Phoe lay back against the cool porcelain, sinking into the depths of the water until her shoulders were hidden. She had run the water in the tub as hot as she could possibly stand it. Though her skin was red and the bathroom was completely enveloped in steam, it was the most delicious sensation she’d ever felt.
Well, almost.
The last several days, she hadn’t been able to have more than what old Miss Ava from across the street called a “whore’s bath” in the sink. Just enough to keep Phoe from stinking of sweat and dirt.
Tonight, she fully intended to scrub everything until her skin was tingling.
Cage was in the next room, moving around. The television was on, and some ridiculous comedy with a laugh track blared in the background. It felt so fucking normal.
Phoe giggled, then slapped a hand over her mouth. If he heard her laughing at nothing all alone in the bathroom, he might think she was losing it. Of course, that idea wasn’t too far-fetched.
Lately it seemed that her entire world was upside down in the most ridiculous of ways. Vampires? Werewolves and dragons lived among us and can shift at will? Doctors making a genetic soup to give people superpowers? It was insane.
Of course, this was her life now, and with Cage it didn’t seem so bad. Funny, she’d been sheltered for all of her life, but now that she’d been thrust into the real world, despite the incredible danger and the running for their lives part…she was having fun.
“Phoe? Are you all right in there?” Cage called.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m trying to get clean.” She reached behind her and pulled down a small bottle of soap. She inhaled the sweet scent and was thankful for this small bit of luxury. “Finally, civilization,” she sighed, looking around for a cloth. There were none as she looked around the bathroom. “Damn. What kind of hotel doesn’t have washcloths?” she mumbled.
“Looking for this?”
Phoe looked up to see Cage standing over her clutching a white cloth and his rucksack, totally naked. Her mouth watered as if she had been wandering in the desert for several days and had suddenly been presented with a sumptuous meal. In this light, she could see the impossible perfection of his skin. She wanted to taste it and unconsciously her hand reached out to touch him.
“Umm, which this?” she asked, a slow grin splitting her face.
He laughed and dropped the washcloth into the water before setting the rucksack on the lid of the toilet. “Mind if I join you?”
“If you don’t, I’ll be insulted,” she replied, sliding forward in the tub so that he could climb in behind her. As soon as he was situated, she slid into his arms and let him cradle her body to his chest.
He was warm, impossibly so, and it was a comfort. She laid her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes and concentrating on the slow cadence of his breath. All of the tensions and stressors of the last several days seemed to slip from her skin like the beads of water that collected in the valley between her breasts. One of his hands stroked idly through her hair, and before long she was dancing on the edge of consciousness.
Leaning forward a little, he grabbed his rucksack and began rummaging through it. He came up with a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an old leather-bound book. The book was so old that the cover was no longer readable.
“What’s that?” she asked sleepily.
“Something I happened upon at Sadie’s. I thought you might like it.” He handed the book to her as he lit the cigarette.
Phoe turned the book over in her hands, enjoying the feel of the smooth leather against her fingertips. Already she could smell the mold of the old pages. She loved paper books, and this small item made her feel connected to the life she had waiting for her back at St. Francisville.
In their world, hardcover and paperback books were becoming a rarity only found in basements and climate-controlled archives like the one she’d worked in so long ago. She flipped open the book and gasped when she saw the title page.
“Oh, Cage,” she sighed, tracing over the letters. It was a copy of Gone with the Wind. An ancient edition with lavish illustrations on the inside written in tiny print. “It’s beautiful. Thank you. But why?”
He shrugged. “You said it was important to you. And since I was the cause of your losing the other one, I thought I should replace it.”
Phoe turned the pages carefully, seeing these words that were so familiar. She must have read this book a hundred times, getting lost in the poetry and magnolia-soaked melodrama.
“What sort of book is it?” he asked. “It must be special for you to feel so strongly about it.”
She smiled, the sharp sting of nostalgia burning the corners of her eyes. “It’s a love story.”
“Ah,” he sighed, lighting the cigarette. “I always preferred adventure stories myself.”
“There’s adventure too. And war and tragedy.” Phoe leafed through the pages, her fingertips slowly moving over the words as if she might soak them into her skin.
“She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her,” she read. “It’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”
She shifted in the wide tub to look into Cage’s eyes. “The heroine, Scarlett, she spends her whole life trying to win the heart of the man she thinks she loves. Of course, she’s just a child, and everyone tells her that he’s not right for her, but she can’t help it. She’s too proud to let him go. She makes herself a fool for him, constantly pushing away her true soulmate. Of course at the end, she realizes that she really loves her soulmate, but by then it’s too late.”
“What a horrible story,” Cage grumbled.
Phoe laughed. “You’re right. It is a terrible story. Scarlett’s an idiot. And the historical setting of the Old South is something that never really existed. At least not in the pretty, pristine way in which it’s presented. It’s a fairytale, but I can’t help loving it.”
She paused, running her fingers along the spine of the book before rising to her knees and putting it on the counter. The steaming water sloshed over the sides of the porcelain as she shifted, turning around to face him.
“She can’t see what she’s got right in front of her. She’s afraid to follow the dangerous man who truly loves her.” Leaning forward, she planted a chaste kiss on his lips then kissed the crest of each cheekbone and his furrowed brow.
“He scares her,” she whispered. “He makes her burn, deep down in a way that no one ever has.” This time when she kissed him, his hands gripped her skull, pulling her in for a feral embrace that possessed her mouth, body, and soul in an instant.
“He makes her feel sexy,” she nibbled his jaw, “dirty,” then his chin, “like the whole world is this slow,” and then his lush lower lip, “…wet, hot summer night.” Cage’s arms slid around her waist, pulling her up to straddle his hip. “She knows that it’s a sin—feeling this way. Covetous. Lustful.” Her fingers tangled in the thick waves that fell over his brow, pushing them back so that she could see his eyes—those changeable hot ice orbs that bore into her.
His breathing never faltered, but a flutter of satisfaction rolled over her lower body at seeing his pupils nearly blacking out those cool blue irises.
“Sounds pretty dull,” he said, kissing her throat. “If you ask me, she just needed a good shag.”
Phoe laughed then pressed her body against his. His cock eagerly nudged her sex. “Interestingly enough, that’s when she comes to the realization that maybe she’s hitched her wagon to the wrong horse.”
He looked puzzled. “Your homespun, country girl vernacular escapes me once again, Miss Addison.”
“She decided she was in love with him when he made her come.”
“Is that all it takes?” he purred. Dipping his head down, he nuzzled the delicate skin that lay between her breasts.
Phoe could feel the animal that he usually kept hidden as he moved against her, gripping her body tight against him, grinding the hard knot of his sex against hers. His lips parted and his canine teeth elongated. Gently he dragged the points across the tip of one rose-colored nipple. She shuddered at the sensation that danced on the jagged edge between pain and pleasure.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice taking on a thick and ominous tone. “Though devouring you is exactly what I had in mind, I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
“I trust you,” she murmured, getting lost in lascivious thoughts of his promises.
“Do you?” he asked, nibbling gently at the hardened nub of flesh. He worried it between his teeth, drawing a low moan from deep in her chest.
“Of course. Besides….” Her voice trailed off in a whisper. “Being what you are wouldn’t be so bad. As long as I could spend eternity with you.”
She drew her fingertips along his shoulder blade, memorizing the smooth plane of muscle. She’d always thought that vampires were cold, yet Cage’s blood seemed to boil with life. His heart pounded so hard that she felt it against her own. She wrapped her arms around him, leaned in, and brushed her cheek against his.
“Be careful what you wish for,” he growled.
“I’m always careful. Well, I used to be before I met you. Now, maybe not so much.”
As if to illustrate her point, she slid her hand down his chest and lower, forcing it between them until her palm rested against the root of his sex. He let out a groan as her fingers wrapped around its length and squeezed gently. A mischievous grin spread over her features as she watched his reaction. With deliberate attention, she stroked his cock, bringing it to its throbbing, turgid length.
“It’s intriguing how your shyness seems to have waned, Miss Addison,” he whispered.
“There are some moments for which shyness is inappropriate, Mr. St. John.”
Leaning in once more, she licked his lips, attempting to be playful, but his arms wound tight about her, pulling her body against his. She kept her hand firmly wrapped around his cock as he forced his mouth upon hers.
There was no teasing or coy tricks as he pushed his tongue between her lips. He wanted to taste her, and she knew it. He could have her skin, and she was more than obliged to let him sample. She stroked him to the suggestive motions of his tongue.
A promise of things to come.
She whimpered softly against his mouth, feeling the eager tip of his cock nudging toward the opening of her sex. With a measured caress, she brushed it against the swollen bud just above. That tiny bit of flesh that was the center of all sensation.
She shuddered, pushing her hips forward. He slid into her warmth so easily that both gasped in surprise. As if their bodies had been waiting for this moment to finally become one again.
Neither moved. They lay there in the steaming bath, panting against one another. The frustrations of the day were lost in the steam of their joining, and now all Phoe wanted was to feel the connection between them. There was no promise of release yet, just the pleasure of two people who had been so lonely finally finding their mate.
Cage murmured warm and wet whispers that were lost in the crook of her neck. Words she didn’t quite understand, but made her innermost places shudder and throb.
Without a word, or even much effort, Cage stood, taking Phoe with him. Running on pure instinct, she wrapped her legs around his waist and silently prayed to keep their connection. When they arrived in the bedroom, he laid her down. The heat in his gaze promised so much.
He lowered himself over her body, kissing his way down every inch. His lips lingered over her navel, bathing the tiny indentation with gentle sweeps of his tongue that slid ever lower.
“Slow tease,” she purred, reaching down to thread her fingertips into the heavy curls at his crown. She tugged in an attempt to urge him on, begging him to kiss that one delicious mound of flesh. She could swear she heard him chuckle as she arched her hips higher.
“I think I’ve created a monster,” he rasped, biting down gently on her inner thigh.
Phoe gasped. “You’re one to talk.”
His head moved between her thighs, and even before his mouth made contact with her skin, watching him there was the single most erotic experience of her life.
His movements were deliberate and slow, and as he lapped at the swollen petals that hid the tiny bud of flesh at her center, he made tiny noises, as if bringing her pleasure was all he needed and he couldn’t get enough.
Phoe whimpered, lay back, and closed her eyes, letting the world fade away. All she could feel, all she could think, was of the luxuriant sensation of his mouth and teeth against those hidden places.
She tried to move, but the hand resting on her pelvic bone was strong, holding her in place until she thought she might burst.
“Please,” she whispered just before she came. A sudden and intense surge of sensation shot through her body. “Cage,” she shrieked.
His grin was savage as he crawled up her body, licking the glistening drops of her arousal from his lips. “One,” he growled. There was a lustful hunger glowing from behind his irises.
“One?” she asked when she was able.
“The first of many times I’ll make you scream my name tonight,” he growled.