Page 124 of Taste Me

I indicate one of the love seats and Jasper sighs, then sits. He leans back and looks me in the eyes. There’s defiance there, but also desperation.

He’s scared.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he says. The screams of the dead nearly drown him out, but I ignore the need to touch him.

“Do you?” I counter, crossing my arms. I don’t take a seat. Instead, I stand before him just out of reach.

He nods. “You need my brothers and me on the same team—I get it. You already told me how your plan works.” His jaw flexes. “Listen, Issy. It’s a good plan. I’m not doubting that. I’m just saying—”

I don’t let him finish. Inching my dress up, I straddle him and press my hands against the head of the furniture. I’m wearing thin panties, allowing me to feel him when I relax onto his lap. “You’re angry. You have every right to be. Your brothers broke your trust.”

His throat bobs with a swallow as his gaze drops to my breasts, which are in his face. I had cut a line near one of them, meaning my blood is now tantalizingly close to him. He’s still a vampire and I’m still a powerful witch designed to appeal to him.

Based on the flare of desire in his gaze, I more than appeal to him. He looks like he wants to devour me. “They brokeyourtrust. I don’t understand how you’ve forgiven them so easily.”

He drags his gaze away from my breasts and to the raw wound I now have open on my neck. It’s much better than it was before, but it’s still bleeding. It just doesn’t hurt as badly now that I’ve healed the more internal injuries and sent the muscles to knit back together. It looks a lot worse than it is.

He runs his fingers along the edge of my scarring skin. “Has fate blinded you to what they’re capable of?”

“Zane and Royce are the enemies here,” I remind him. “Daithi and the assholes trying to possess your bodies are the ones who are truly capable of evil things. Your brothers aren’t evil.” I glide my fingers over the stubble on his jaw, directing him to look at me. “Youaren’t evil.”

He darkly chuckles. “Is that the lie you tell yourself to make all of this bearable, witchling?”

I lean down so I can graze his lips with mine while we talk. His death touch is incredibly stimulating to my senses and I can’t resist more contact. “Don’t confuse darkness with evil, my love. We are dark creatures and to believe anything else is a lie. I’m far too damaged to ever believe I’ll see the light again—and now that I’ve found you, Zy, and Kor, I realize that’s okay. Sometimes the dark can be a peaceful place where we accept who and what we are.”

I kiss him before he can reply. When he struggles against me and digs his fingers into my hip as if to remove me, I bite down on his tongue sharp enough to draw blood.

He snarls. “You want my darkness, Issy?”

“Yes,” I whisper against him, putting my magic into the single word.

It unravels him, then he’s clawing my underwear away and I’m working his zipper.

I can’t get his pants off in this position, but it doesn’t matter. The barrier of my panties is obliterated and he pushes himself inside me.

A groan escapes me, one of pain mixed with pleasure because I’m so sore. Having sex again was not on my mind, but it seems my mates and I can’t keep our hands off each other.

He thrusts roughly into me, giving me what I had asked for.

“Bite me,” I ask.

“No,” he rumbles, driving up into me and holding me in place so it sends his dick deep inside.

My core burns with pleasure and he rolls my hips on him, stimulating my clit against his hard muscles near the base of his groin. I whimper when he does it again. “It’ll look more realistic with a fresh wound,” I explain. “Please.”

I really do need one of them to bite me. There’s no way that Royce will buy my act if I don’t have a vampire’s mark.

Jasper utters a curse, then he pulls me into him. He grazes his fangs over the side of my neck that doesn’t have a wound.

Zy had bitten me there, but those marks are long healed, leaving only small circles of pink skin.

Now Jasper reopens the skin with a delicate bite. He carefully sinks his fangs into my neck, but the bite is no less euphoric to my senses.

I’m designed for my mates in every way, just as they are designed for me.

My body responds to him, moving to sheathe him inside me as I ride him to my satisfaction.

“I love you, Jas,” I whisper as his bite supplies me with the pain I need mixed with my pleasure.

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