Bride

Lowe makes a stupefied sound.

“Condom,” I gasp. Not something Vampyres ever use, but maybe Weres do? “Do you have one?”

He goes back for one last nibble before turning me around. “No.” His eyes glow with determined, reflected light as he takes off my leggings. He stares down at me with a transfixed look that strikes me as the culmination of many things I’ll never hear about, and when he bends down to lick my collarbone, I feel how hard he is, leaking against my stomach. The heat of him feeds my hunger for blood in a confusing, beautiful buildup.

“But do you want to use something?” I ask.

“We don’t need to,” he says, pushing up my shirt. This time his bite is on the side of my breast. His tongue circles around my nipple before pressing flat against it. Then he sucks, mouth wet and electrifying.

“Stop,” I force myself to say.

He instantly pulls back, holding himself up on his palms, peeling his gaze from my chest with some difficulty. “We don’t have to,” he pants. “If you—”

“I do, but.” I prop myself up on my elbows. My shirt slips to cover the upper curve of my breasts. Lowe’s eyes wander down again, until he tears them toward the window. “Why don’t you want to use contraceptives?” If Weres and Humans can reproduce, nothing is off the table.

“I don’t— We can, if you’d like. But we can’t have sex.”

“We can’t?”

“Not like that.”

I sit up, pulling down my shirt, and he shifts back, sitting on his knees. We stare at each other, breathing heavily, like we’re in the middle of a Regency-era duel. “Maybe we should discuss this.”

His throat bobs. “We’re not compatible like that, Misery.” He says it like he knows this to be a fact. One he’s given a lot of thought to.

My eyebrow lifts. “If Ana exists . . .” It must be feasible.

“It’s different.”

“Why? Because I’m a Vampyre?” I look down at the way I’m clutching the hem of my oversize shirt like it’s a life raft. What we need here is some humor. To defuse. “I swear I don’t have teeth down there.”

He doesn’t smile. “You are not the problem.”

“Ah.” I wait for him to continue. He doesn’t. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

I glance at his groin. He pulled his underwear back up. It’s tented, and the room is dark, and my view is not exhaustive by any means, but he looks normal. Good. Big, sure. But normal.

I remember what he told me about Switzerland. The way different species lived together. He said he didn’t hang out much with Vampyres, but . . . “Have you ever . . . with a Human?”

He nods.

“And you hurt them.”

“No.”

“Then—”

“It will be different.”

We’re discussing sex, right? Penetrative intercourse? This insurmountable obstacle he’s talking about must be located somewhere between his and my hardware. Except that he seems structurally standard. “I grew up with a Human. My reproductive organs don’t significantly differ from Humans who are assigned female at birth.”

“It’s not because you’re a Vampyre, Misery.” He swallows. “It’s because you’re you. Because of what that does to me.”

“I don’t understa—” He interrupts me with a kiss, bruising in a delicious, unhinged way. He cups my face, teeth pulling at my lower lip, and I lose track of our conversation.

“You’re going to smell like this,” he murmurs against my lips. “It’s happened already, and you weren’t even in the fucking room.” It? “And I’m not going to be able to stop myself from wanting to finish.”

“That’s fine.” I laugh. My forehead settles against his. “I want you to finish, I—”

“Misery, we are different species.”

I close my fingers around his wrists. “You said you’d . . . You said we would. In Emery’s office.” I’m blushing, embarrassed to admit that I’ve been thinking about those words for days.

“I said I could fuck you.” His throat works. “Not that I would.”

I lower my eyes. “Were you ever pla

“Misery.” His eyes capture mine, and I suspect he can see everything. The very inside of me. “It’s sex, what we’ve done. What we’re going to do. It’s all sex. And it’s all going to feel really good.”

I believe him, I really do. And yet: “Are you sure? That you and I can’t . . . ?”

“I can show you. Would you like me to?”

I nod. He kisses me again, tenderly, clearly trying to take things slowly. I’m the one to wriggle away to take off my shirt.

“Have you done any of this before?” he asks against the crook of my neck, and I shake my head. He’d never judge me for it, but I want to explain. “It felt weird. Doing this with a Human when I was already lying to them about everything.” And Vampyres were never an option. I was always alone, at the border between those two worlds. The fact that I feel more at home than ever before with a Were, with someone whose proximity I should have never been in . . . There’s something wrong about it. Or painfully right.

“Feed more,” he orders, pushing me down on the bed. We end up on our sides, facing each other. Not a position I’d associate with wild and uninhibited sexual activities.

“If I feed, we can’t—”

With a hand on the back of my head, he guides my face into his neck. “We can.” He kicks his jeans away, and it’s just his skin, hot against mine, the rough hairs on his arms and legs subtly foreign. I slip my shin between his knees and let my hand roam, curious, eager to explore. He is gloriously different, and while I’m not one to admire beauty, I ca

“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs into my temple. “I thought so since they gave me that first picture of you. You came walking down the aisle, and I was afraid to look. I hadn’t even smelled you yet, and I already couldn’t stop myself from staring.”

A stray notion crosses my mind, sweet and terrifying and utterly unlike me: I wish I was your mate. I know better than to say it. I know better than to think it. Instead I feel his large hand close around my nape. “I really want you to feed, Misery.”

Sinking my teeth into him is becoming second nature, his flavor lovely and familiar. I don’t let myself wonder how I’ll go back to chilly bags. I just take deep, blissful gulps, and when I hear his drawn out, vibrating moan, when his hand drags my wrist to his cock and closes my fingers around it, I’m happy and pliant and eager to please.

He is hard, but also soft, and doesn’t want much. He guides my hand up and down once, once more, and beyond that, he has no instructions for me. My touch appears to be enough, just like the rest of me.

“I’m going to come really fast,” he puffs out.

I let go of his vein with a wet pop. “You don’t have to.”

He laughs, rocking into my fist. “Not much of a choice.” He tightens my grip, giving himself the pressure he’s craving. “And then I’ll show you what you do to me.”

Whatever he needs, I want the same. One of his thighs wedges between mine, and I rub myself against it, vaguely embarrassed at the lewd, rhythmic sounds the contact makes, at the mess I’m making on him. But it feels good, too good to stop and good enough to forget, and then even better when his hand kneads my breasts, moves to the small of my back to cant my hips, positioning me so that yes—there, “There.” I hum the word into his neck, around mouthfuls of blood. I’m shameless and dizzy and briefly happy, grinding and searching for pleasure like it’s something he has in store for me—not if, just when. I take one last drag, and swallow, and then ask, “Is this good?”

Lowe’s eyes stare unseeing into mine, and the fact that he seems too awestruck to be able to speak, the choppy, uncoordinated way he tries to nod his pleasure, that’s what pushes me over.