Twilight’s shadowy fingers had spread across the Commons by the time Marco’s key wiggled in the lock. I’d watched the encroaching darkness envelope the white blanket of midwinter snow. Lights flickered to life. Cars crawled down traffic-filled streets. And above it, I sat on the sofa inside the peaceful sanctuary of Marco’s penthouse with Sophie purring in my lap.
My body ached. It hurt to breathe. But more than anything, I was emotionally raw. I’d had nightmares since I’d regained consciousness three days ago. The screech of tires and white metal… The flash of a gun and its loud crack… I’d woken up multiple times in a panic. But Marco had been there each time to hold me and wipe away the tears, his calm, comforting presence an anchor amid the turmoil of my trauma.
Keys clattered against the entry table followed by the rustling of clothes. He was removing his coat and suit jacket and rolling up his shirtsleeves, his nightly ritual. He crossed our living room to where I sat with Sophie.
Our living room. In classic Marco fashion, he’d refused to let me go back to my condo after the hospital discharged me. When we arrived at Terme di Boston, my clothes were already in his closet, and Sophie was curled up on his bed.
Cigar smoke, leather, and the heat of his body surrounded me, an embrace of safety and belonging I’d forever tie to Marco. He laid his hands on my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “Ciao, amore mio.”
He dismantled the messy bun piled on top of my head, something he’d become fond of doing over the past couple days, and my hair fell past my shoulders. He ran his fingers through it, and I closed my eyes, relishing the tingle of the strands pulling on my scalp.
“How are you?” I asked, not daring to turn and risk twisting my broken ribs and causing myself more pain.
He bent down and whispered in my ear. “Now that I’m with you? È tutto perfetto.”
Warmth spread across my neck and down my spine, and for a moment, I forgot about my broken ribs. I leaned back to look up at him and pain lanced my side. I winced, hissing on a sharp intake of breath. “Ow,” I whined and resumed my safe position.
He walked around the end of the couch and sat next to me, concern breaking through the determined set to his brow and jaw. “You’re hurting.”
“Getting hit by a car will do that.”
He grunted and narrowed his eyes. “You want to be with me.”
“I do, but you already know that.”
“Even knowing what it means. Outliving your family and friends, watching them fade. Moving every few decades. Living with a Mafia Don.”
“At least you admit it, now.” I gave him an arch look.
“I’m serious, Anna,” he grumbled.
“Fine,” I said, exasperated. “Yes. I want to be with you even knowing what it means.”
“You’re sure.”
“Cross my heart, hope to die…”
“Don’t joke like that,” he warned, and his eyes sparkled red.
“So serious,” I whined.
“This is serious.”
“I know, but I already told you. I choose you. Which means I choose whatever life I need to choose to have you. I need you to believe—really believe—I’m strong enough to handle that choice.”
The corner of his mouth twitched like it wanted to smile and he wouldn’t let it. He picked up a section of my hair and spun it around his finger. “Of course, you’re strong enough. I should have known better than to doubt you.” He kissed my forehead, and the touch of his soft lips sent prickles of pleasure skittering across my skin. “I can ease your pain.” The offer held a world of promise. Another kiss. “If you let me.”
We stared into each other’s eyes, finally at our crossroads. After this, our lives would be irrevocably changed. Our commitment to one another would start with me at his wrist and him at my neck, and there would be no turning back.
I didn’t feel an ounce of anxiety. No sweaty palms. No doubt. No fear. Just unshakable certainty that this was right, that he was right. Life, even the short life of a human, wasn’t worth living without Marco.
“I love you.”
His eyelids fluttered closed as if he needed to give my words time to settle in his body, to let himself feel the weight of their truth. When he opened them, fire streaked through their obsidian depths.
He threaded his fingers into my hair and held my gaze with crimson intensity. “Ti amo, mia bellissima Anna. Sei il mio cuore. Sei la mia anima. I love you, my beautiful Anna. You are my heart. You are my soul.”
Tendrils of fire spread to encompass his irises, and he lifted his wrist to his mouth. His lips parted, and his eye teeth descended, their tips elongating and sharpening until they extended an inch beyond his upper jaw. He slashed his wrist with the tip of one fang, and it cut like a razor. Blood pooled at the wound and trailed down his muscled forearm.
He held his wrist to my mouth, and my eyes followed the red stream down his arm. “Drink,” he said, low and demanding.
Curious and alive with anticipation, I ran my tongue along the trail of blood, starting at his elbow and ending at the clean slash across his wrist. I lapped the thick liquid into my mouth, and it coated my tongue, its metallic bite unmistakable. I’d expected my instincts to rebel, to shiver with revulsion and gag, but his warm, sweet blood slid down my throat without issue or hesitation.
Marco stared at my mouth, transfixed, and his eyes glowed with unbridled need. He nodded, encouraging me, and I looked back down at his wrist. I ran my tongue over the wound, licking the blood pooled there before closing my lips over the slash.
I drank.
He groaned at the first pull, a primal, masculine sound heavy with satisfaction. More of his sweet nectar coated my mouth, and I relished its taste and the warmth of it traveling down my throat with each decadent swallow. I couldn’t get enough. I pulled harder, filling my mouth with Marco’s blood and holding his wrist in place, ravenous for more.
He squeezed his hand in my hair and pulled me off his wrist. “Enough,” he growled.
I gasped for air.
Heightened awareness bombarded my senses. The room looked sharper, and Marco’s breath roared like the ocean. The pain in my sides dulled with each heartbeat, and my muscles tingled with vitality.
Inside the blazing inferno of his eyes, Marco’s dilated pupils held me in place. He lifted his wrist to his lips and swiped his tongue across the wound. The slash closed, leaving a faint red impression that faded as quickly as the pain in my ribs.
I licked the remains of his blood from my lips, overwhelmed by my senses and panting from the power surging through my veins. His breath came fast and heavy, and his eyes trailed down to my neck, his grip tightening in my hair.
Heat shot to the space between my legs in anticipation of his fangs sinking into my neck and fulfilling the fantasy I’d yearned for since the gala. He slid his hand around my back and pulled me close. His jaw muscle twitched, a silent struggle to contain his passion. He lowered his head, and I shoved my hands into his hair, urging him on his path to my blood. He traced my artery with his tongue, and his chest rumbled with satisfaction.
I sucked in a breath, my clit and breasts swelling with unknown need. He closed his mouth over my neck and sucked, drawing my artery and blood toward his mouth. He released me, his heavy breath hot in my ear. “Do you want this, Anna? Tell me you want this. I need to hear it one last time.”
“Yes. Marco. I want this. I want you.”
My throaty plea barely escaped my lips before Marco’s fangs pierced my neck.
I gasped at the stab of pain, but the shock of his bite was immediately replaced by a rush of pleasure. Warmth radiated out from where his fangs penetrated my flesh. It spread down my neck and across my shoulders, following the path of his venom through my veins.
He closed his lips around the wound and drank, sucking blood from my neck and wrenching a groan from my lungs. With each pull, the venom spread, and the remaining pain and tension in my body vanished, replaced by euphoria. He tightened his grip, holding my relaxed body in place, and I gave over to the sensation of his feeding.
Heat spread and surged through my body, and every nerve ending tingled, hypersensitive to even the slightest touch. His fingertips danced across my skin from my back to my front, and when he ran his thumb over my nipple, I gasped and arched my back begging for more.
“Marco,” I sighed, dazed and dizzy. He’d barely touched me, and already I was on the verge of something spectacular. “Please. I need you inside me. I need you to love me.”
He released my neck, his lips trailing lightly across my sensitive flesh. My chest heaved with panting breath, and my heart pounded with raging desire. He licked the wound and lifted me off the couch and into his arms. I ran my fingertips over his lips, swollen from feeding, and marveled at their beauty. He shivered and set me on my feet next to his bed.
“How do you feel?” He pulled my T-shirt over my head and brought my hair forward, laying it across my shoulders.
“Strong. Alive.”
He ran his hands down my sides, hooked his thumbs around the waistband of my thong, and pulled it down to my ankles in one leisurely motion before trailing his hands along my legs on his way back up. He towered over my naked body, and I lifted my eyes to meet his hungry gaze.
“Unbelievably horny,” I finished.
His chest rumbled with laughter and a rare smile blessed his handsome face.
“I waited almost a century to drink from a woman whose blood was destined for my lips and my lips alone. I want to spend my eternity tasting only you.”
He pressed his lips to mine, kissing me softly, tenderly, in a way that conveyed all the love in his promise.
“Consuming only you.”
He kissed me again, this time using his tongue to make love to my mouth with slow, gentle strokes.
“Loving only you.”
He trailed his lips along my jaw to the other side of my neck.
“Worshipping every inch of your body. Here.” One of his fangs glided across my skin. He didn’t bite, but closed his mouth around where his tongue stroked my neck. Heat pooled between my legs.
The soft touch of his lips and the sharp edge of his fangs moved down my shoulder and past my chest until he reached my breasts.
“Here.” He teased my nipple with his fang, pulled it into his mouth, and sucked. The shock of desire was so intense, I grabbed his shoulders to steady myself.
“Here.” His kisses moved to the other nipple, and his fang broke skin when he dragged my sensitive peak between his teeth. Liquid fire sped through my breast, making it burn with need. I pinched and tugged on my other nipple wanting to mimic the feel of his teeth, and a deep, delicious ache traveled down my spine. I shifted my weight, my need to feel him inside me almost unbearable, and my arousal dripped onto the inside of my thigh.
He continued his sensual torment, trailing his lips, tongue, and fangs down my stomach until he knelt before me. He kissed me, just above my naked pussy, and my breath quickened. He looked up, eyes blazing demonic red, fangs extended just past his bottom lip.
“And here.” He dipped his tongue between my folds and dragged it from my entrance to my clit. He closed his lips over my pulsing sex and pulled it into his mouth caressing it with his tongue.
“More,” I breathed and shoved my hands into his thick, wavy hair. I pressed him closer. “More.”
He released me, draped my leg over his shoulder, and kissed the inside of my thigh from my knee to where my wetness had spread onto my leg. He licked my pleasure from my thigh, and a slow rumble of contentment vibrated through his shoulder into my leg.
“You taste as good as your blood.”
His hands closed around my hips, and he pulled me to his mouth. He swept the flat of his tongue up and down the length of my seam, moving in steady strokes until I was drenched. The venom leaking from his fangs tingled where it touched, intensifying the erotic sensations of his expert tongue. He covered my clit with his mouth and sucked in a slow, rhythmic way that made it feel like he was feeding, and I came apart.
My orgasm sent waves of pleasure crashing through my body, each pulse tearing long breathy sighs from my lungs. My fingers tightened in his hair, and my legs shook, nearly giving out, but he held me in place, hands squeezing my hips like a vise.
I descended to Earth from my physical nirvana, and he lifted my leg off his shoulder and stood. I staggered under my own weight, delirious with feeling, but he steadied me. He ran a hand down his face, swiping my wetness from his mouth, and unbuckled his pants.
I swayed as if drugged, lightheaded from the sweet aftermath of my first orgasm under the influence of his blood and his bite. With heavy-lidded eyes, I watched the most darkly beautiful man I’d even known undress.
He stood before me in boxer briefs, and I couldn’t resist touching him. I ran my palms up his thick, muscled torso to his neatly trimmed chest hair, trailed my fingertips across his broad shoulders, and clasped my hands behind his neck, pulling him toward me as I stood on my toes to kiss him.
I tasted myself on his lips, and the flavor of my desire caused a swell of aching need. My breasts felt heavy. I pressed them into his torso wanting my nipples to brush against the planes of his abs, wanting his hardness against my belly. As if he read my mind, he wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me off the floor. He kissed me savagely, devouring my mouth with a hunger that had only grown more rabid since nearly losing our future.
He inched us back until my legs brushed against the edge of the bed. I broke the kiss and scooted myself back. Extending my arms overhead, I laid down, writhing in sensual bliss atop the cloud of cool linens, presenting myself like a sexual gift fit for a king.
He shoved his thumbs into the tops of his boxer briefs and pushed them down. The swollen length of his cock sprang free, hard, proud, and ready to dominate. I opened my legs in wanton invitation.
He climbed onto the bed, on his knees between my legs, eyes red and hungry with blood lust. He held his cock at its base and ran the tip through my folds, coating it with my desire and teasing my clit with its broad head. But I wanted him inside me, wanted his thickness to fill me. I turned my head to the side, brushing my hair away to expose my neck, and spread my knees wider.
He descended, hovering over me on his forearms, and ran his tongue up the length of my neck, bringing his mouth to my ear. “I’ve never done this,” he whispered and pinched my earlobe between his teeth. “In all my years, I’ve never fed while making love.” He lifted his head, took my chin in his hand, and turned my face to look into my eyes. “You are the first. And the last. The only. La mia bellissima Anna.”
The slow way he inched his thick cock into my wet heat was delicious agony. My walls gripped him, tightening, pulling, as hungry for him as he was for my neck. He pressed forward until he was fully seated, and his hard length stretched me to the exquisite edge of pain.
He turned my head to the side and licked me from collarbone to ear.
“I love you,” he whispered and plunged his fangs into my neck.
A guttural sound emerged from deep within his body, a primal rumble that held almost a century’s worth of longing and expectation. I gasped at the intensity of its rawness and the overwhelming sensation of him penetrating my body, my blood, and my soul. I twined my fingers behind his head and held him in place, just for a moment. A moment neither of us had shared or ever would share with another soul, a moment that was perfectly and singularly ours, a moment I never wanted to end.
He moved his hips, slowly and sensually, burying himself inside me and drinking my blood as he eased back. The feel of his cock in my pussy and his fangs in my neck brought me to heights of ecstasy I’d never imagined. Pleasure became my world, and I wanted to lose myself to its sultry embrace.
His hips stilled, and he lifted his head, licking my wounds and his lips. He propped himself up on his elbows and held my face between his hands, running his thumbs along my cheekbones, wonder and tears alive in his crimson gaze. “You taste divine.” The rim around his dilated pupils flared like the sun, and his hips moved again, gently and lovingly, while he stared into my eyes.
His thrusts became more urgent, and he lifted himself to his hands. “I need to fuck you,” he growled.
I laughed, threw my arms overhead, and arched my back, offering him my breasts. He pulled one of my nipples between his teeth and started pumping himself in and out of me in fast, steady strokes.
The beginnings of another orgasm danced along my spine, the venom in my veins fueling the sensation of Marco’s thick cock moving inside me. He pressed up onto his knees and pulled my hips off the bed, pistoning his faster and harder.
My breasts bounced with each thrust. I took them in my hands, massaging them and squeezing my nipples. Marco groaned and shivered, his reaction spiking my pleasure. I repositioned my hands and pushed my breasts up and together, serving my nipples to him like a feast.
“Fuuuck,” he groaned and dropped my hips to the bed. His mouth crashed into my left breast, and he sucked my nipple into his mouth. His hips slowed, and the base of his cock stroked the top of my pussy and tickled my clit, driving me to the edge.
A sharp pain stabbed my breast and sent hot, erotic fire straight to my nipple. Marco growled, a hum of animalistic pleasure. His venom spread fast and furious and drove me to physical ecstasy. My arms fell to my sides and the tension in my legs released as Marco drew my orgasm out with each rock of his hips. My breathy cries echoed through the penthouse, each pulse of pleasure amplified by the venom in my veins.
He freed my breast and propped himself up onto his forearms, the muscles in his neck taut with his imminent release. My blood smeared his bottom lip. He licked it away, and with that last drop, his orgasm took control. He grunted, loud and harsh, and his hips stilled, his cock jerking inside me. My walls clenched around him, greedy for every drop of his pleasure as we stared into each other’s eyes, panting through the final pulses and twitches of our shared bliss.
He lowered his lips to mine and with passionate sweeps of his tongue told me more with a kiss than words could convey. He relaxed, pulling himself out of my body, and lay next to me, burying his face in my hair. I trailed my fingers down his sweaty spine, and he shivered.
Liberated-Anna was finally whole, her awakening complete, and she’d found her salvation in a man who’d been searching for his own.
“Amore mio.” He kissed my neck. “La mia Anna.” He kissed my forehead and looked into my eyes. “You were worth the wait.”