Page 13 of Until Forever Comes
I licked my lips and opened my mouth, but I couldn’t get my tongue to work. “Hurts,” I finally managed to gasp out.
It didn’t seem like enough of an explanation, but Miguel somehow understood. He kept his gaze locked on mine as he lifted my arms until my wrists were in front of his face, then he dipped forward and pressed his lips to my pulse point. “I can hear it,” he said. “It’s so loud.” Then he looked down at my skin and his gaze flicked back to mine, his eyes wide. “Your veins,” he gasped. “They’re huge. Are they always—”
My wail interrupted his sentence. My knees buckled and the pocketknife clashed to the floor. It was the end, I was sure, and though it was coming earlier than I had hoped, at least I’d get to die in my mate’s arms, for which I was thankful beyond measure. I rested against his hard body and closed my eyes.
“Ethan?”
I heard the concern in his voice, but there was nothing I could say to comfort him, nothing I could do. As the blackness enfolded me, I had only one thought:Mate.
Chapter 7
THEsharp fangs piercing my skin were the only thing that kept me from falling under. How I recognized it for what it was, I couldn’t rightly say. I mean, I’d never been bitten by a vampire. And it wasn’t as if I was operating on all cylinders.
Whatever the reason, I knew right quick that Miguel was biting me, and as much as I’d wanted that very thing, I couldn’t let him do it, couldn’t let him sacrifice himself for me. Particularly because it was a hopeless cause. If I didn’t die that day, I’d die soon after. The affliction that had plagued me all my life was at its worst, and I knew there was no way for me to survive it. But I refused to take my mate down with me.
“No,” I managed to say as I tried to wiggle away from him. “Poison.”
He tightened his grip on one arm and held my head in place, but at least he pulled his mouth back. “Stay still, wolf,” he demanded.
I wanted to refuse, wanted to stop him, but I wasn’t strong enough to put up much of a fight when I was at my healthiest. At my weakest, I didn’t stand a chance.
“There’s too much blood. I’ll spit it out, but we need to release it.”
He leaned forward, his fangs once again touching my skin. I’d seen him bite some of my pack mates and pull back right away, preventing much blood from getting into his mouth and spitting out the rest. That hadn’t damaged him, so I expected this wouldn’t either. With that thought in mind, I ceased struggling.
Though I’d tried to stop him, there was no denying how much I craved what was coming. I stretched my neck and went loose in his arms, giving him complete dominion over me. This time, when his fangs sank into my skin, I moaned and arched up, trying to get closer instead of pulling away.
It didn’t hurt, which surprised me. Even more unexpected was the overwhelming arousal that washed through me when Miguel started drawing the blood out of my veins with strong, long sucks.
“Oh!” I cried out. “That’s… oh, oh, oh!”
There were no words to describe what I was feeling. My body was hot and shivery all at once. Every square inch of skin felt hypersensitive. And the exquisite release as my blood was pulled from my body was akin to having every single vein stroked.
I clutched his shoulders, digging my fingers in, holding him close as I moaned and cried and begged him not to stop, never to stop. And when one of his hands made its way into my pants, my shouts of joy ricocheted off the walls in the huge room as I pulsed over and over, coating his palm and my drawers with more seed than I would’ve thought possible.
When my hips finally stopped thrusting, my seed no longer spilling, I grappled with his pants and released his erection. Hard, so hard. The skin was smooth, and his member fit perfectly in my palm. I moved my hand over him as if I’d been doing it all my life, as if giving him pleasure was the most familiar thing I knew. I squeezed his testicles, rubbed my thumb over his crown, and made my way up and down his pole, trying to give him the same joy I’d just experienced.
All the while, Miguel continued stroking me, inside and out, with his hand in my pants and his fangs in my throat. He had kept me hard, kept me wanting, and when I heard his muffled groans and felt slick pre-ejaculate seep from the head of his erection, I knew I’d shoot right along with him.
It could have been seconds or it could have been minutes. There was no way for me to know because time stood still, and all I felt, all I heard, all I smelled was my mate. I was consumed by a sense of all-encompassing rightness. As if, finally, finally, my body was doing what it was meant to do.
Somewhere along the way, we crumpled to the floor. But we didn’t stop touching, and Miguel didn’t stop feeding, until both of us were limp and sated, coated in semen and shaking with pleasure. Miguel pulled his fangs back and lapped at my skin, immediately stemming the flow of blood.
“How?” I asked.
He kissed over the spot he’d been licking and then along the underside of my jaw up to my lips. “Our saliva closes the wounds.”
“Mmmm,” I sighed contentedly as I lay in Miguel’s arms, luxuriating in postcoital bliss, feeling relaxed and easy in my skin, my body lax and lethargic. Lord, I felt good. He felt good. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as my eyes drifted shut.
And that was when it hit me—Miguel had fed from me. And not just a small amount. I gasped as I shot up to a sitting position.
“What is it?” he asked, rising fast as lightning and wrapping his body around mine as he darted his gaze around the room, searching for whatever threat had startled me.
“You… you….” I raised a trembling hand to his face and felt his cheek, his lips, his chin. “You said you weren’t going to drink me.” I swallowed down my rising tears, and my voice broke as I finished speaking. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Panic overwhelmed me, my body shaking like a leaf. And then I felt two large hands cup my face, and warm, soothing breaths ghosted over my lips. “Shhhh, wolf. I know what I said, but your blood is different. It tastes as good as it smells. Not like sulfur and rotting fruit, like other shifters.”
Hearing that I tasted different from my kind didn’t surprise me. I’d been different all my life. But neither did it alleviate my concern about his well-being.
