Crave (10 page)

“Is that why you ran away from your pack?”

She shook her head. She might as well be honest about that too.

“I ran away because our alpha got it into his head that he wanted me to bear his offspring and I wanted nothing to do with it. Pack laws state he’s within his rights to force me to go through with it. He tried to do just that... even had his second in command help him pin me down so he could mark me and chain me to him... so I attacked him and fled. I’ve been running ever since.”

Callum’s growl was so low it was almost inaudible. She felt it as a rumble through her, a possessive purr that sent sparks racing over her nerve endings. He rose from his seat, sat down next to her, and tugged her into his arms, clutching her head to his chest.

His heart pounded quickly against her ear.

“I won’t let them near you, Kristina... and I won’t hurt you like that bastard did to your mother. You don’t have to run anymore. Just... let me protect you. I can take you somewhere you will be safe. I can protect you.”

Kristina relaxed against him and closed her eyes, feeling the truth in his words in her heart. Callum was different and she believed him when he said that he would keep her safe, and that he could keep her safe. He was strong enough. Not even her alpha would be able to stand up to him.

“So... you certainly weren’t wrong when you ordered enough food to feed a starving village.”

She frowned, drew back, and turned her scowl on him. He merely smiled, pushed a hank of her wavy hair behind her ear, and looked at the remaining food.

“What does it taste like?” he said with curiosity lighting his eyes as much as his smile.

“You mean you really can’t eat?”

He shook his head. “Like I said, not a sausage.”

It was her turn to smile and tease. “So how the hell am I supposed to tell you what food tastes like? You live on a blood only diet. Even if I said things like, salty, or spicy, or the sausage is scrummy because it has herbs to complement the pork... you wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”

He looked disappointed. “Can’t you at least try? I can’t ingest food but I know what some alcohol tastes like. Only sips though, or I end up craving more blood.”

Kristina stared at all the delicious food, wishing she was skilled enough with words to explain every subtle nuance of its taste and how it made her feel so Callum could experience it too. He’d had sips of alcohol. Did that mean he could taste things in liquid form? Solids would prove a problem for him so anything other than the orange juice was probably off the menu.

Unless.

She picked up a piece of bacon, stuffed it into her mouth, chewed on it a long time and then swallowed it and used her tongue to check that every morsel was gone.

Callum stared at the plate. Kristina moved onto her knees beside him, caught his cheek, brought his mouth around to hers and kissed him. It was worth a shot.

He delved his tongue into her mouth and moaned softly when she withdrew before he could get her motor revving again.

“Well?” she said and he looked blankly at her. “How did I taste?”

His dark eyebrows met in a frown. “Salty. See I can tell the difference. Oh.” He cracked a grin. “Wicked wicked girl. Eat something else.”

Was he trying to get her fat? She had already eaten enough food for a starving village as he had so carefully and kindly put it. She balanced on the brink of telling him to just lick the food himself or risk chewing it and then spitting it out, but the beautiful look of childish excitement on his face had her relenting. He picked up a plate of strawberries.

“Eat these. I want to know if they taste like that gloss I kissed off you last night. I know the smell of them, what they’re called, but I don’t know their real taste.” He took a plump round strawberry off the plate and shoved it at her. At least it was lower in calories than all the other food. Callum fixed that. He took it from her before she could bite into it, swirled it around in the chocolate sauce, and grinned as he returned it to her mouth. “Eat it now. I want to know what chocolate tastes like too.”

She bit into it, chewed and then swallowed. The moment it was gone from her mouth, Callum was kissing her, experiencing the delicious combination of chocolate and strawberry on her tongue. He didn’t stop there. He reached for a different food and Kristina found herself having to try a little piece of everything all over again so he could kiss her afterwards and comment on how she had tasted.

She had created a monster.

By the time they had tried everything, she was so full that she wanted a cat nap to sleep it off.

“We could order dinner,” Callum said and she covered his mouth with her hand and shook her head.

“I’m going to shower and never eat again. If I come out and find you’ve ordered more food, I will scream. Understand?”

He nodded.

She released his mouth.

He grinned at her.

“What if I helped you burn off the calories?”

Callum was insatiable. Not just in the bedroom, but when it came to food too. Each day he ordered different things from the hotel menu and insisted on feeding them to her. She had tried to convince him to just lick the food himself but he hadn’t gone for it. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Every meal was spent with him kissing her between bites.

And at the end of it, when all those kisses had wound her so tight inside that she had come close to bursting and jumping on him more than once, they made out like teenagers on the couch.

Almost a week had passed and she hadn’t dressed in all that time or left the suite. They had been together the whole time, learning about each other’s bodies and pasts, about things they had in common and things they felt completely the opposite about. Callum had only left her side once since her arrival at his hotel and she had missed him like crazy even though he had only been gone for little more than an hour in order to feed.

He had returned with a bag full of naughty things and a vodka bottle full of blood for her, offering it with a charming smile and a flourish as though it was a bottle of the finest Dom Perignon. Her stomach had growled so loud at the sight and smell of it that she had blushed a shade of red darker than the blood. She hadn’t thought to ask who it had come from or how the heck he had got it into the bottle. She had eagerly watched him pour it into two glasses and had swallowed hers in one gulp, causing Callum to laugh at her and refill it.

The sex they’d had after that had been as wild and hungry as their first time together.

The sound of water splashing into the tub brought her back to her present location. Candles cast a warm flickering glow around the normally austere white bathroom, filling it with the soothing scent of vanilla. Callum sat behind her in the immense corner tub with her between his long legs, his hands lazily running up and down her arms, occasionally dipping into the water and bringing the soapy suds up over her chest. He cupped her breasts, thumbing her nipples, and she relaxed against him.

It wasn’t the first time they had bathed together, but it was the first time they had lasted more than ten minutes without making out.

“This is nice,” she murmured and closed her eyes, running her hands over his muscular thighs where they pressed against hers and skimming her fingers over his knees. He laughed and wriggled. It had taken her only three days to discover his knees were ticklish. She had mercilessly abused the knowledge until he had realised that it only took the barest brush of his finger anywhere close to her armpit for her to burst into hysterical giggles and collapse in a heap.

“It is nice,” he echoed and softly kissed her shoulder. He felt relaxed on her senses and she was glad she wasn’t the only one enjoying just spending time together in this way. The sex was fantastic, she couldn’t get enough of him, but it was moments like this that were firmly becoming her favourite times with Callum.

She sighed and wrapped her hands under his thighs.

Did that mean what she feared it did?

Was she falling in love with him?

She barely knew him. Her heart said that didn’t matter. They had passed the most incredible week together and had shared so much in that time, opening to each other by degrees.

“Have you ever had a werewolf lover?” She stroked the underside of his thighs beneath the water, feeling the fine hairs on them and his strong sinewy muscles.

“Not before you. What about you?” He swept his lips over her shoulder again and moved his hands down to her stomach. She shivered when his fingertips brushed close to her groin and sighed as he moved away again. Tease.

Kristina laughed. “One or two.”

“Better than me?” He sounded so serious that she laughed again and he reprimanded her with a light tap against her stomach, sending waves rippling outwards from his arm. They broke against her knees above the waterline and bounced back against her.

“No.” She smiled. “You’re quite the catch. What about human lovers?”

“None.” He kissed the curve of her throat, his fingers tickling as he brushed aside the wet strands of her hair that stuck to her skin.

“Vampires?”

“Of course.”

She hesitated for a beat. “Do you have one at the moment?”

“No!” The hardness in that word as he snapped it close to her ear caused her to tense. Anger rippled across her senses, warning that she had offended him and was coming close to ruining this pleasant quiet moment between them. “Of course not. I’m not that sort of man, Kristina. I haven’t had a lover of any sort in a long time... definitely nothing serious since I started Vampirerotique with the others.”

“Vampirerotique?” Kristina leaned to one side and tried to look at him over her shoulder. “What’s that?”

“A theatre in London. We put on performances for vampire clientele... erotic shows.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “So that’s where you learned your tricks.”

She had wondered how he had learned to do some of the things that they had experienced together. He knew positions she had never realised were possible.

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t even watch the shows. I just scout for performers.”

“Is that what brought you to Paris?”

He nodded. “It was. I haven’t checked in since first setting eyes on you.”

“Oh, really?” Kristina turned in the tub, sending water sloshing back and forth, and came to kneel between his legs. She lifted her hand from the water and stroked his chest. Bubbly rivulets ran down from her fingertips, cascading over the honed peaks and valleys of his torso. He looked delicious all wet and soapy, his long black hair slicked back and his arms resting on the sides of the white tub, surrounded by flickering candlelight. Very decadent. The perfect appearance for an owner of a naughty club. “All this time you’ve had a mind for only business since starting some dirty theatre with your pals—”

“I assure you, it’s quite tasteful.”

“I bet. How long ago did you first open?”

“Around a century.” His eyelids drooped as she swirled her index fingers around his nipples and then flicked open again.

“That’s almost as old as I am.” She paused and stared at him. He had been running some naughty club for a century. That was a lot of time to spend around erotic acts and not watch them. If he sourced the performers, surely he would want to see that they turned out good and satisfied the crowd?

“So, in one hundred years, you’ve just had your mind on business... fixated on it... no time for little Cal to come out and play...” She ran her hand over his soft cock beneath the water and it twitched against her palm, rising under her caress. “And now you’ve gone AWOL?”

“Because of you,” he hissed from between his teeth and the cords of his neck tautened. “How old are you?”

“That’s not the important thing here. You really ditched work because of me?” She kept up her stroking, loving the pained look on Callum’s face as he tried to focus on speaking to her rather than what her hand was doing. His cock broke the surface of the water, rigid and eager, wet and glistening in the candlelight. Kristina found her concentration slipping, the temptation to move to kneel astride his hips and sink down onto his beautiful erection shattering it.

“I really did. I told you I couldn’t think straight and you drove me crazy.” He smiled tightly and then groaned and rubbed his cock against her palm. “I meant it.”

“Well, I’m flattered.” She shifted her hand to his chest, leaned in and kissed him long and slow. Callum pressed his hand to her shoulder and pushed her backwards.

“So how old are you?” He wasn’t letting that one go.

“One hundred and twelve.” Kristina sat back again and he raked his emerald eyes over her. They lingered on her breasts and then rose back to her face.

“Really. So young?”

She shrugged. “I look older. I hear that a lot. It’s the boobs.”

“You do have fantastic tits.” He cupped both of them in his cool hands and squeezed, his eyes darkening.

Kristina caught him under the chin and tipped his head up again to get his attention.

“How old are you?” she said.

“Mid five hundreds.” He said it as though it was nothing.

“You old fart,” she teased with a grin and he moved so fast she barely saw it. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her body against his, so their torsos pressed together, his rigid cock against her stomach, and kissed her. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub and broke against her bottom, waves rocking back and forth until they finally dwindled.

When he released her, she slumped against him, a little dizzy and tired from lack of air, but humming with satisfaction and heat.

“I didn’t hear you complaining earlier when you were bucking like a wild animal beneath me and screaming my name at the top of your lungs.” He grinned at her.

Kristina blushed. He had knelt in the middle of the large bed, holding her bottom high off it with her legs in the air, his hips pumping hard and fast, driving his cock into her while she lay helpless at a diagonal, breasts bouncing with each thrust. It had felt so damned good. The man could match her strength and passion, even took her beyond her limit sometimes, and each time it felt phenomenal.