Bite Me (21 page)

“Don’t move,” I said. He inclined his head to let me know he understood, but he still didn’t speak.

I reached up and untied the halter from behind my neck. Without the straps to hold it up, the dress slithered to the ground. Conner’s eyes narrowed and his hands fisted.

“Fuck me,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’ve been walking around all night without underwear.”

I just smiled and removed the adhesive bra cups from my breasts. I threw them on the floor. I stood before Conner in nothing but the diamonds he gave me and gold stiletto sandals. As I walked toward the bed, his eyes devoured me. I felt sexy and powerful, more so than I ever had before.

I crawled from the bottom of the huge four-poster bed until I reached him. I pushed his knee down so I could reach my destination. Keeping my eyes on his, I grasped his cock in my hand and leaned down. When he realized my intention, his hands moved to my hair.

I pulled back slightly. “Nuh-uh. Hands off.” I thought I heard his teeth grinding as he fisted his hands and put them on the bed next to his thighs.

I went back to what I was doing. Taking my time, I stroked him firmly and used my other hand to cup his balls. Conner hissed out a breath and his hips bucked slightly. He sucked in air but settled back onto the bed.

Leaning forward I opened my mouth and stroked my tongue over the head of his dick. Wanting to keep him off balance I lunged forward and took as much of his length in my mouth as I could and I sucked hard.

“Fucking hell!” he exclaimed. But he kept his hands at his side.

As a reward, I continued to suck as I bobbed my head. I used my hand to grasp the base of his cock and moved it up and down with a twisting motion. He groaned. I glanced up and saw that his head had fallen back, and his chest was heaving. When I knew he was close to coming, I slowed my movements before I sat up.

Wrapping my hands around his wrists, I climbed into his lap and placed his hands on my breasts. “Touch me,” I said.

As though he had been waiting for an eternity, Conner cupped my breasts and pinched my nipples between his thumb and forefingers. He pulled lightly and my back arched. The intense pleasure bordered on pain, my skin almost burning beneath his touch.

I combed my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and fisted them, tugging his head back. I attacked his mouth with mine, feeling the prick of his fangs in my bottom lip. Conner moved his hands around to my back and slid them down to cup my ass. He shifted so his erection ground between my legs, and he used his grip on me to move my body against his. Now it was my head that fell back as our positions put pressure on my clit.

I knew I was losing control when Conner’s lips sealed over the skin of my throat, sucking and nibbling. He was marking me as he often did during sex. His hands grew more insistent, controlling the motion of my hips.

I lifted up and grasped his cock, positioning him. My body was so wet and ready that he slid inside easily until I was fully seated on his thighs. When his fingers bit into the skin of my ass, I knew they were leaving bruises and realized that he was losing control just as much as I had. Deliberately, I dislodged his mouth from my neck so I could lean forward and nip his throat with my teeth. Immediately, his hands became more demanding, slamming me down on his cock until everything inside me began to tighten.

I loved this side of Conner when we made love. He usually controlled the pace, hell the entire process, but it was always mind-blowing when he lost control. I panted as my orgasm hovered just out of reach.

Just as he always did, Conner knew I was close. His movements slowed, and one of his hands drifted up to brush my hair away from my neck. I tilted my head back, knowing what was coming.

“What do you want, Donna?” he whispered, his lips grazing the skin of my throat as he spoke.

He often did this as well. Since the first time he had bitten me without permission, he liked for me to ask, sometimes even beg, for him to bite me again.

“Bite me, Conner. Please bite me.”

His hands dove into my hair, pulling my head back to an almost painful angle. He was so rarely rough with me that it affected me intensely when he was. My breaths sounded like sobs as my hips continued to move over his, up and down.

Just as the climax swept over me, he repeated the words he had spoken at the ceremony, “I claim you as mine.”

Then he sank his fangs into my neck. With each pull of his mouth, it felt as though he were sucking on my clit. The orgasm swelled like a wave and each time I thought it would recede, he would pull on the wound from my throat. Finally it became too much and I screamed. Beneath me, Conner’s hips bucked harder and faster until he groaned against my throat as he came.

As our bodies stopped moving and our breathing slowed, Conner released his grip on my neck and gently licked the wound to help it heal. He also let go of my hair and I let my head fall on his shoulder.

We stayed in that position for a long time, Conner still buried deep inside me as I sat on his lap. He held me close and stroked my back with lazy sweeps of his hand. I inhaled his scent, trying to memorize this moment. Despite the wild intensity of our lovemaking, this was what I wanted to remember. A perfect moment as we began our life together.

I sighed against his skin. “I love you, Conner.”

“And I love you,” he responded.

Absolutely perfect.

A couple of hours later, I lay sprawled across Conner’s chest in what was now our huge bed. We had been lying silently together for a while. I enjoyed the sensation of his arms around me and being able to do nothing but lie there and breathe in his scent. He seemed content to maintain the silence as well.

Unfortunately, one thought forced its way into my brain. I didn’t want to bring it up, but the echo of Vanessa’s words at the reception haunted me. Tracing random patterns on his chest, I tried to decide how to voice my concerns.

“What’s on your mind?” Conner asked me quietly.

I rolled so I could fold my hands on his chest and rest my chin on them. I liked this position because I could look into his face while cuddling with him.

“What Vanessa said at the reception this evening. It sounded almost like a threat,” I answered.

Conner trailed his fingers over my bare back and looked up at the ceiling. “I know.”

I waited but he didn’t say anything else. “Should I be worried?” I really didn’t want to be stuck at home any longer.

My whirling thoughts screeched to a halt when I realized I was already thinking of Conner’s mansion as home, and I had been for the last week. Apparently my subconscious had accepted my status as his Claimed faster than my brain.

“I’m not sure.”

I refocused my attention on him. “Please don’t tell me I’m going to be stuck in this house for another month. I’d almost rather face the prospect of death at Vanessa’s perfectly manicured claws,” I joked.

Conner frowned at me. “That’s not funny.”

I stared at him, eyeball-to-eyeball, “No, it’s not, but it is fucking true. Hiding away in a basement is no way to live.”

He sighed. “You’re right.” He didn’t speak for a moment. “How about this: I won’t insist you stay home and locked in the basement and you don’t throw a tantrum when I hire some personal security for you.”

Oh, he was good. After so long stuck in his house, he knew I would do just about anything to be able to get the hell out.

“Fine,” I responded, biting off the word as I rolled my eyes heavenward. I really didn’t like it but I refused to spend another day locked up like a prisoner.

Conner tugged a hank of my hair to get my attention. “Don’t pout.”

Even though I knew I was, I said, “I’m not.”

“You are, but it’s cute so forget I told you not to.” He smirked as he said it.

I pinched his side in retaliation but settled back into position on his chest. There were other things on my mind as well.

“What else?” he asked. The damn vampire really did know me well.

“My job. I hate to quit without notice.”

Conner’s face hardened. “We discussed this yesterday and agreed.”

I interrupted him, “I know. I’m not trying to change your mind. If I could tell my manager that I have another job lined up in my old field and they wanted me to start right away, I think that they would be more inclined to forgive me. It sounds so fucking flaky for me to suddenly quit when I start dating a guy, who happens to be loaded, and then leave them high and dry.”

“What’s your point, Donna?” he asked, sounding impatient.

“Could you look into a position for me at one of your companies soon?”

Fuck but I hated asking him for a job, but I hated telling my boss I was quitting with no notice even more. I knew he wouldn’t hold it against me if it was a job in my field because he knew a little of my history and that I had been blackballed.

“You’ve been worried about this today, haven’t you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I’m sorry. I have already begun inquiries within a couple of my businesses. One of my marketing presidents is extremely overloaded, and I imagine he will need a vice-president soon. The only other qualified person in that department is leaving for a job elsewhere so an outside applicant would have to be hired regardless.”

My chest no longer felt tight. I realized that he was setting me up for the smoothest transition possible. The situation he described meant that I was unlikely to encounter workplace hostility and problems with my both my coworkers and new boss.

I grinned at him and gave him a loud smacking kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He chuckled. I cupped his cheek as my smile faded.

“Really. I mean it. Thank you. You could have created a job or fired someone and just shoved me in their position. Instead, you made it harder on yourself but easier on me. I appreciate it.”

I might not like the fact that I had to work for him, but I did appreciate how considerate he was. Conner really wasn’t lying when he said his mother had raised him to treat his woman like a queen.

“Your happiness is as important to me as my own,” he said simply.

My heart melted at his words. “You don’t have to sweet talk me, Conner. I’m a sure thing.”

Laughing, he rolled us so that his body rested on top of mine. “Good to know.”

I wrapped my legs around his hips. “So what do you plan to do about it?”

Apparently he planned to kiss me breathless because that’s exactly what he did.

After two weeks neither Conner nor I heard a peep from Vanessa Santino. I was beginning to think I had imagined the veiled threat at the Claiming. I told Conner that I thought I had overreacted but he just shook his head.

“You still get a security team,” he said.

The fucking man knew me too well, but that was okay because I knew him too. I spent the entire evening playing eighties music at top volume while we cooked dinner. Every time he would go by the stereo, he would turn it down. Unfortunately for him, Conner didn’t realize I had the remote in my pocket. After the third time I discreetly turned up the volume, he finally looked at me with a gleam in his eye. Being the bad girl I was I made a break for it. Conner said never to run from a vampire, but there were some rules that were just made to be broken.

After only fourteen days I was shocked at how easily our lives fell in sync. I began to understand why Conner was so confident in our relationship so early on. Within days we had a routine, and it felt comfortable rather than awkward.

What had been awkward was my call to my boss at the lounge. When I called he immediately asked about my grandmother, which was incredibly sweet. Since my cantankerous grandmother had actually been dead for a very long time, I merely said that she had passed away but it was expected and that she was at peace. Then I explained that I received a job offer during my time away from the lounge and that they wanted me to start immediately after the funeral. I was positive that I was going to hell for all the lies I told, but I couldn’t exactly say, “Hey, I kind of married a fucking rich vampire but not really married, more like living in sin.”

Conner hadn’t been lying when he told me the marketing department in one of his companies needed help. The company made computer software. It wasn’t as sexy as my job at the advertising agency had been, but I found out right away that it would be challenging. The marketing president was fastidious and extremely well-organized. What he was not was creative. I had a feeling it would be an uphill battle to get him to loosen up enough to listen to my suggestions, but I enjoyed a challenge.