"Are you sure, Renata?"
"If you'll give me your blood, then yes," she said. "I want to take it."
In the long silence that followed, Nikolai sat back from her on the bed. She watched as he unbuttoned the big oxford shirt, waiting for her uncertainty - her apprehension - to worsen. It didn't happen. As Nikolai stripped off the shirt and sat before her bare-chested, his dermaglyphs pulsing, every arch and swirl saturated with variegating shades of wine-dark colors, she felt no misgivings at all. When he crawled up toward her and lifted his right arm up to his mouth, baring his huge fangs, then sinking them into his wrist, she felt nothing even close to fear.
And when, in that next moment, he placed the bleeding punctures next to her lips and told her to drink, Renata had no inclination whatsoever to refuse.
The first taste of Nikolai's blood on her tongue was a shock.
She'd expected to be swamped by the bitter taste of copper, but instead she tasted warm, muted spices and a power that spread through her like liquid electricity. She could feel his blood coursing down her throat, into every fiber of her body. Light flowed into her limbs from within, and the ache in her wounded shoulder began to ease as she drew more of Nikolai 's healing strength inside her.
"That's it," he murmured, his fingers stroking her damp hair away from her cheek. "Ah, Christ, that's it, Renata...drink until you feel you've had enough."
She pulled long and hard from his wrist, with an instinct she never knew she had. It felt right to be drinking from Nikolai like this. It felt more than right...it felt incredible. The more she took from him, the more alive she felt. Every nerve ending blinked on as though a switch had been thrown in her core.
And as he continued to caress her, to nourish and heal her, Renata began to feel a new kind of heat building swiftly inside her.
She moaned, swept up in the molten wave that washed through her. She writhed, and knew better than to mistake the feeling for anything but what it was...desire. A desire that she had been trying to deny since she first met Nikolai, and which now was rising up to consume her.
She couldn't resist suckling at him deeper.
She needed more of him.
She needed all of him, and she needed him now.
Chapter Twenty-one
Nikolai braced himself on the edge of the bed, knotting his free hand in the sheet and holding onto it like a tether line as Renata continued to feed. She drank from him like she did everything else: with fearless strength and ferocious conviction. No hedging anxiety in her jade-green eyes, no uncertainty in her firm grasp on his arm. And each pull of her mouth on his open vein, every sure, coaxing sweep of her tongue across his skin, ratcheted him tighter than anything he'd ever felt before.
In all things she set her mind to, Renata was a force to be reckoned with. She was unlike any female Niko had ever known - in many ways, as much a warrior as any of the Breed males who'd served alongside him in the Order. She had a warrior's heart and a warrior's honor, and an unshakable resolve that demanded his total respect. Renata had saved his life, and for that he owed her. But holy hell...what was happening between them here had nothing to do with duty or obligation.
He was starting to care for her - more than he was comfortable admitting, even to himself.
He wanted her too. Christ, did he ever. His need was made all the worse for the erotic suction of her mouth as it worked on his vein, her lithe body undulating in heated reaction to his otherworldly blood feeding her uninitiated cells.
Renata moaned, a throaty purr of arousal as she moved closer to him on the mattress, each grinding movement of her body loosening the towel that covered her. She didn't seem to notice, or care at all that Nikolai's amber gaze was traveling the entire nearly naked length of her. Her shoulder wound was looking better already. The swelling and redness was receding, and the too- sallow color of the rest of her skin was looking more healthy by the minute. Renata was getting stronger, more vibrant and demanding, one fever being replaced by another.
He probably should have told her that aside from its nourishment and healing properties, Breed blood was also a potent aphrodisiac. He figured he could handle whatever might happen, but damn...nothing would have prepared him for Renata's molten response.
Crawling up against him now, still suckling at him, she reached over with one hand and freed his clenched fist from the tangled sheet. She guided his fingers under the folds of the bath towel to her breasts. He couldn't resist running the pad of his thumb over the tight nipple of one, then the other. Her breath sped up as he caressed her warm, tender skin, the hard flutter of her heart beating against his hand as she impatiently guided him lower...over the soft plane of her abdomen to the silky juncture of her thighs.
She was drenched and hot, the cleft of her sex like warm, wet satin as he slid one finger along her core. She clenched her thighs around him, holding him there as if he had any thought at all to leave. She took another draw from his wrist, the pull so thorough he felt it all the way to his balls. Squeezing his eyes shut, he dropped his head back and hissed a slow, wordless groan, the tendons in his neck going as taut as cables. His cock was rock-solid and standing at full attention between his legs. Another minute of this torment and he was going to lose it right there in his borrowed pair of warm-ups.
"Ah, fuck," he snarled, pulling his hand away from the sweet temptation of her aroused body. He slowly lowered his chin to look at her. When his eyelids lifted, the heat from his transformed irises bathed Renata in an ember-bright glow. She was gloriously naked, sitting there in front of him like a dark goddess, her lips fastened to his wrist, her pale eyes dusky as she stared up at him, unabashed.
"No more," he muttered, his voice rough, the words thickened by the presence of his fangs. He was gasping for breath, every nerve ending electrified. "We have to stop...Jesus Christ...we'd better stop now."
She moaned in protest but, very gently, Nikolai withdrew his wrist from Renata 's feeding grasp and brought the twin punctures to his lips. A sweep of his tongue over the wounds sealed them closed.
With hooded, hungry eyes, she watched him lick the place where her mouth had been, her own tongue darting out to wet her lips. "What's happening to me?" she asked, running her hands across her breasts, her spine stretching and arching with feline grace. "What did you...do to me? My God...I'm burning up."
"It's the blood bond," he said, hardly able to form a complete sentence for the way his senses were throbbing with awareness - and need - of this woman. "I should have warned you...I'm sorry."
He started to move away but she grabbed his hand and held it. Gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. Her chest rose and fell with each pump of her lungs, and the heavy-lidded gaze she fixed on him looked anything but offended. Knowing that he shouldn't take advantage of the situation, Nikolai reached up and stroked the pink blush that filled her cheek.
Renata moaned as his touch lingered, turning her face into his palm. "Is it...is it always like this when you let a woman drink from you?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. You're the first."