Page 30 of Can't Bite This Feeling
“Raph—” she chokes, but the rest of my name is lost in a cry as she falls apart beneath my tongue.
She’s still shivering when I kiss my way back up her body, licking the taste of her from my lips. Her eyes are wide, dazed, but she pulls me down into a kiss that’s more desperate now, wanton and raw.
I ease into her slowly, tender from the start, but it’s different now, deeper, heavier, needier.
She gasps. I still.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, pulling me closer. “I want all of you.”
I hold her tight as I rock into her, grounding myself in her warmth, her breath, the way her body wraps around mine like she was made to hold me together.
She gasps my name again as I bury myself in her, letting her feel the full weight of me. Of everything I can’t say.
We find our rhythm together, her hips rising to meet mine, our breath tangled as I move inside her. I cradle her face, kiss herlips, her neck, her shoulder. I tell her without words that she’s still the center of everything good inside me, that even as the darkness gnaws at my soul, she’s the only light I’ll ever chase.
She comes again with a cry, her body pulsing around mine, and the sensation unravels me completely. I let go, spilling into her with a groan, my body shaking from more than release.
It’s surrender.
We collapse into each other, sweat-slick and breathless. Her hands stroke my back, soothing, grounding, even as I feel the ache of everything I’ve done press in again like a bruise beneath my skin.
But for now, there’s only her.
Her scent.
Her heartbeat.
The echo of her name still burning in my throat.
She curls against my chest, her fingers tracing idle shapes along my ribs, her breath still uneven from what we just shared. I think she’s drifting, her body heavy with release, but after a long silence, her voice emerges.
“You’ve changed.” The moonlight paints her face in soft silver. Her eyes are steady, but they hold a flicker of fear. Notofme, but of what might be happeningtome. “Not just the horns or the fire or whatever dark silk your voice is made of now. Something deeper. When you came back tonight, you didn’t even want to talk. You wanted to consume.”
I don’t deny it. I can’t.
“I almost lost you,” I say, my voice thick. “I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could feel was the hunger… and the rage.”
Her hand moves to my cheek. “Rapha, what’s happening to you?”
I shut my eyes. “Reaping souls for Lucifer is changing me. The need for souls has replaced the blood addiction from when I was a vampire, only a thousand times stronger. It’s in every part of me now. And all the while, Lucifer continues to play his games. He brought your father back. Sent him to the manor. Gave him a head start. And held me back.”
She stiffens against me. “What?”
“He’s trying to pull me apart. Testing what’s left of me. Seeing how much I’ll sacrifice before I snap. And I nearly did, Dru. I left you here alone while I—” I heave a breath, guilt battering me.
She sits up, pulling the sheets with her, and I feel the shift in her. The warmth of our bodies fades between us, replaced by something colder. Sharper.
“What was the point of bringing me back if you keep leaving?” she asks quietly, but her voice holds an edge I’ve never heard from her before. “If I’m only going to lose you piece by piece?”
“Drusilla—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You left me here alone for weeks while you slipped further and further into whateverthisis. I kept telling myself you’d come back to me. That I’d wake up and the man I loved would be here,wholeagain.”
I sit up too, throat tight. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone. I thought?—”
“That I couldn’t handle it?” Her eyes flash. “That I’m fragile? That I’m still the girl who needed rescuing under an olive tree?”
I look at her, at the wild light in her eyes, and it hits me.
