Bonds of Blood [Lords of the Expanse] (Siren Publishing Classic) (22 page)

He couldn’t let it go, especially not now. “Are you saying that these boys would take the innocent out into the dark and just…” He couldn’t say it. It actually hit too close to home with what he’d done to her. “Our daughter will be supervised any time she should have one of these ‘dates.’ There will be no dark places for her.”

She smiled and petted him as she nodded. “I figured as much.” She leaned in close. “Now, however, why don’t you take me into the dark, husband? Your wife needs you while your children sleep.” She needed to feel him forgiving her, needed to feel him holding her close and loving her once more.

“Are they asleep?” he asked softly and she smiled and nodded. Shifting, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to their bed to lay her down. “One thing, Xandra,” he said as he stepped back and undressed, his eyes on her the whole time. “The next time I find you answering our door naked, we will be having very harsh words, my lady.”

“Right, naked and door don’t go together. I love you, Andries.” With that she wrapped him into her welcoming embrace, pulled him in and close to her heart.

Kissing her over her heart lightly, he licked and nibbled up to her throat where he teased her pulse. Sliding his hands over her and over their children, he shifted to lean over her. Looking down at her, he kissed her chin before drawing back. “I am sorry I caused you pain, Xandra. I never meant to, my love,” he said softly. Not too bad for his first apology ever, or so he thought.

She sniffed back the tears and shook her head. She couldn’t speak but instead grabbed his face in her hands and pulled him close, kissing him with everything that she had in her. She gave him her heart and soul in that kiss and the promise of hope. “I love you, Andries. If I say something stupid again, please don’t leave me but talk to me. I’m trying to learn the ways of our people, Andries. I’m trying to learn so that I don’t hurt you again, but I can’t learn if you walk away. So please, talk to me?”

Nodding slightly, he brushed his lips over hers again. “I will attempt to remember that, wife,” he murmured softly to her. Not that he ever forgot anything she told him, but he needed to give himself a buffer for some reason, one he couldn’t truly identify. Brushing his fingers lightly over her cheeks, he pressed a kiss to the corner of her eye where the tears she was holding back shimmered. “No tears, Xandra, please.”

“I just keep thinking that I nearly lost you.” Her heart ached. “Over a comment made in haste, over words that I never meant.” Leaning into his touch, she nodded. “Talk to me, Andries? Even when I’m being stupid.” She was rehashing things that didn’t need to be brought out again and she realized that. “Love me, Andries. While our children rest, I need you again.” She needed him to lay claim to her once more, to shore up that broken thread between them that she had so carelessly severed.

“You are never stupid, Xandra. You are just young,” he said softly, trailing his lips down her face. “It is not easy for me to talk,” Andries clarified. “We are trained to not feel, to not speak of anything outside the now and the need to know, and yet you are breaking through every barrier I have.” Sliding his hands over her body, he stroked her gently as he moved slightly, adjusting his position.

She nodded and smiled. “I can’t say that I’m sorry for tearing them down, Andries. I love the man that you are, that you were, and the man you will be when our children are born. For now though”—she leaned in and nuzzled lightly against his chest with a sigh of happiness—“I need you, husband. I need you to fuck me, hard.”

Cradling her head to him gently, he stroked her hair as he slid a hand down to stroke her cunt and found her wet and needy, her hips shifting at his touch. Moving his hand, he lifted her hips and slid his cock into her pussy with no warning and more force than he normally did. He needed to mark her as his. He needed her to know that he would be there and he needed her to stop doubting him at every turn.

A sob escaped her lips as she felt an orgasm with the first thrust of his cock in her pussy. Her body was desperate for his, her heart and soul for him as well. “Andries.” She never failed to whisper his name when they came together, never failed to give him all of her love. “I need your mark, we both do.” She bent her head to the side and bared her throat to him.

Moving his cock in her body, he murmured soft words of his oath to her in his language, ones he was sure she would not know. She had not learned them all yet, after all. Then, with a sudden move he struck, his teeth going deep as he drank and then, from within, let the liquid that was in his teeth, something only a few knew of, slide into the wounds. It would make his mark on her flesh permanent, not of the fangs, but of a genetic design all his own much like tattoos that their people got but less painful.

She cried out at his bite and wrapped her legs tighter around him to hold on. She screamed and lifted her hips again meeting him thrust for each of his hungry and desperate thrusts.

Pounding into her flesh in near desperation, Andries was hanging onto the beast by the thinnest and weakest of leashes, and it was slipping. Unable to hold on, he prayed he wouldn’t hurt her and just let loose, his body moving harder and faster than ever before. Lifting her hips higher, he drove into her as he found that one spot that made her squirm and gasp.

“No more blood, Andries.” He didn’t stop right away, so she did the only thing she could in her situation and bit into his shoulder deeply. She fed from him even as he fed from her.

Her bite brought him back from the edge of destruction and he pulled his teeth from her throat with a curse. Licking the wounds, he moved his mouth to her ear. “I love you,” he whispered, his word holding an apology for his loss of control. Still driving into her pussy over and over, he cradled her head to his shoulder until, in the next moment, he came in a flash of pure need.

Removing her fangs from his shoulder, she licked the wounds and turned her head to take his mouth with hers. Words weren’t exchanged, but the actions spoke as clearly as his words had.

Kissing her as he held her close to him, he shuddered at the feeling of her body accepting everything he was and not pushing him away. He couldn’t believe she would still accept him after what he’d nearly done to her and their children, and yet, she had just accepted it and done what was necessary to keep her and their babies safe. Lifting his head slightly, he brushed his lips over hers. “I love you, my lady wife,” he whispered.

“And I love you, my lord husband.” Her hands moved gently over his cheek. “I love you, Andries,” she repeated, using his name rather than his title. “You amaze me.” He did. He was her everything. She hoped that one day she would be able to give him as much as he gave to her on a daily basis.

“You amaze me as well, my lady wife.” He smiled for her, the slight turn of his lips showing her how much he truly loved her. “We should get up, Xandra. If I remember correctly, we are having a meal with the ambassador as it is his last night with us before we reach his new home,” he said softly even though he didn’t move. What he did do was lightly turn her head and then stroke his fingers over the faded blue of his house marks on her throat. Leaning in, he pressed a gentle kiss to the mark that showed her as his for all time, and gods help any that tried to tear them apart.

She shivered with the gentle kiss and felt her pussy clench his cock as it was still buried deep inside of her cunt. “Why did that feel so different from all the other kisses you have given me, Andries?” She knew something had changed, but was not sure what. “As for the ambassador, he will wait for us, darling.”

Lifting his head, he put his weight onto his elbows and stared down at her. “I marked you,” he murmured softly, not sure how she was going to feel when she saw the mark of his house, his bloodlines, forever in her flesh in the faded dark blue color of his house.

She smiled and nodded. “Possessive much? It’s not meant as a hurtful thing, Andries. Do you…” She paused and levered herself up close so that her breasts pressed close to his chest, her nipples rubbing slightly. “You have no idea how good it feels to be the woman possessed by Andries Mauricio. To know that every time anyone now will look at me they will see the mark of our house and know that I am in a loving and committed relationship.” Touching his face, she whispered to him, “Thank you, Andries.”

Understanding dawned. She had been teasing him and he smiled slightly. “You are welcome, my love,” he told her honestly. Kissing her softly, he lifted his head again. “We should go, my wife. The sooner this meal with the ambassador is done, the sooner we can return to our bed and rest.” The last was said with a hint of something more to it, for he didn’t plan on resting any time soon.

“I don’t want to rest until we have to, Andries,” she complained and then, catching his eyes, smiled. “Oooh.” Nodding her approval, she let him go with first her legs, and then her arms. “Then we should go and shower before dressing so that we don’t smell of sex.”

Slipping his relaxed cock free of her body, he stood and then helped her to her feet and guided her toward the bathing chamber. “We do need to shower, for what I do with my wife is for me alone and not another,” he said and didn’t give a damn if his tone was too possessive, as she’d accused him earlier. He was possessive of her, just as any male Vampire was of his mate and as any female Vampire was of hers. It was the nature of their inner beasts even though the male’s was always a lot closer to the surface than the female’s.

There was a low growl from her throat. “Yes, no one needs to know what you and I share behind closed doors. You are mine, Andries. No one gets to share the scent of our pleasure but us.”

Pulling her close to him, he kissed her hard before he moved once more and turned her to look in the mirror. Letting her go so she could examine the mark he’d given her, he set the sonic shower to a low setting and as long as it would allow given her condition. Moving up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his hands over her belly. “Does it meet your approval, my lady?” he asked softly.

She was touching the mark lightly and felt herself finally nod. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, this is perfect.” One hand covered his on her larger-than-normal belly and made her smile brightly as she watched him watching her. “Shower, we need to shower.” She was reminding herself, not him.

Kissing her neck lightly, he gently nudged her toward the stall, not removing his hands or pulling away but walking with her close to him. Pressing the button to start the shower, he stood with her, his arms around her and his head on her shoulder as he just enjoyed the quiet and peaceful moment.

Her arms wrapped around him and held him close for a long time before she said, “Tonight as we are having our meal, will you help remind me if I choose topics or say things I shouldn’t?”

Lifting his head, he looked into her eyes and smiled. “I will, my love, if that is your desire,” he told her softly before he put his head back to her shoulder. “If you offend the ambassador, I shan’t be upset. The man is a pest that will be gone soon enough, and frankly, I do not care what he thinks of us.”

“Neither do I, Andries, but how I speak, how I act, it all reflects on not only you and I, but our crew, too.” And she loved them all like her family. They all held places in her heart. “I refuse to cause our family any undue stress or upset with my poorly chosen topics.”

Nodding against her skin, he pressed a kiss to her pulse. “I will help you guard your choices of topics, my love. For now though, quit worrying so much. You will only make yourself ill from the stress. You and our children do not need the added stress of such concerns,” he murmured softly, hugging her a little tighter.

She grinned and nodded. “I’m going to be two somebodies’ mommy.” She danced about in the shower happily even as he hugged her close. “Tell me that you’re happy?” She wanted, no, needed, to hear the reassurance from him. “That we are having two at once. Are you?”

“Of course I am happy, my love,” he told her softly, lifting his head to look at her so she’d see the truth. “I was happy when you truly became mine. I was extremely pleased to find out you were to have my child and, despite my episode in medical, I am ecstatic about having twins, my love.”

She patted his shoulder as if congratulating a child on a job well done and smiled. “We won’t talk about that little episode.” She smiled up at him. “I don’t think that the men would ever let you live that one down.” Because they were all like brothers, and like brothers, they would tease him unmercifully.

“I would toss the lot of them out the airlock if they even dared to do such a thing,” he told her with a haughty look that, as a High Lord, he could get away with. “Tell them all you will. It will be a good test to see just who needs some reminding of who is in ultimate control here.”

Her laughter came so suddenly and so loudly that she hiccupped from it. “Well then, tonight at dinner I will let you tell them that you passed out at the image of our…” She paused. “Wait, the ambassador will be there.” Her laughter died. “Is it wrong of me to really dislike him for no reason other than he makes me feel uncomfortable?”

Shaking his head, Andries smiled at her. “No, love,” he said softly. “You have different and much stronger instincts now. Learn to listen to them and they will always protect you.”

She nodded and touched her hand to her belly. “Are you going to tell our family that we are having twins?” By “our family” she knew he would understand what she meant, who she meant. She loved the crew as if they were her blood relatives. She had taken to them all and it seemed they all had taken to her as well.

Ah, now there was a question. Sighing softly, he shrugged one shoulder. “I do not know if I should,” he murmured, only thinking about keeping her and the children safe. He would tell his second. The man needed to be aware so that he, too, could protect Andries’s wife, but the others…“I will think on it, but I have concerns that some may react as the doctor did,” he told her so she’d understand his thinking behind waiting. He was extremely concerned with the doctor’s attitude and knew the man had sent word to the Alliance, which just pissed him off.