Chapter 9: A Game of Feet and Fangs
The jet’s engines were a deep, rhythmic thrum beneath the luxury, a vibration felt more than heard through the polished wood and leather. Twenty minutes into the flight, the cabin had settled into a charged quiet.Caspian scrolled through his phone, the glow highlighting the sharp planes of his face. Seraphina pretended to study the blank page of the sketchbook—Leo’s sketchbook—resting in her lap, her charcoal pencil idle.
The intercom crackled to life, a human voice tinny against the vampiric silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached cruising altitude.We expect another hour of smooth air before descent into London. You are free to move about the cabin.”
Caspian looked up from his screen just as Seraphina’s gaze lifted from the book.Their eyes met over the spine of the sketchpad. No words, just the leftover electricity from the hotel suite, from the shower, from his mouth between her legs on the tarmac. A mischievous fire flickered in both of their eyes, a silent acknowledgement of the unsated hunger that still hummed between them.
“I believe I was first in the shower,” Caspian said, his voice a low murmur that cut through the engine noise. He slid his stockinged foot from his loafer and pressed it against the smooth skin of her exposed calf.
She kicked his foot away, not gently, and closed the sketchbook with a definitive snap. “You believe wrong, Lord Caspian.” She met his gaze head-on, her violet eyes dark and challenging. “I believe those marks on your neck tell a different story.”
He let his eyes drift from hers, down to the pale column of her throat, to the subtle, healing punctures just above her collar bone—his marks.A slow, predatory smile touched his lips, his own fangs just visible. “It tells a story of your failed attempt to make me submit to you.”
She leaned forward, placing the sketchbook on the seat beside her. “Well, there is no time like the present.”
“You are insatiable.”
“So are you.”
In one fluid motion, he was up. He didn’t round the table between them; he simply vaulted over it, landing with preternatural grace in the space of her seat, caging her in. The scent of him—crisp linen, whiskey, and that cold autumn-night essence—flooded her senses. She didn’t shrink back.She tilted her chin up, a queen on a crimson velvet throne.
“Move,” she commanded, but her hand was already on his chest, fingers splaying over the fine cotton of his shirt.
“Make me,” he breathed, dipping his head to brush his lips against the very marks he’d mentioned.His tongue traced one, a hot, wet stripe that made her breath hitch. “You tasted my arrogance.Let me taste your defiance again. Properly.”
Her hand fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer even as she said, “You’ll get a mouthful of rebellion, and you’ll choke on it.”
He laughed, a dark, thrilling sound, and captured her mouth with his. This wasn’t the bruising kiss from the hotel; this was slower, deeper, a deliberate exploration that was no less possessive. He tasted of her, of the blood they’d shared, of a promise that felt terrifyingly like a beginning. Her fingers tangled in his golden hair, pulling him closer, swallowing his groan.He broke the kiss, breathing ragged. “This seat is too small.”
“Then move us.”
He did. In a blur of motion, he had her up, her back against the mahogany paneling beside the broad, sleeping berth.The cold wood seeped through her thin dress. He pressed against her, all hard muscle and relentless intent, his hands sliding down to grip her thighs. He hoisted her up, and she locked her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back.
“No submission,” she panted against his ear, then bit the lobe, sharp and quick.
He growled, thrusting against the core of her, the layers of silk between them a maddening barrier. “Just fusion,” he corrected, and his mouth found her neck again, not to feed, but to brand. He sucked hard, knowing the pale skin would bruise into a perfect, dark violet blossom—his signature.She gasped, arching into him, chasing the friction. One of his hands left her thigh, fumbling with the intricate buttons at the back of her dress. “Rip it,” she urged, her voice guttural. “I’ll buy another.”
He didn’t rip it. With inhuman patience and dexterity, he worked each tiny button free, his other hand holding her firm against the wall.The dress loosened, sagging from her shoulders. He pushed the fabric down, baring her to the waist. The cool cabin air pebbled her skin, but his gaze was hotter than any flame.
He dipped his head, taking a peaked nipple into his mouth, his fangs grazing the sensitive flesh with dangerous precision. A cry tore from her throat, her head thudding back against the wood. The sensation was a lightning bolt of pleasure-pain, a direct line to the ache between her legs.
“Caspian,” she breathed, a plea and a curse woven together.
He lifted his head, his eyes glowing with a faint, emerald hunger.“Say it again.”
Before she could, a slight turbulence jolted the jet. He held her steady, never letting her go, but the moment shifted. The raw urgency softened into something else, a tense and palpable awareness. They were suspended between continents, between their old lives and whatever this was becoming.The games were dissolving, and what was left felt dangerously real.
Slowly, he lowered her until her feet touched the floor. He kept her pinned against the wall, studying her face—the flushed cheeks, the swollen lips, the dazed triumph in her eyes. He gently brushed the fallen hair from her face.
“When we land,” he said, his voice rough but quiet, “this doesn’t end with the car door.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration that hung in the perfumed air.
Seraphina reached up, tracing the line of his jaw where her fist had connected in Paris. “No,” she agreed softly, a terrifying finality in the word. “It doesn’t.”
Outside, the first lights of the English coast began to wink in the gathering dark below, a thousand pinpricks beckoning them toward a future they had both tried to escape. Here, in the dim cabin, they were just two predators who had finally found a match, circling each other with the understanding that the real hunt was only just beginning.
Here, in the dim cabin, they were just two predators who had finally found a match, circling each other with the understanding that the real hunt was only just beginning. That fragile tension shattered the moment Caspian’s hands slid down her bare waist to the bunched silk of her dress around her hips.He didn’t ask. He simply gripped her thighs, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, and pushed. He spread her legs wide, maneuvering her away from the wall and guiding her back until her knees hooked over the edges of the plush armrests of a wide seat. The cool velvet was a shock against the backs of her thighs. She was utterly exposed, the cabin air and his hungry gaze on the most intimate part of her.
“Look at you,” he rasped, kneeling on the floor between her open knees. “So fucking ready for me.” He traced a single finger through her wetness, his emerald eyes locked on hers as he brought it to his lips. He tasted her, his tongue sweeping over his fingertip, and a low groan vibrated in his chest. “Even sweeter than I remembered.”
“Stop talking,” Seraphina hissed, her back arching, needing more than his teasing observation.He obeyed. Caspian buried his head between her legs, his mouth hot and demanding on her cunt. There was no gentle exploration, only immediate, devastating purpose. His tongue lashed her clit, flat and rough, before he sucked the sensitive bud hard into his mouth. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound swallowed by the engine’s hum. His hands slid under her ass, lifting her, adjusting the angle to plunge his tongue deeper inside her.
He fucked her with his tongue, deep and rhythmically, before pulling back to swirl and suck again. The scrape of his fangs against her inner thighs sent jolts of dangerous pleasure through her. “Yes, right there, you bastard,” she gasped, her fingers clutching at his golden hair, not to guide but to hold on.
“You taste like victory,” he growled against her, the words vibrating through her core. His nose pressed into her as his tongue worked her over, filthy and thorough.He was relentless, a man starving, and she was the feast. The pressure coiled tight, a spring wound beyond bearing. She tugged his hair, trying to pull him closer, to force him to stay exactly there forever.
He added a finger, then two, curling them inside her as his mouth never left her clit. The dual sensation, the raw, obscene sound of his mouth on her, the sight of his aristocratic head between her thighs—it broke her. Her climax ripped through her, a silent, wrenching wave that tore a scream from her throat she didn’t recognize. Her body convulsed, back bowing off the seat, her thighs clamping around his head as she pulsed around his fingers.
He didn’t let up, licking and sucking her through the violent shudders, drawing out every last tremor until she was a trembling, boneless heap against the velvet.Only then did he pull back, his chin glistening with her. He looked up at her, breathing heavily, his own need etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“My turn,” he said, his voice wrecked. He stood, unbuckling his trousers with frantic hands. He freed his cock, thick and straining, and guided it to her still-throbbing entrance.“Look at me,” he commanded, and she forced her heavy lids open.
He pushed inside her in one brutal, perfect thrust, filling her completely. The sound that left her was pure, gutted relief. He held there, buried to the hilt, his body trembling with the effort of control.“Fuck, Seraphina,” he choked out.Then he moved. He set a punishing pace, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. Each thrust was a claim, each groan from his lips a surrender. She met him, lift for lift, her nails scoring down his shirted back. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, their ragged breaths, the relentless drive of his hips.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded, his rhythm faltering.“Never,” she gasped, even as her body clenched around him, pulling him deeper.
It was the wrong answer, and it drove him wild. He gripped her hips, his fingers sure to leave bruises, and fucked her harder, deeper, his own release building. She felt it in the tightening of his muscles, in the ragged curse he bit into her shoulder. The new, sharper angle brushed a spot inside her that made her see stars. A second, darker orgasm began to spiral, tightening low in her belly.
“Caspian,” she warned, her voice a shattered thing.He understood. “Come with me,” he ordered, and it was the only command she would ever obey from him.He thrust once, twice more, and the coil snapped. Her inner walls fluttered wildly around him, milking his own release as he shouted, spilling himself inside her with a final, grinding pulse. He collapsed over her, his weight anchoring her to the earth, to this moment, as they both fell apart.