It was beating strongly against her chest.
“Thank God,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers.
“Can you smell the cancer?” she reluctantly asked as she pulled away just far enough so that he could see her nervously nibbling on her bottom lip.
He met her frightened gaze and held it, along with his breath, terrified that Christofer’s blood had strengthened the cancer right along with Cloe’s body. Realizing that he couldn’t put this off, he slowly exhaled and then, keeping his eyes locked with hers, he inhaled, scenting the air around her.
“Well?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for an answer.
His lips pulled into a grin as he leaned forward and kissed her.
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone,” he repeated, grinning against her lips.“Be sure,” she said, pulling back so that she could search his expression, looking for any sign that he was only saying what she wanted to hear.
He reached up and threaded his fingers through her hair. “I can take you to the Boston Compound right now, sweetheart. We can probably get the test results within a day or two,” he offered, moving to get up and set her aside when Danni pushed him back down with a firm shake of her head.
“That would take too long,” she said, reaching up and moving her hair back away from her neck.
“What are you suggesting?” he asked, not sure that he wanted to be the one to tell her if the cancer was starting to spread again.
She sighed as reached down and took his hands into hers. “You know what I’m suggesting.”
He opened his mouth, but nodded. “No matter what I find, remember that Christofer promised to supply you with blood everyday if you need it.”
“I know,” she said, giving him a small smile.
“And remember,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again, “that I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, her smile genuine this time.
He kissed her one more time before he pulled back, tilted his head to the side and leaned in so that he could press a kiss against her neck. “Ready?” he asked her, though he was preparing himself for the acidic taste of her blood.
“Yes,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him close.
He pressed one last kiss to her neck as he allowed his fangs to slide down. Sending up a prayer, he opened his mouth and struck.
*-*-*-*
A low growl shook her out of her thoughts.
Caine’s arms tightened around her as he released another sexy growl that had her licking her lips. When he suddenly stood, bringing her with him, and turned around, slamming her against the wall, she may have let out an embarrassing squeal. A gasp escaped her when he tore her shorts and panties clean from her body, but it was quickly forgotten as a scream of pleasure tore from her lips as he suddenly filled her with a hard thrust that had them slamming back into the wall.
She chuckled breathlessly as she asked, “I guess it’s good?”
His answering moan had her smiling and closing her eyes in relief and thanking God for stubborn Pytes like Christofer.
Chapter 61
What the hell was wrong with her? she couldn’t help but wonder as she found herself shifting forward to let a reluctant Christofer step into the tub behind her and sit down.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said as he adjusted his legs on either side of her and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush against his body.
“I want to,” she said, embarrassed by just how badly she wanted to be the one to feed him.
After what he’d done to her, not to mention the attack that she’d endured as a child, she shouldn’t want to experience his bite again, but she did. Call it morbid curiosity, momentary insanity, but she wanted to experience the kind of pleasure that she saw on his face when she bit him while they made love and replace her nightmares. She wanted to know if Madison was right, if being bitten by a Pyte while making love was the most erotic experience of her life. But, most of all, she wanted Christofer to experience the pleasure that he denied himself every time they made love.
She also wanted to change the past.
“Why?” he asked, pressing a kiss just below her ear as she wrapped her arms around his as they held her tightly against him.
“Does it matter?” she asked, shifting so that her legs were touching his.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“Do you want to bite me?” she asked, wishing that he would just go ahead and bite her before she lost her damn nerve.
He pressed another kiss to her neck as he released a low, sexy growl that had her toes curling. “More than anything.”
“Then do it,” she said, tilting her head to the side to expose the base of her neck to him.
When she felt his warm breath tickle her neck, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her entire body going tense as she waited for those razor sharp teeth to slice through her skin and-
“No,” he said, pressing a kiss against her neck.
“But-” she started to argue even as her body remained tense, ready for his attack.
“No,” he said, cutting her off with another kiss as he moved his arms out from beneath hers.
“But-”
“Shhhh,” he whispered soothingly as he pressed another kiss against her neck. “Just let me hold you for a few minutes.”
She nodded numbly as she lay in his arms. There was no point in pushing him. He’d made up his mind and nothing she could say would change anything.
Which of course meant that she was just going to have to go ahead and take the choice out of his hands, because there was no way that she was going to put this off for another day.
*-*-*-*
“Can I have some of that, please?” Marc asked, yanking him out of his thoughts as he sat at the large kitchen island, staring down at the large glass of lukewarm blood in front of him.
He looked down at the counter and frowned until Marc gestured to his glass of blood. “You drink blood?”
“Yup,” Marc said with a careless shrug as he reached for the cookie jar and pulled it closer so he could grab a handful of Oreos.
“Why?” he asked, handing the glass of blood over to the boy, his own bullshit momentarily forgotten as he watched the young boy stuff an Oreo in his mouth and follow it with half the blood.
Marc popped another cookie in his mouth before he answered. “So I can grow normally,” he explained, grabbing another cookie as Christofer digested the information.
“So, when you’re sixteen you’ll actually look-”
“Sixteen,” Marc finished for him around another cookie.
“Of course,” Christofer said, chuckling as he shook his head in wonder. Of course his embarrassingly slow growth rate could have been fixed with something as simple as drinking blood, he thought as he grabbed the bag of warmed blood from the bowl and another cup from the cabinet.
As Marc polished off the contents of the cookie jar and two more glasses of blood, he sat there sipping blood and thinking about all the things that his child was going to need. Christ, they weren’t ready, but that didn’t matter. He had a baby on the way and responsibilities to deal with. The first of course was to find a home of their own.
He liked the Williams family, liked living here, but they were just starting out and needed some time alone before the baby came. He wanted to spoil Cloe, learn everything that he could about her, and make sure that she knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his very long life with her. He wanted to have the freedom to make love to her wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted and he couldn’t do that in a mansion filled with children and five other people who could hear every single thing they did.