Demon Night

give—only to take. And she took him again and again, until she was full, overflowing with the frenzied pleasure of his possession, but she couldn’t release it.
    Blood—she needed blood. But she couldn’t bite herself, couldn’t turn away from the penetration of his tongue.
    Ethan increased his pace, a rondo rush toward the finish. Her nails dug into his nape, and he ate each moan, each pleading cry.
    Until he stopped. He lifted his mouth from hers but the intensity of his gaze held her frozen, prevented her from closing her teeth on her tongue.
    “You have a choice.” His voice was low, and he slid into her again. “But I want you to choose me. Take the blood from me.”
    Excitement and fear gripped her, the memory of shattering pain and exquisite flavor, and she trembled against him. She searched his face, but couldn’t halt her strained reply. “I don’t want to ruin this.”
    Ethan’s eyes closed. “All right, Charlie.” The fierce need smoothed from his expression, and after a short nod, he hunched his shoulders, dropping his jaw beside her temple. His hips pistoned with even strokes.
    It felt incredible…but she’d managed to ruin it, anyway. The craving, the connection between them was gone, replaced with mechanical coupling.
    Her eyes stung, and she blinked quickly, until the brilliant stars above were sharp points. She’d wanted Ethan to ask her for something.
    And he had.
    Maybe the pain wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would stay beneath the pleasure, as it had before her bloodlust had brought it shrieking to the surface.
    Her hands flattened against the back of his neck, and she lifted her face to his throat. His skin was smoldering satin under her mouth.
    At the touch of her lips, Ethan missed a beat, drove into her with a quick lunge. His voice strangled her name. Her fangs sank deep.
    It blazed over her tongue—each note rich with sensation, passion.
    And no pain.
    Relief pushed a staccato sob from her chest, but it was swept away in the wake of the blood. Ethan wrapped her legs high around his waist. His fingers speared into her hair, and he held her against him as if afraid she’d pull away.
    “Just like this, Charlie.”
    Like this. She moaned her agreement.
    He moved inside her, his thick groans anchoring the soaring tones of his lifeblood. Mixed, impossible to separate her pleasure from his, the arousal of her body from the ecstasy of drinking.
    The cuffs jingled and pulled at her wrists. She needed to touch but telling him meant breaking away; she formed an image of the metal, falling away from her skin. An image of her fingers, tracing the line of his body.
    A pure, perfect harmony pulsed through her veins; Charlie stiffened against the cold force of it, then let it sing through her. The sound of his Gift was unmistakably Ethan , but distilled, as if the abrasive and conflicting emotional notes had been boiled away, leaving the essence of him.
    Unbelievably, inhumanly beautiful. Without flaw.
    Without passion.
    Then her hands were free and the notes were warm again, heating as his heartbeat quickened. Her heels dug in, urging him faster; his hand fisted in her hair as he surged, and she was hot now, wet, from the inner clasp of her sex to her skin, all absorbing the volcano of his body and blood, all so tight and the pressure too high. And then releasing, rolling through her flesh in great quaking waves, and she clutched Ethan as he broke, his breath jagged, his blood molten.
    She didn’t want to let him go. Ethan turned, taking her with him, and she still drank. Arousal lay beneath the sweet pleasure of it, soft and buoyant—but it only lay, without grabbing and piercing her.
    And she thought she wouldn’t mind if it did eventually sharpen, so long as it remained painless.
    But she couldn’t drink forever. She had to come up. To face him, and find something to say that wasn’t the I love you welling through her.
    Would he even want it? Though it lifted her from inside, she felt heavy, grasping; and if she placed it on him, would it just become another weight for him to carry?
    She still held him within her…and she was taking blood from his throat like an addict who couldn’t cut herself off.
    The puncture wounds had almost closed. It had been easier to stop than she’d thought it would be, but she carefully wiped his skin clean with her fingers rather than with her tongue. Slowly, she began to inch off of him. Ethan guided her with his hands on her hips, and her