I’m moving above her and she reaches up to touch my face with her fingertips. “I love you too, Sol.”
I lower myself to kiss this woman but her lips aren’t enough. I want my mouth all over her. I want to taste her skin. And her blood.
Although I’ve drunk from her regularly the past few weeks, I’ve never wanted her blood before this moment. It was the experience that accompanied drinking from her. But the desire building within me is different.
I fight the desire I feel to lower my mouth to the throbbing pulsation in her neck. I don’t want to ruin this beautiful thing happening but the hunger for her blood is overpowering. As hard as I try, I can’t ignore the craving.
I turn and press my face into my inner arm to keep from biting her neck. “Something is happening to me.”
“I know. I feel it too.” She hooks her hands around my neck and pulls me closer. She locks her ankles behind my waist while arching her back from the bed and her neck is completely exposed as she turns her head. “I want to feed both of your hungers.”
Is she telling me to bite her? “What are you saying?”
“I want you to drink my blood while you make love to me.”
Another wave of her scent floods me and all self-control is lost as I put my mouth over the pulsation of her jugular. Her lush vein thumps against my lip as my incisors lengthen and then it’s done. I taste her blood in my mouth.
I greedily drink from this woman I adore. Nothing is comparable to this–what I’m sharing with Avery right now. I’ve never experienced anything so intense. Or loving. Ever.
I’m experiencing the best of both worlds. My body is in full-blown ecstasy and it’s far better than anything I experienced as a vampire–even my first taste of blood. I thought nothing could top that. But it has. Making love to Avery tops any and everything.
I have a fast track directly linked to her emotions. I have no doubt about the depth of her feelings for me as we make love. Her affection feels much like a bubble growing until I think it’ll burst. The purity of her love is so unexpected.
I take a part of her body into my own as I drink from her but I give her a part of mine as well when I empty myself inside her for the first time. She relaxes her legs around my waist and I seal the wound on her neck. I’m too stunned to move so I’m still hovering above her but I can see the astonishment in her eyes. “Wowww.”
I gain some composure and roll off of her to my back. “Yeah … wow.”
We’re lying on our backs but looking at one another. “I thought vampires didn’t make love.”
I’m at a loss. “They don’t. Ever. Nor do they have the desire to.”
Her hand finds mine and she squeezes it. “Well we did and it wasn’t just sex. It was something else as well. Did you feel it?”
I’m not experienced in the sex department but even I know that wasn’t a normal act of intimacy. “Yes. There was definitely more to it.”
“I think there’s something I need to tell you.” I hear the worry in her voice but I never want her to be frightened to tell me anything.
“Okay.”
She breathes in deeply and her lips puff out as she exhales. “I sensed your existence long before the night you came to Vincent’s. I’ve felt your presence for as long as I can remember. I’ve always known someone was missing from my life but I didn’t know who until our eyes met through that crowd of vampires at Vincent’s. I knew you were the one I had been waiting for my entire life.”
Am I wrong about why I’m so beguiled by her? It’s not because she’s a blood jewel? “I was drawn to you the second I laid eyes on you. I wanted to rescue and protect you but I had no idea why. It almost killed me to walk out of that house without you in my arms.”
She closes her eyes and smiles. “Do you feel that? What’s happening between us right now?”
I know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s our special connection–the intense one we feel while I’m drinking directly from her. This is the strongest it’s ever been. “Yes. I feel how happy–but confused–you are right now.”
She opens her eyes and her brow wrinkles in confusion. “And I sense the same about you but you don’t seem quite as confused as me. I think you understand what’s happening.”
I’d call it hopeful suspicion. “Do you have a birthmark?”
“Yeah but what does that have to do with anything?”
My hope gains momentum. “I need to see it.”
“Okay.” She rises to a sitting position and rolls her left shoulder forward. Her right arm crosses her chest and she reaches around to point at her upper shoulder blade. “Right here. But I must tell you that it’s the most peculiar looking birthmark you’ll ever see. It looks like an albino butterfly.”
And there it is–a most beloved sight. It’s what I wanted to see more than anything in the world. I think it’s the proof of what I suspect. I can’t stop the happy laughter erupting from my lips as I reach out to touch it. “Oh, Avery.”
“What?”
I playfully push her down onto the bed and climb over her. I grasp her face and kiss her hard before looking into her eyes. “This may sound crazy but I think you’re my agápe.”
Chapter Seven
Curry and Sebastian are looking at me from across my desk as they wait to hear the reason I’ve asked them to join me in my office. How do I do this? I haven’t a clue. How do I dare to explain how I’ve been secretly drinking from Avery for weeks? Or worse–what happened between us in her bedroom this morning?
Worse is the wrong choice of words. If she’s my agápe then what happened was natural. And inevitable. But what if I’m wrong and she’s not what I think she is?
Sitting here in silence is becoming awkward. I don’t know how to start this conversation so I’m glad when Curry finally asks, “Is everything all right with you?”
We’ll see if it is after I get their verdict. “Something has happened. It’s quite serious and it may or may not cause you both to be extremely angry with me.”
They glance at one another and a quick look passes between them before they turn back to me. For a moment I’m afraid they already know everything that’s been happening between me and Avery but I decide it’s my guilty conscience causing me to jump to conclusions.
Curry clears his throat. “You can tell us anything. We won’t judge.”