth for the very first time.Right.Everything was right again. The Castle was alive. Our fates were as well-entangled as our limbs. The destiny of stars was no longer to collapse.

Needing to see his expression, I cracked my eyes open.

He was already watching me. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re shaking.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I don’t mean to.”

“We can stop if this is too strange for you. I don’t want you to feel pressured because of what I said—”

“It is strange. But not in the way you think.” I touched my fingers to the swollen curve of his mouth, mesmerized. “I’ve known your lips for so long. Now they’re new to me.”

“Kiss me again then,” he said. “Kiss me until there is no part of me unknown by you.”

I gave his top lip a gentle lick before passing my tongue over the length of his fangs. I felt them graze against the corner of my mouth and shivered.

“Do you like that?” he asked.

Even the tips of my ears were burning. “More than I should.”

He cupped the side of my face, his thumb at my jawbone, and tilted back my head so he could drag his fangs along my exposed throat. “And this?”

“I think I like everything you do.”

His mouth moved over mine again, his tongue easing between my lips. The kiss deepened. His hands roamed lower on my body, trailing past the slope of my waist to squeeze the curve of my backside. He nudged my pelvis forward so I could feel his hardness underneath the towel. A terrible emptiness pulsed between my thighs. My limbs turned to honey, summer-hot and pliable. Our gazes locked, and the way he looked now, dark and untethered, I knew I looked the same.

“Stop?” he panted, the rise and fall of his chest quickening against mine.

I shook my head in a fury, twisting my fingers into his damp hair. I guided his face back to mine, recapturing his lips in yet another sloppy kiss, all while he coaxed my dress down my thighs until it was a pool of cotton at our feet.

My hands slipped lower on his body, eager to trace the refined path from his chest to his abdomen. With a little tug, I freed himfrom the towel, and the bare pressure of his erection against my stomach undid me.

I had to have him. Now. Forever. Forevermore.

“Bed,” I sighed, pressing a hundred maddened kisses along the column of his throat. He moaned, his head falling back, giving me better access, his hands on my waist as firm as I was shaking. I was riddled with nervousness. I did not know what he’d like. I knew so many things about him, but now we were strangers. And I wanted to learn. I wanted to know his rhythm, see his breath catch, feel the release of his yearning on the pad of my palm, the inside of my thighs.

“No,” he groaned at the ceiling.

I stopped breathing. “No?”

“I will not make love to you in a house full of enemies,” he said.

I slid a hand over his hard length and squeezed. His eyes rolled back. For a perfect, petal-soft second, I thought he died. “But I need you,” I whispered.

The words were like a spell. He had no choice but to yield.

“I’ll give you all you need,” he rasped, his knee parting my own. His hand glided down my abdomen and slipped between my thighs. I almost found release just from the slight pressure of his thumb, the slow drag of his fingertips along my wetness.

My face caved into the crook of his neck, but he cupped my throat and nudged me back against the wall. “Don’t hide your face. Let me see you.”

And so we watched each other come undone, my hips rocking to the rhythm of his fingers. They were relentless, and I was restless. Like iron on fire, I was melted down and desperate for more. I thought of nothing else. Justmore.

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