27. Karmen

27

KARMEN

H is mouth opened immediately, inviting me inside. His tongue stroked mine and then the roof of my mouth, finding the place where my fangs dropped.

Fireballs exploded in my brain as he pressed the tip of tongue against those tiny holes. My fingers spasmed, digging into his shoulder. My breath whooshed out against his mouth. My back arched, pushing our lower bodies together. His cock glided between my legs, but he didn't shove deep.

In fact, he seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever to re-enact the scene for which I'd asked.

Still pressing his tongue against the roof of my mouth, he caressed my throat and shoulder. Then palmed my breast, lightly rubbing his thumb back and forth over the hardened tip. The sensation made my muscles twitch. I moaned into his mouth, trying to tell him to hurry, but my brain didn't want to work. Every time I concentrated on his bond, he probed deeper or increased the pressure of his hand gliding down my body, and the words disintegrated into nothing.

No, that wasn't true. Nothing would be an absence. This was pure, agonizing bliss of everything, all at once, exploding through my senses.

His fingers tickled their way lower on my stomach. Lightly tracing my belly button. Dipping between my legs. As if he had all eternity, he explored every hollow that he could reach without releasing my mouth. The crease of my inner thighs. The outer lips of my pussy. I could feel the slip and slide of his fingers, and it shocked me. Thrilled me.

I'd never been wet like this before. Though maybe it was blood.

:It's not,: he assured me. :Though again, I wouldn't mind if it was. This is what desire should feel like when it feels good.:

Even his words were a caress deep inside me where no one had ever touched before. The lazy, confident purring tone of a man who knew he was driving me insane—and loved every minute of it.

:Does it feel good, Karmen, my queen?:

:Too good,: I retorted, only half joking. We'd barely started, and I was embarrassingly desperate and eager to feel him moving inside me.

:Then this will eliminate any doubts in your mind about how good sex can and should be.:

He nudged a part of my body that evidently Ra had never known existed. Bolts of lightning tore through my entire body. My legs quivered. My heart pounded. Everything in my body suddenly tightened with extreme focus, spiraling down to that one spot. The slow swirl of his thumb. His finger pressing inside me. Not hurried or fumbling or hesitant in the slightest. Slow and sure, as if he knew exactly what would send me soaring.

Toward an explosion of epic proportion.

The spiraling tightened, a coil clenching and twisting harder. Threatening to detonate my entire body. I hovered on the verge of something momentous. Tottering on the very edge of a towering cliff, staring out into the wide-open blue sky. Endless deep blue waters below. Not a cloud in the sky. No sun. Nothing to catch me. Nothing to impede a free fall through a portal to a new existence.

Or stop me from plummeting to my death in darkness.

:I'm here with you,: he whispered. :It's safe to fly, Karmen, my queen. It's safe to jump. Because I will always catch you.:

I let myself fall. For one heart-stopping moment, I hung over an abyss. I couldn't see with my eyes. I wasn't even sure that I was still in the human world. I might have broken through to some new dimension I hadn't even known existed. Fire licked around the darkness like after-flares of an explosion. Flares of solar energy bulged up like molten fingers from the infinite boiling sun. Such power could destroy the entire world. If I slipped…

Sunzi tethered me, an anchor to bring me back into my body. Every muscle cramped with sensation. It took my brain a moment to interpret the stimuli. Pain? Burns? Or was it pleasure? We didn't know. We'd never felt it before.

So it definitely wasn't pain.

Heat pulsed through my core, bringing my focus to his hand, still cupping my pussy. His fingers inside me, stroking another burning wave to crash over me. Dragging me back down to the depths, only to cast me back up to the cliff heights again. It felt like the waves went on forever but perhaps it was only minutes. Though sweat dampened my hair, clinging to my forehead and throat.

My lungs seared as if my sunfires had burned through all the oxygen in the atmosphere.

He turned his head slightly, slanting his mouth over mine with a subtle shift of intention. Not aggressive—but hungrier. Or perhaps that was my rising need filtering through our bond. I'd fed barely an hour ago, but flames licked through my veins, insisting I needed to taste him again. Now. Though the press of his tongue kept my fangs from descending.

I fisted one hand in his hair, my other gripping his shoulder, pulling him, willing him closer. :Sunzi.:

I felt the slight smile of his lips against mine. :Karmen, my queen?:

:If I don't taste you again soon, I might die.:

The teasing quirk of his lips disappeared, along with the firm pressure on the roof of my mouth. He started to lift his head, pulling back to allow me to feed, but I didn't want him further away. I wanted him right here. Right now.

I'm not even sure how I accomplished the feat, but I twisted my hands and rolled onto my back, effortlessly pulling him with me so he lay on top of me. Despite my tight grip in his hair, he managed to lift his head enough that I saw the flare of surprise in his eyes. But then I had my fangs buried in the side of his throat. His blood filled my mouth, stoking the fire higher. I rocked my hips up against his. Like a perfect magical puzzle, he slid into me like he belonged.

He didn't move for long moments, as if determined to simply give me every drop of his blood. Though now that I had a taste of pleasure, I wanted that too. More. Both.

He made a low, ragged sound I couldn't decipher, and his bond was no help. Just a shining red-hot river winding through my mind. Though that was answer enough. He burned, too. He needed and wanted me as much as I wanted him. But he was determined to allow me time to adjust to this new intimacy, even if he expired of pent-up lust.

Which made me want to laugh again, though with his throat against my lips, it came out a ragged moan like his.

I loosened my fierce grip on his hair so I could run my hands down his back. Reveling in the feel of him against me. The glide of muscle, the silky heat of his skin. I cradled him between my thighs, inside my body, heart to heart. His blood on my tongue.

:I want to feel what it's like to give you pleasure and my blood at the same time.:

His entire body quivered against mine. :The taste of your blood alone would push me over the edge.:

My hands stroked down over his buttocks. :Good.:

Those firm, round muscles tightened and flexed beneath my palms as he pulled back enough for a slow, controlled thrust. My thighs trembled around his hips, my entire body arching up to take him deeper. Pressure built inside me, but it wasn't pain. Only the bliss of friction between our flesh, the glide and pull as he moved. Rocked. His breathing was louder, labored despite the careful way he thrust.

:I'm not going to break,: I reminded him. :And you still haven't bitten me.:

The fierce grip he retained on himself cracked ever so slightly. He shoved a little harder before catching himself with a low, warning growl. :I'm trying to do this right for you, my queen.:

A sound came out of my throat that I'd never imagined I'd be capable of making in a million years. A sultry rumble of a purr that somehow managed to convey both lust and pleading. :It's safe to fly, Sunzi, my love. This time, I'll catch you.:

SUNZI

The rare and precious intimacy of her mind inside mine. My name in her bond. Her love. How could I ever deny her anything, let alone when I wanted her so badly?

The low, slumberous rumble from her throat pushed me toward insanity. I wanted her delicate skin in my mouth. Her pulse on my tongue. Her blood burning down my throat, lighting me up like a bonfire. Our goddesses saw fit to give me a new life at my queen's side with fangs meant for biting and feeding for reason. If I could give her even more pleasure, then I would beg to bite her a million times again.

My lips pulled back, exposing fangs to the air. Agonizing ecstasy, for a split moment of exposure, then exquisite pressure against her throat before piercing her silken skin. The hot rush of blood into my mouth, joyous and ripe with her magic. Not even the blazing swelter of Heliopolis' sun compared to the sweet heat in her blood.

Nothing had ever tasted so good. Felt so good.

Now add the tight, wet heat of her body sucking me down to the deepest depths of the ocean. The knowledge that she fed on me too. She tasted me and was equally devastated with overwhelming sensation. Need. Hunger. But most of all, love.

A fiery fist shoved through my chest, punched deep in my gut, and exploded. All my careful control dissipated into savage thrusts that rocked us both toward oblivion. Flaming rings of sunfires engulfed us, one after another, as if we were jumping from this location to another. Places I didn't recognize. Infinite darkness, then searing white cold. Rough bark against my palms. Snow and ice so cold it burned. A musty scent I couldn't identify, though it made the hairs prickle on my nape. In the distance, Cinnabar screamed out a neigh of warning.

Then the rattling growl of a rabid wolf.

I bared my teeth though I didn't need to snarl in warning. No wolf would ever harm my queen. Let alone him .

Another rolling wave of sunfire flames crashed over me, grinding me into dust. No. That was me, grinding my queen beneath me with a vicious grunt of effort. I gripped her delicate throat as if I could open my jaws and swallow her whole. Before I could even think to temper my response, she bit me again. The sharp strike ratcheted me further over the edge.

I came apart with a roar that rattled all the glass in the room. My skull throbbed, my heart thundered, every muscle straining with release. Magic hung thick in the air, her blood glowing like red-gold coals against her throat and the bedding. The sight and smell of her blood made another pulse of climax blow the top of my head off. I rubbed my face against her, smearing blood, tasting with both my mouth and skin.

I could happily wear her blood and nothing else.

Panting, I slowly regained my senses. My face buried in the curve of her throat, her hair like silk, her blood still on my tongue. I couldn't stop twitching. Let alone lift my head or remove my weight off her so she could breathe.

I'd seen her suffer beneath Ra. The thought that she might be uncomfortable, afraid, desperate to get away?—

"I'm fine," she whispered in my ear, hugging me closer. "I love your weight. I've never felt safer than when I'm with you. Especially when you're on top of me."

With her arms around me, her thighs cradling me, perhaps I was still high on her blood and euphoria, but I found myself gasping out, "I've never felt safer either, my queen."

She laughed. A high, bright sound that spread like the break of day after a long, grim night. "I'm glad I didn't scare you. How did you know to press your tongue against where my fangs drop down?"

I tried to lift my head but all I could do was groan. "I'd prefer to claim formidable instinct but must confess it was embarrassingly accidental."

"Definitely formidable instincts." Her breath tickled my ear, the brush of her warm lips driving me mad again. Not that I could do more than twitch in her arms. "Now that I've got a taste of you, I'm going to want you again and again."

I finally managed to lift my head so I could see the soft glow in her eyes. I brushed her hair off her face and checked my bite to make sure it wasn't still bleeding. "If I may make a suggestion, my queen?"

"Karmen," she reminded me, her lips quirking. "Of course."

"The best war tactic often requires the deployment of multiple spears to achieve your desired target, Karmen, my queen. May I remind you that you have several very fine and talented spears at your disposal?"

"Oh, really? I wasn't sure that my spears would be interested in?—"

I didn't have to turn my head to know the door swung open to admit Antonius and the Impaler, already tossing their clothes like they'd caught on fire.

Though Vlad was the first to dive for the bed. "We thought you'd never ask."