Page 87 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he drawled. “Please, allow me to put my mouth to better use.”

His hands dipped low on my waist, and my feet were in the air again. He carried me to the bed, then stripped out of the last of his clothes. I waited for him, open like a dayflower in the sun, but he hesitated by the bedpost as if he too was harboring a sprout of nervousness.

Standing there, fully undressed, he looked ethereal, verging on divine. The silver beams illuminated his body alone—the crescents of his arms, the sculpted valley of his chest and abdomen, the base of his hardness. The rest was shadow. The only thing I could make of his face was the otherworldly gleam of his eyes, watching me, wanting me with the passion of a god, something ancient and immortal. Something that could remain in this state of burning worship forever.

He climbed onto the bed with his unmatched grace, bringing his body over mine. His fingers skimmed my ankles, taking the hem of my chemise with them. Up my calves, my knees, my damp thighs. Up my waist and over my head until we both lay the same. Naked, moonlit, and yielding with desire.

He braced one hand on the bed next to my head, and with the other took mine and guided it to his chest. “I think my heart is going to break,” he murmured.

Breathless, I mirrored the motion, nudging his hand to my galloping breastbone. “I know what you mean.”

His fingers escaped mine, restless, curious. He traced every line and curve of my breasts only to rediscover them with his mouth a moment later. He kissed me low, and lower, and at the first hot sweep of his tongue between my thighs, I was lost. I was sensation only. Wet. Taut. Ecstatic. Something tightened and expanded inside me. Something gathered and built.

“Please,” I whimpered.

With a flick of his tongue, he glanced up. “Please what?”

“More.”

“More of this? Or more of me?”

“You.”

He hummed against my skin in an almost thoughtful manner. My eyes opened, searching for him, but he was a mere shadow in the dim. “I want you to say it,” he said. I felt his unsteady breath against my skin as he uttered these words. I felt the longing in them. I felt everything he felt.

“I want you,” I breathed out. “Always. Forever.”

He crawled over me, peppering my skin with kisses along the way, until his body covered mine completely. Finally, his hands fell on either side of my face. I could see him perfectly now. The way the moonlight fitted the line of his cheek. The way his eyes had grown fully black with only the tiniest glimpses of gold peering through the darkness.

The muscles of his abdomen pulled taut as my hands slid down his sides. I wrapped my fingers around him and felt him stir, ripen. His skin was petal-soft, his eyelids were silver, his scent like rain and thunder. I stroked him over and over until I found the exact rhythm he liked. Then I just watched his pleasure, his breath quickening, his lips parting for a hoarse cry. He shifted his hips, pressing himself further into my palm. I shuddered, imagining it was me he was thrusting into, and as though he read my mind, he replaced my hand with his and stroked himself against me, spreading my wetness up and down his length.

We went on like this, making each other half-insane until the wait became unbearable. Before we knew it, half of him disappeared inside me. My breath hitched at the sudden fullness, but the rest of me melted down to nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Hector panted, shaking as he tried to keep himself still. “I meant to ask—”

“Don’t stop,” I sighed, locking my ankles behind his back.

A low, inarticulate sound leapt from him. I took it in my body with the same ease I’d taken him. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

He took hold of my thighs and wielded them open and down, down until my knees touched the mattress. The depth of our connection shifted from pleasurable to divine.

That first thrust, that moment of one part intimacy and one part surrender, was a thing of destiny. I knew he did not believe in such things, but gods, there had to be something fateful about the way our bodies connected.

“Hector,” I cried, my eyes falling shut.

We stayed like this for a moment, wonderfully intertwined, our bodies aching with love, our souls a single existence within the tiny universe of the Castle.

“Thea,” he rasped. “Look at us.”

I did. First at us, then at him.

He was in ecstasy. Skin flushed. Mouth open. A droplet of sweat trickling down his brow bone. “Feels good?”

“Good is not a good enough word for this,” I sighed as I pulled my body up so our lips could touch. “But I want…”

“Tell me,” he urged when I lost my breath, his mouth moving right up against mine. “Ask me anything.”

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