Dark Cravings [Claiming Series, #2]

- 10 -

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Adult Content Warning: some parts in this chapter contain content of an adult nature and are for mature audiences only ages 18+. Proper caution should be excerised. Reader discretion is advised.

Soren gave himself one last moment of sane thought, but it wasn't enough to save him. He had already crossed one line this morning by drinking from this woman, and he had stopped in time. Well, there were other pleasures he could give her, pleasures that would thrill them both without taking her too far.

He knew the point at which to stop. He mustn't drink from while they climaxed. At that point a bonding would take place, in her at least, that would be unshakable. He suspected the same would happen to him.

For if ever he had been in danger of a claiming, he knew it was now.

So he had to stop, and he would stop, but neither of them could go on like this much longer. Every time she looked at him he could read the longing and hunger in her gaze. He could smell it all around her when they were alone. She expressed no interest of any kind in another vampire so he was certain what she felt was no mere fascination.

But he didn't know what he felt except a longing, a hunger, a need beyond any he had felt before, and it was maddening him.

With all that loomed before them, possibly death or worse, he couldn't justify the fight any longer. Asmodai had come here to find her. They probably had only hours left, and at any moment Asmodai might return.

And despite all his bravado about being able to protect her, he wasn't at all certain of that. Not against a creature like this one.

So he accepted her eyes and his own yearnings and gave in. He kissed her as mortals' kiss, reveling in the warmth of her mouth and tongue, in the way she arched into him and wound her arms around him. The scent of her desire perfumed the air, an aphrodisiac unlike any other. And because he had already drunk from her, even that tiny bit, he felt the synchrony begin. To minds, one body.

This was not his first such experience. In the months after his change, before he had learned self-control, he had experienced this many times. Those memories had shamed him for so long, keeping him isolated. But this time he was sure he could stop himself before carrying her too far.

And this time he could not deny himself, not when she so clearly wanted him, not when one of them might be gone soon.

If, in the end, either of them were left alone, they would at least have the memory.

And memory, he had learned, was the most important part of existence. without it, nothing had meaning. Nothing at all.

He sipped from her lips, his heart hammering exactly in time with hers. He felt her nerve endings excite with passion, and his own responded in kind. Heady bliss filled him along with driving hunger.

He cast thought aside, descending into the essential nature of his being: wanting, needing, feeling, experiencing. Totally in the now.

He craved every warm silken inch of her. For him, removing her clothes was scant impediment. He had them off her, had her naked beside him, almost before she knew it.