Chapter 39: Just a Nipple
The scent of old paper and beeswax was usually a comfort. Today, it was a provocation. The castle drawing room, with its towering shelves and heavy velvet drapes, felt too vast, too quiet. Lucian was in the lower vaults, mediating a territorial dispute between two ancient barons.His absence was a physical weight in the room.
Sebastian, stretched out on a chaise longue with a centuries-old tome, looked the picture of indolent nobility. But Charlotte saw the restless tap of his finger against the leather binding, the way his emerald eyes kept flicking to the door.
“He’ll be hours,” she said, not looking up from the ledger she was supposedly updating.“You know how he gets with border logistics. It’s like watching a spider rebuild a web.”
Sebastian snapped the book shut. “Boring.Come here.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re counting tomes. The books aren’t going to rebel.Come. Here.”
His voice had dropped, that wolfish edge of command slipping through the casual request. It wasn’t a king’s command; it was a lover’s, and it unraveled something low in her belly. She put her quill down.She crossed the room, the thick carpet muffling her steps. Before she could reach him, he was off the chaise, closing the distance in a fluid motion. His hands found her waist, pulling her against him.“See? Not so hard.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love it.”
He kissed her then, and it was nothing like the tender sacrament of Lucian’s kiss the night before.This was hunger, immediate and grinning. His mouth was hot, his tongue sweeping past her lips to taste her. She gave as good as she got, her hands tangling in his fiery auburn hair, pulling just enough to make him groan into her mouth.
They stumbled back against the mahogany desk, sending a glass paperweight rattling. Sebastian lifted her, seating her on the edge amid a scatter of parchments. He stood between her legs, his lean body caging her in, his kisses descending to her throat, nipping at the sensitive skin where her pulse thrummed.She gasped, arching into him. “Sebastian…”
“Mmm?”
“We shouldn’t… not here…”
“Why?” He mouthed the word against her collarbone, his hands sliding up her thighs, pushing her simple skirts high. “Scared someone will see?Let them. Let them all see who you are.”
His words, his touch, the dangerous thrill of it—it melted her protest. This was their language, too. Not the silent, profound understanding she shared with Lucian, but a loud, joyful vandalism of propriety.She kissed him again, fierce and claiming.
In their fervor, they forgot. She forgot the slow, constant drain of her dhampir nature, the need for sustenance she’d neglected that morning in her restless mood. The adrenaline, the passion, the sheer force of his presence against her senses—it sharpened everything.
When he angled his head to kiss her deeper, she met him with equal fervor. Her smaller, pointed fangs, usually retracted and harmless, descended instinctively, a primal response to the rush of feeling.
She felt it the moment it happened.The subtle, shocking puncture. Not a deep bite, but a sharp, accidental prick against his lower lip.Sebastian froze.
Charlotte recoiled as if scalded, scrambling back on the desk, her hand flying to her mouth. A single, perfect bead of crimson welled on Sebastian’s full lip, a shocking jewel against his pale skin.“Oh, god. Sebastian, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” Panic, cold and slick, poured through her.Blood-sharing was the pinnacle of intimacy. It was trust, it was possession, it was a floodgate of sensation and connection she wasn’t sure she was ready to open again. The memory of her marking—the explosive, overwhelming pleasure-pain of their combined essences flowing into her—was both a beacon and a warning. “It was an accident, I forgot to drink this morning, I swear I wasn’t trying to—”
“Charlotte.” His voice was soft, but it cut through her rambling.He hadn’t moved. He simply watched her, his emerald eyes wide, the bead of blood swelling, then beginning a slow trail down his chin.“It’s fine,” she whispered, mortified.
“It’s not fine.” He stepped closer, back into the space between her legs. He caught her wrist, pulling her hesitant hand away from her face. “It’s perfect.”
Before she could protest, he did something that stole the breath from her lungs. He brought his bleeding lip to hers, smearing the warmth of his blood across her mouth. The scent, the taste—metallic, sweet, undeniably him—burst across her senses like a forbidden spice.
“Take it,” he murmured, his voice a low thrum of heat.“You’re hungry. Take what’s yours.”
The permission, the raw offering in his gaze, broke the last of her resistance. A soft, helpless sound escaped her as she leaned in, her tongue flicking out to taste him properly. As soon as her tongue made contact, a jolt went through her, a spark that connected directly to her core.Her eyes fluttered shut.Sebastian let out a ragged groan. “Fuck, yes.That’s it.”
He tilted his head, giving her better access. She laved the small wound, drinking the scant, potent offering, each swallow sending warm tendrils of pleasure spiraling through her limbs.It was nothing like the torrent of the marking ceremony. This was a sip of fine wine instead of the whole bottle, but it was enough to light a fire in her blood. Her own need, sharper now, pulsed between her legs.
When she pulled back, panting, her vision was slightly blurred, her senses heightened.Sebastian’s eyes were dark with pupils blown wide.
“Better?” he asked, his thumb stroking her cheek.She nodded, wordless.
“My turn.”
He kissed her again, but this was different.This was deliberate. His tongue swept into her mouth, tasting his own blood on her, a dizzying feedback loop of intimacy. Then she felt the subtle, thrilling pressure of his own fangs—longer, sharper—descending. He traced them along her lower lip, a promise and a threat.
“Please,” she breathed, the word leaving her before she could cage it.He didn’t ask twice. His bite was precise, expert. A sharp, clean puncture at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, away from the major vessels but rich with sensation. The pain was a bright, shocking flare, gone in an instant, drowned under the wave of pure, undiluted ecstasy that followed.It was electric. It was molten. It shot from the point of connection straight to her clit, making her cry out and buck against him.Her hands clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into the fine fabric of his shirt.
Sebastian drank, deep, pulling pulls that echoed through her entire nervous system. Each draw was a pull on the string of her pleasure, coiling it tighter, brighter. She could feel his enjoyment through the bond, a dark, sensual satisfaction that mirrored her own escalating arousal.
“Sebastian… I can’t… it’s too much…” she sobbed, overwhelmed.
He released her neck with a soft, wet sound, licking the twin wounds closed. His face was flushed with her life, his lips stained a faint pink. “It’s never enough,” he growled, his hands finally moving to the heart of her need. He shoved her underwear aside, his fingers finding her soaked, swollen flesh.“Look at you.Dripping for me. For us.”
He plunged two fingers inside her without preamble, curling them perfectly. She screamed, her head falling back.The blood-sharing had hypersensitized every nerve ending. The stretch of his fingers, the rough pad of his thumb circling her clit—it was all magnified, a symphony of sensation conducted by his touch.“That’s it, my heart. Come on my fingers,” he urged, his own breath hot against her ear. “Let me feel you.”
She was already hurtling towards the edge, the coil wound impossibly tight. His words, the filthy, possessive tone, pushed her over. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and stunning, clenching around his fingers as she shook apart against him.White light flashed behind her eyelids.
Before the last tremor had even faded, Sebastian was unfastening his trousers, freeing his erection, thick and ruddy with her borrowed life. He was beyond words now, a creature of pure need. He hooked his hands under her thighs, yanking her to the very edge of the desk.
“Look at me,” he demanded, and her storm-gray eyes, hazy with pleasure, locked onto his. He pushed into her with one relentless thrust, filling her completely, a stretch that bordered on pain but was utterly consumed by pleasure.
“Oh, god!” she cried out, her body still thrumming from her climax, hypersensitive to this new invasion.
“Mine,” he grunted, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in.The desk shuddered with the force. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she gasped, the truth of it undeniable in this raw, physical form.
“Fucking mine.” He set a brutal, punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting through her, hitting a spot deep inside that made her see stars. The sound of skin on skin, their ragged breaths, the creak of the old wood—it was a raw, obscene music. Books and scrolls cascaded to the floor, forgotten.
He bent her backward over the desk, changing the angle, going deeper still. One hand gripped her hip hard enough to bruise, the other tangled in her chocolate curls, holding her in place for his thrusts. She was completely at his mercy, a vessel for his passion, and the surrender was its own intoxicating power.
She felt another orgasm building, a slower, deeper wave this time, fueled by the relentless piston of his hips and the illicit thrill of their location. “Sebastian, I’m going to—”
“Come,” he ordered, his voice guttural. “Come all over my cock.”
The command, so crude and absolute, shattered her. She came with a broken scream, her body convulsing around him, milking him.The sensation was too much for him. With a final, savage thrust, he buried himself to the hilt, his own release pulsing hot inside her. He shouted her name, a raw sound that echoed off the high ceiling.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their heaving breaths. He slumped over her, his forehead resting against her shoulder, his body still trembling with aftershocks.Slowly, carefully, he withdrew, catching her as she sagged. He held her against his chest, his hands now gentle, stroking her back.
“Alright?” he murmured into her hair.She nodded against him, her body humming, satiated, thoroughly claimed.
The door to the drawing room opened.
Lucian stood in the threshold, his dark form framed by the torchlight from the hall. He took in the scene: the scattered documents, the overturned chair, the two of them disheveled and clinging to each other, the scent of sex and blood hanging thick in the air.His molten gold eyes softened.A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. “I see my consort has been… entertaining our mate.”
Sebastian didn’t move, just tightened his hold on Charlotte.“We were discussing literature. It got passionate.”
Lucian stepped inside, shutting the door quietly behind him. He approached, his regal composure a stark contrast to their debauchery. He stopped before them, his gaze traveling from Sebastian’s blood-flecked chin to Charlotte’s bruised lips and thoroughly ruffled state.
“The border dispute,” Lucian said, his voice a low hum, “is resolved. It seems I have returned to a different sort of tension.” He reached out, a cool finger tracing the fresh bite marks on Charlotte’s shoulder. “One that, I think, requires my immediate attention.”