Filed to story: Court of the Vampire Queen Novel???
I want to reclaim the easy feeling we’d just reached before my father ruined everything, but I’m not even sure how we accomplished it to begin with. When it comes right down to it, we’ve only known each other a short time. Things have been uncomfortable and filled with animosity more than they haven’t. I shouldn’t dare crave something I barely got a taste of in the first place.
Malachi frames my face with his big hands. “It wasn’t as bad as you’re imagining. I suspect he meant to soften us up, so he focused on isolating us and drugged us with something that made the starvation kick in quicker.” His expression is so grave, it makes my chest hurt. “I couldn’t think properly, but I worried about you. That was the worst of it, little dhampir.”
This time.
If we don’t do something about my father, it will be worse next time. He might try to forcibly breed them. The thought makes me shudder. “We have to kill him. We can’t wait any longer.”
“We can wait to start making proper plans until morning.” He shifts his hands to my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “Just let us take care of you tonight.”
“You’re the one who’s suffered. I should be taking care of you.”
He smiles a little. “This is how you take care of me.” Malachi strips me easily, his big hands gentle on my body. It’s not sexual, but it feels like a small eternity since I’ve touched him. I won’t make assumptions. Not with us feeling so raw right now. But I’m only me, and I would have to pass through death’s gate in order to not want this man. Maybe I’d even want him in the afterlife.
I don’t know how this happened. A few months ago, I didn’t even know he existed. Now, he’s a cornerstone in my life and I can’t imagine going on without him. The strength of that feeling should scare me—and it does—but it’s like it can’t find purchase in our reality.
I don’t know if I believe in destiny, but I can’t deny that Malachi and I feel destined.
We step beneath the spray and he pulls me into his arms. It feels so damn good to have his naked body pressed against me. Yes, there’s sexual desire, but just touching him reassures a part of me that couldn’t quite believe he’s here and safe.
A horrible sound wrenches itself from my chest. Malachi hugs me tighter. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
I bury my face in his chest and sob until it feels like my body will shatter into a million pieces and crumple away to dust. It hurts, but at least I know I’m still alive. That he’s still alive. We are here together, which is more than I could say twenty-four hours ago. It’s like all my fear and rage have crystalized into the tears I shed in that moment. It’s a purging.
I don’t mean to kiss him. Truly, I don’t. One moment, I’m sobbing and the next my mouth is on his and I’m climbing his body to wrap my legs around his waist. Malachi barely hesitates. He kisses me back like he needs my air to breathe. One step and my back hits the tiled wall. He pins me there so effortlessly, it makes me shake with need. Yes, this. This is what I need. Please don’t stop.
He breaks our kiss long enough to say in a strained voice. “I can’t. Mina, you have to stop kissing me right now if you don’t want—”
“Take me.” I nip his throat. “I need you. Don’t make me wait.”
He growls something low in a language I don’t recognize and then his big cock presses to my entrance. I’m wet, but nowhere near where I need to be for him to plunge into me. It’s work. He grips my hips and uses short strokes to fight his way into my body. It’s not entirely comfortable, but I don’t care. I need this as much as he does. More, even.
By the time he sheaths himself to the hilt, we’re both shaking and panting. Malachi presses his forehead to mine. “You feel good, little dhampir. You feel like home.”
“Bite me,” I gasp.
“No.” A slight shake of his head. “Not until we know for sure that it’s safe.” Malachi kisses me, stifling any protest, quick and rough. “I don’t need my bite to make you feel good.”
It’s nothing more than the truth. He cups my ass and moves me up and down his cock, adjusting the angle until he hits all the right spots inside me and my clit rubs against him with every stroke. Immediately, pleasure coils through me. Need sparks low in my stomach, building and building. I missed this. I missed him.
“Getting started without us, I see.”
He turns with me still in his arms as the curtain is wrenched back to reveal Wolf and Rylan. Malachi raises his brows. “Shower’s not big enough for four.”
“You look clean enough.” Wolf eyes me hungrily. “Take it to the bedroom.”
Rylan hands over a towel. “We’ll be along shortly.”
I give a strained laugh and press my forehead to Malachi’s chest. “Sounds like a plan.” It means an aborted orgasm right now, but more pleasure in the near future. More, it means reconnecting. Maybe after a we all get back in bed together, where this connection truly began, we’ll be able to banish the strange distance that’s cropped up between us since we reunited.
Malachi sets me down long enough to wash me quickly, ignoring my half-hearted protests that I can do it myself. It doesn’t take long before we’ve switched places with Rylan and Wolf. I’m only half dried off when Malachi hauls me back into the bedroom and goes down on his back, me astride him. He plants big hands on my hips and looks at me like I’m his world.
A few weeks ago, I would have doubted this, would have wasted time looking for a trap. Surely no one can fall as hard and fast as we have for each other. I’ve fallen for the others, too, but with Malachi it was strangely seamless after our first few initial bumps. I don’t understand why he’s so sure of me. Or why that feeling is so mutual. I should doubt. I should…
There’s no room for should in this world. I almost lost him. I won’t waste another moment doubting what we have when proof that it’s there is so readily available. I don’t know what the future will bring, but we have this now and I won’t waste it.
I reach between us and grip his big cock, giving him a stroke and thing lifting my hips to notch him at my entrance. It’s easier to take him this time. I work myself down his length in a slow, glorious stroke. “You always feel so good.”
“I love you, Mina.”
My heart lurches and then steadies. Is this the first time he’s said it to me? It feels like it. I hold perfectly still, letting the words settle through me. I never thought to find this connection at all, let alone with three men. But it’s here, and I won’t meet his bravery with cowardice.
I lick my lips. “I…I love you, too.”
Wolf bounds into the bedroom in a leap that takes him from the doorway onto the bed. The impact sends Malachi’s cock even deeper inside me and I can’t hold back a moan. Wolf grins. “I missed that sound.”
“I missed you,” I admit. “All of you.”