Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Six

I WAS GOING OUT OF MY fucking mind.

Everything was changing—intensifying, compounding, spiralling toward something I couldn’t control unless I touched her.

But...if I touched her, I felt her.

They were just flickers of her feelings, the hauntings of her thoughts, but...I didn’t want to feel them. I didn’t want to have yet another thing to deal with, yet I couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t stop it.

So I needed her to stop it.

So I didn’t incinerate this plane.

Crushing her to the pillowy mattress and swiping off the stupid number of fluffy pillows, I exhaled and pressed my lips to her throat.

Her skin was cool. I needed more.

She shuddered beneath me, her hands straying to my lower back.

A groan escaped as I pressed my hot mouth to her neck and rasped against her skin, “Help me.” The words tore free before pride could stop them. I’d never begged anyone...even on those worst days.

My skin threatened to peel from my bones as she dug her nails into the muscles on either side of my spine and...nodded.

Whatever fragile restraint I had left disintegrated.

Pulling back just enough to get to her mouth, I kissed her.

She moaned and kissed me back, our heads tilting, tongues knotting.

And it wasn’t enough.

Wrapping one arm around her back, I reared up on my knees and hauled her higher up the bed, never breaking the kiss, not giving either of us time to think.

Her dress rode up under my hands.

She gasped as I tossed her into the centre of the mattress. Her fingers clutched my shoulders as I punished her with another brutal kiss, seeking that calmness only she could give me.

She held on while I took everything.

Something twisted viciously in my chest, every part of me reacting to her on a cellular level.

Her fingers clawed at my shirt, yanking me closer as if she could drag the very breath from my lungs. I settled my hips between her spread legs, rocking my throbbing hardness against her.

Her hands landed on my waistband, hesitant and a little unsure, offering herself to me as she tried to loosen my trousers.

I caught her wrists and guided them above her head, caging her beneath me.

The kiss ended and I panted hard, resting my forehead on hers.

Her gaze dropped to my chest—to the dagger wound she’d given me.

Her thighs tightened around my hips as she looped her legs over mine and hooked her ankles together. My eyebrows rose in question then a tortured snarl tumbled free as she rocked against me, blatantly trying to make me break.

I fell on her again.

Letting her wrists go, I kissed her as hard as I could, all while my right hand gathered up her dress and buried itself between her legs. She cried out as I cupped her.

The tightness of her underwear stopped me from touching what I really needed to touch.

A blast of blazing frustration tore out of me and...I couldn’t stop it.

For the first time in my life, the fire that’d burned me alive didn’t hit an obstruction—it didn’t smash against the pain of the vitalsync core and had nothing to stop it from exploding free.

Heat licked down my arm in a violent rush.

The scent of burning fabric filled the air as her underwear switched from cotton to soot. Embers flew around us like dying fireflies and my fingers...

They landed on her hot, damp flesh when the rest of her was so perfectly cool.

She stared at me, wide-eyed, chest heaving—not hurt or burned but bare and mine.

The fire surged again and the plane groaned as if buckling against its rivets.

“Lucien.” She cupped my cheeks with both hands, pulling me down until my mouth hovered over hers. “Calm down.”

So close. So cool. So sweet and soft and mine, mine, mine.

Kissing her hard, my hand settled over her bare core.

My fingers touched her—skin to skin—and the inferno inside me collapsed in on itself. Scalding heat bled away in a rush so violent, it left me dizzy.

She was the difference between catastrophe and control.

The key to switching off the torturous heat.

Pressing my forehead to her shoulder, I splayed my hand over her silky warmth. Her hips surged upward, giving herself to me and...I couldn’t do it.

Biting her shoulder, I pressed a finger slowly inside her.

She gasped and shuddered as her thighs fell open. I did my best not to come from the best fucking feeling in the world. Her hotness when the rest of her bordered on icy. Her wetness that was so much silkier than anything I’d ever felt before.

She shuddered as I dragged my nose along her jaw and sank my teeth into her neck. My finger continued to sink slowly inside her, memorising every ridge and ripple and clench.

“Oh my God,” she moaned as I pulled back a little, stroking every inch.

Kissing my way back to her mouth, I didn’t bother with words or conversation. There were no words or conversation. Merely heat and fire and need.

I sank in a second finger.

She jack-knifed beneath me as I hit an obstruction—revealing what she’d told me back in Cinderkeep had been real. I was her first. Just like she was mine. No other man had touched her like this and fuck that undid the rest of my control.

The urge to push past that tight lock inside her almost had me turning into a monster. I wanted to be the one to take that from her. To forever be linked to her because of what I’d stolen—

She tensed as I pressed against it.

A soft gasp as if it hurt.

I settled with one finger and thrust deep.

She cried out with pleasure instead of pain.

I swallowed her moan as I kissed her hard.

Her heart kicked as I crushed her against the mattress, her fingers clutching the back of my neck, dragging me impossibly closer.

I kissed her so, so hard.

Her lips parted wide beneath mine, kissing me back.

But it was her hitched inhale that undid me—the way her hips arched up seeking more.

My thumb pressed on that little bundle of nerves that I’d learned made her shatter so spectacularly.

Her hands tangled in my hair, tugging me closer, anchoring me to her like she’d drown if we separated.

Everything inside me raged to take her.

To worship her, ruin her.

Smoke unfurled from my back as I dipped my hand again, thrusting up and making my eyesight blackout with desire.

Her body clenched around my invasion as she snarled into the kiss, becoming insistent and hungry, revealing exactly what she wanted.

I slowly withdrew and thrust again, struggling to hold her down as she jerked upward and almost headbutted my nose.

I never thought. Never imagined. Never knew she would feel like this. This soft and wet and greedy—

“More,” she panted, tugging my hair. “Lucien—”

My heart threatened to burst as I withdrew my wet finger and lubricated her clit.

She jolted beneath me, her head tipping back with a quiet scream. “Oh God...why do you have to be so good at this when it’s your first time?”

I drove my finger back inside her, my restraint slipping with every heartbeat.

Every part of my body wanted to be inside her. But...I couldn’t imagine how I’d fit if she could barely take a single finger and...I didn’t want to hurt her.

I wanted to do a thousand dirty things to her but causing her pain...I couldn’t fucking do it.

“You’re driving me insane,” she groaned, rocking on my hand.

I shuddered as she convulsed. I didn’t want to talk. I wasn’t really capable. I concentrated entirely on my task and pulled my finger free again, only to push it back in, imagining it was something else I thrust inside her.

Falling on her, I locked my teeth around her arched throat and bit. Hard.

She shivered, hugging my head as if she wanted to keep me there forever.

Her flavour exploded on my tongue as she turned arctic-cold in my arms.

The faintest aroma of her scent—a smell I hadn’t been able to detect until now—shot up my nose and wrapped insidiously around my heart. Frozen dew and frosty orchids. Sweet mist and sugary snow.

I lost myself completely.

I moved before I could think.

I found myself between her legs, kneeling before her, breaking under the urge to taste everything.

I had no idea what I was doing—just driven by instinct and mad desire.

Falling to my belly between her legs, I looked up the expanse of her stunning body and...licked her.

She didn’t just convulse; she screamed loud enough to cause Whisper to snarl and attack the door.

Her sweet, silky taste completely undid me as she clawed at my shoulders.

I ground my throbbing erection into the covers as the world narrowed to just her and me and the rapidly chilling cabin. The walls cracked as the air temperature plummeted.

Closing my eyes, I drove my finger inside her, careful of that natural obstruction while sucking on her clit. She quaked as I worked my finger in and out, licking her, nipping her, letting animalistic instincts guide me.

The longer I licked her, the more she soothed my fire.

Every ripple and clench of her body brought my inner-thermometer closer to freezing instead of dangerously overheating.

And when she finally combusted around my finger and came all over my tongue, I didn’t stand a chance.

I followed her.

My hips drove into the bed as my release carved through me with fire and gasoline, making my heart stop for one blissful second. My body shattered with waves of cold and heat, fire and frost. I almost lost consciousness before the pleasure ebbed and I cursed myself.

Three fucking times.

Three times she’d driven me wild and made me come in my trousers.

Rook continued to twitch around my finger, her knees shaking on either side of my shoulders. I looked up the length of her, stunned silent that I’d lost control. That I’d gone down on her while we were twenty thousand feet in the sky.

Our eyes met and for one fractured second, the burn inside me stopped torturing me. It completely snuffed out as I swore frost glittered on her eyelashes but then...

PAIN.

Her pain.

It hit me like a sledgehammer, stealing my breath and making me hiss. Rook cried out beneath me, trying to curl up and bury her head in her arms.

A blinding spike behind my eyes—

How?

How was I feeling her?

And how did she survive this level of torture?

Crawling out from the cradle of her thighs, I didn’t know what to do as she bundled into a ball and hugged herself. A trick of the light made me believe snowflakes twinkled in her black hair before melting like lacy filigree.

She moaned and another punch of misery hit me that wasn’t mine.

Moving up the bed, I leaned against the wall and gathered her close. “I’ve got you.” Wrapping my arm tight around her, I swiped away the hair that’d stuck to her brow. Her breathing was shallow and uneven—hurting so damn much.

Glancing around the room, I searched for something that could cut me—to give her the only thing I could. But the space was full of polished luxury with no sharp edges. Cream leather panels, softly curved walls, hidden compartments flush with the surfaces. Even the narrow side table didn’t hold anything that could make me bleed.

Whisper banged against the door again and I wished I hadn’t locked it. I could’ve made use of his fangs, but I couldn’t get up with Rook almost unconscious in my arms, so I did the only thing I could.

Bringing my finger to my mouth, I bit myself hard enough to break the skin.

Pushing the welling blood into her mouth, I commanded, “Swallow.”

She winced and mumbled something incomprehensible, trying to push me away.

I just held her tighter. “Swallow and you’ll feel better.”

I squeezed my finger, feeding more blood onto her tongue. Her throat worked. Removing my finger, I held her through the last of her shivers. Slowly, the pressure in my skull eased as her pain loosened its grip on both of us.

She murmured something I couldn’t catch.

Her glassy eyes met mine from where she lay on my chest and a wrenching tore through me. A violent yank on my heart as if an invisible thread shot from me to her—weaving around our bones and breath, binding us together—

She shuddered as if the force of whatever webbed between us was too strong, too much.

With a broken sound, her eyes rolled back.

She collapsed against me and...

Passed out.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

MY EYES FLASHED OPEN.

My heart pounded with sudden fear and for a second, I had no idea where the hell I was but...the steady drone of engines, the gentle hum of flight. Still in the air. Still trapped. Still beneath Rook, where she’d passed out on me, who knew how long ago.

The crick in my neck hurt from being used as a pillow and my fingers had fallen asleep from where I’d slung my arm around her waist to keep her close. Her soft breath on my chest felt like a refreshing breeze, and the fire in my blood stayed survivable thanks to touching her.

Glancing down where she lay on me, my temper warmed to wake her. At some point while I’d slept, she’d burrowed into my warmth and fallen so deeply asleep she snored like a hibernating hamster.

Only she could make such an annoying noise and make me find it adorable.

I tapped her shoulder. “Rook.”

No response, her breasts rising rhythmically against me.

The knowledge that she was naked beneath her dress—because I’d somehow burned her underwear to dust—made me harden all over again. Lust surged, erasing the iciness she’d granted, ensuring she was both a menace as well as a cure.

What was it about her that affected me?

She wasn’t just a leash at this point; she was a muzzle and straitjacket combined.

If I had any common sense, I’d end her before she could end me but...

She was just so fragile, so delicate, so mine.

My fingers strayed from her shoulder to her collarbone, falling into old habits of touching her while she was too unconscious to care. Her skin felt cool, never warming despite my unnatural heat.

Biting my bottom lip, I grazed her neck with my fingertips, tracing the faint bite mark I’d left on her from before.

She just moaned contentedly.

My fingers strayed to her breast.

I watched her warily as I fondled her.

She didn’t seem interested in waking as she burrowed a little closer and flung her arm over my stomach. Her pendant thudded against the vitalsync core.

I flinched as the charm echoed directly through my heart.

Every muscle in my body tensed. Nausea crawled in my gut. I went dizzy—

Gritting my teeth, I hooked a finger under the chain and lifted the pendant away.

Cradling it in my palm, I shivered as a faint vibration buzzed through me. The slightest static in my blood—a resonance coming directly from the raindrop.

I dropped it.

The crystal twinkled in the cabin lights as it tumbled back to Rook, throwing faint rainbows over her skin. The vibration seemed to increase.

I felt it gnawing into my brain, affecting my pulse, making everything tight and tangled and wrong.

Her eyes suddenly shot open.

Gasping in shock, she pushed away from me and almost fell off the bed.

Grabbing her wrist, I jerked her close. “Easy.”

Her eyebrows knitted together as she glanced at where I held her. “I...” Licking her lips, her gaze flew around the luxurious cabin—skating over a large TV, a semi-melted bucket of ice holding a bottle of unopened champagne, and the circular windows that blocked the blinding sun thanks to tightly drawn shades.

Her fingers strayed automatically to her necklace as if she’d sensed me playing with it.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the way her skin flushed pink as it rested against her sternum. I swore condensation appeared before vanishing like an illusion.

My hackles rose, reminding me of all the questions and doubts I still had about her.

I could forgive her for not telling me things back in Cinderkeep because I hadn’t exactly asked but...if I asked now and she lied to me. If she ever intentionally withheld things from me.

Well...I’d killed more women than men at this point.

I can kill another.

I scowled as my soul vehemently denied that possibility, all while I bared my teeth and asked, “Are you awake enough to be coherent?”

She yawned and scrubbed her face. “Why? Are you planning on giving me another orgasm, because if you are, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself from returning the favour this time.”

I forgot how to swallow. “What favour was that exactly?”

I knew exactly what favour...

Her eyes hooded as her stare dropped between my legs. “It’s not fair...” She blushed. “That was a first for me with you...giving me pleasure with your mouth and...” Her cheeks almost caught fire as she looked away and mumbled, “Now I’m curious about what it would feel like to do the same to you.”

My heart fucking smoked.

Just the thought of her sucking me off almost made me cremate the bed, let alone how I’d actually survive her tongue—

“I need to ask you a few questions.” I crossed my arms and sat stiffly against the headboard, doing my best to control myself.

“What questions?” Her shoulders came up. “Why do you suddenly sound angry with me? Did I do something wrong in my sleep?” She wiped at her chin. “Did I drool on you? Is that why you’re mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“Well, you’re certainly not happy.”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“Then...”

“I’m tired.” My voice came out low and lethal and far colder than I’d intended. “I’m fucking exhausted, actually.”

“Then take a nap—”

“It’s not that kind of tired.” My heart warmed to unbearable levels again. “I’m tired of having to be on my guard around you all the time. I’m exhausted because I can’t figure out why you soothe me so much. I’m becoming reliant on you. It’s getting to the point where I can’t stand the thought of being away from you because the fire is burning me alive and you’re the only one that can stop it but...how am I supposed to trade one prison for another?”

She drew back. “You’re saying I’m a prison?”

“I’m saying I’m finally free, yet I somehow feel just as trapped as I did when I was being bled every three days.” I laughed icily, glancing at the bandages around my wrists that’d replaced the port cuffs. “If you didn’t affect me the way you do, I wouldn’t care if you did end up betraying me. I’d just use you the way I’ve been doing and not give a damn. But...” I rolled my eyes, cursing my luck that I was falling so hard for this girl and utterly unable to stop myself. “It seems the more time I spend with you, the more it hurts to think of you betraying me, so...tell me. Once and for all. Tell me who the hell you are, Elara Rook Snowflake Snowdon and what the hell do you want from me?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE AGONY BEHIND HIS WORDS NEARLY broke me.

He still doubted me...after everything.

I thought he’d accepted me.

The moment he’d slipped between my legs and licked me into the best orgasm of my life...I thought we’d stepped onto a new path that only led to good things.

But...he was merely using me to calm the furnace in his blood and that made me so, so worried. I had suspicions of my own that were rapidly growing out of control the more he burned and smoked and did things that weren’t human.

What if everything that was happening to him was my fault?

What if the fact my blood held the same odd enzyme that his did—the R gene if Marcus could be trusted—meant all of this had been preordained and—

“Well?” Lucien cut into my spiralling thoughts. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

I shivered and hugged myself, trying to figure out how to say what needed to be said, all while absolutely petrified he’d kill me.

“I...” I shook my head, my tongue refusing to work. Memories of him touching me, licking me, looking up at me from between my legs with such lust glowing in his pitch-black eyes...

Now, he looked at me as if he already hated me and it hurt.

It hurt that I hadn’t been cut out for the world of Snowflake Corp. It hurt that I hadn’t been strong enough for what truly went on behind those lab doors.

In a way, I’d been made for his world.

A world where I only found an anchor when I was with him.

Rubbing my aching heart, I opened my mouth again, but nothing came out.

“Who are you? Why can I suddenly feel your pain? Why am I becoming more and more aware of you the longer we spend time together? What exactly are you hiding—?”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

That scary scarlet ring appeared around his pupils. “You know...I thought you’d leap at the chance to finally talk. I stupidly believed you weren’t like the rest, but I’m beginning to think you might have fooled me the most.”

Shaking his head, he shrugged with agonising sadness. “I really, really don’t want to have to kill you, Rook, but if you were tasked to kill me. If everything up till now was planned and I fell right into your trap, then just tell me.”

“H-How can you even ask that? After everything that’s happened between us? After what we just did?”

He didn’t seem to hear me as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just spit it out. Tell me whatever it is that you’re hiding because with the burning pain I’m in, I’ll give you one shot. I’ll give you something I’ve never given anyone.” He dropped his hand as his eyes locked on mine. “I’ll give you a single chance to put me out of my misery because right now, I’m hurting and lost and—”

“God...you just had to pick this moment, didn’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “This is the only moment I have left. I’m taking you home. I’m bringing you into my inner world where I’m at my most vulnerable. I’m willingly keeping you by my side where you could choose any moment to drive a dagger into my back.”

“I did drive a dagger into you, remember?” I snapped, my temper finally waking up. “But into your chest—because you commanded me to.”

“And now I’m commanding you to tell me what I want to know!”

“Do you really think this is the place to talk? We’re on a plane. In the sky. And you’re not exactly doing all that well. If you burn up again—”

“I’ll only burn up if you tell me something I don’t like.”

“Yes, well...that’s kind of inevitable at this point, isn’t it.”

He never took his eyes off me. “So there is something you’re keeping from me?”

“I’ve never lied to you. Not once.”

“Lying by omission is the same thing.”

“Look, I’m not saying I won’t tell you...just that being on board a highly flammable machine might not be the best place.” Glancing at the scorched blankets, I added softly, “You dragged me in here because you were ready to snap. You were steaming for goodness’ sake. Y-You...burned my underwear off. What if you lose control again and we fall out of the sky like a blazing asteroid?”

“I’ll control myself,” he snapped.

“Like you did when you set the wallpaper on fire in the B&B?”

“Did I burn you? At any point where I’ve lost control, have I hurt you?”

“No—”

“Then answer my goddamn questions!”

“Fine!”

“Good! Wait...” He held up his hand. “How are you so calm about all of this? How can you talk about me burning your clothes and hotels and not freak out? I’ve spent my entire life with an inner temperature that exceeds that of everyone else—always knowing there was something obviously wrong with me—but you...you don’t even blink when I say it’s getting worse. So...how?”

“How am I not screaming and trying to jump out of the plane to get away from you?” I asked gently.

Whisper whimpered outside the door as if he longed to be part of this conversation but neither of us moved to let him in.

He just nodded and I didn’t have a choice anymore.

He’d asked for the truth and I would give it—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“I was going to do this when we were safely on the ground but...I’ll tell you.”

“Thank you.” He gritted his teeth.

“I’ll tell you everything...”

“That would be good.” He stiffened. “Tell me what exactly?”

“Tell you that the reason I have so much money, why I have a bodyguard, and why I’m not freaking out about you is because...on paper, I’m Brimstone’s biggest competitor. My name really is Rook Snowdon. Dillon is just my bodyguard. And me...” I shrugged, bracing myself to die. “I suppose you could say I’m your greatest enemy—business-wise—and...” I flinched, my voice falling to a whisper. “...maybe, possibly—I really hope I’m wrong—I might be the reason you’re burning in the first place.”