Kissing Phoenix Read online

  Lilith looped her fingers into his belt. “You don’t get to hold back tonight.”

  “You need to be strong,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “No. I need you.” She kissed him hard so the tip of his fang grazed her lip. She shuddered and tipped her head, exposing her throat, willing him to bite.

  As his lips touched her throat, control slid away like mist in the sun. Her body demanded more of Aidan, but he didn’t break the skin. Not yet, he was teasing her, his tongue making circles over her pulse. Her hands traced over his back, pulling him closer, tugging off his shirt. She needed to commit every detail to memory.

  Between kisses, her clothes were peeled off. She was shedding clothes the way cats shed hair in the summer to cope with the heat. “If I die—”

  Aidan crushed her to him, the embrace too tight. “You won’t.” He kissed her forehead, then her lips. “I won’t let you. I can’t live without you.”

  His leg parted her thighs and his fingers slid into her damp panties, teasing her with feathery touches. But a hint of fang on skin and she was ready, her pussy wet and her body pulsing with heat. Raw need for life surged through her veins. She nipped at his lip and he responded in kind. Rough, but careful. His teeth drew no blood even though it flowed so close to the surface, seeking escape. He’d handled her like glass the past week. The bites he’d made had been shallow as if he were holding back when what she wanted was everything. Tonight she didn’t care. She wanted to feel everything one more time, to see Aidan unrestrained and unworried about hurting her. After this, things would be different. She’d be well and one of them—a non-human.

  Lilith worked his belt open and then his jeans, needing Aidan inside her, filling her core. She took hold of his hard shaft—he was just as ready. She smoothed her thumb over the dimpled head. He groaned and she tightened her grip, stroking the length of his cock as if she could tempt him into losing control. His eyes lightened as he thrust into her fisted hand. The white eyes didn’t scare her, they were a sign of how much he wanted her. A lust only she could sate.

  She swept her tongue over his nipple, then she bit. Not as gentle as she once had been, but she knew how much he liked to feel her teeth. Aidan shuddered, a groan lodged in the back of his throat. Unable to help herself, her hips rocked against his thigh, trying to find the right rhythm to take her to the edge. He moved with her, circling her clit, dipping into her pussy so his fingers were slick with her cream.

  Her eyes closed as she gave into his touch. When his lips touched her neck, her body trembled like a flower in a thunderstorm, waiting to feel his razor sharp teeth in her flesh. Her breath became shallow pants.

  “Do it.”

  “Say it.” He whispered in her ear.

  “Bite me.” Fuck me and send me over the edge.

  Aidan’s teeth scored her skin, sending fire through her blood and scorching her nerves. Then her body broke apart in his hands. She tried to grind her mound against his hand, but he was already removing her panties. She eased out of them and lay back on the bed.

  He stripped off his jeans and shoes. The tips of his long incisors were visible against his lower lip, but no smile turned the corners. He moved over her, their skin already glistening with sweat because of the heat. Their lips collided as he forced her legs apart. She lifted her hips to him, but with one hand he pinned them down. She tried to fight the hold even though she knew it was pointless. She’d learned how strong he really was and what his weakness was. She ran her fingers through his hair, lifted her head and bit him on the neck, right where he liked it. The touch of her teeth was enough to get a reaction.

  He growled and drove his cock into her waiting pussy.

  “That’s cheating,” he said with a thrust.

  “Mmm.” Her sheath was tight around his cock, so every stroke sent heat spiraling deep into her belly.

  Aidan lowered his head so his hair tickled her skin, then his mouth closed over her tight nipple. His teeth grazed her breast as if he no longer cared what his teeth did and neither did she. It was all or nothing tonight.

  Sweat made her hands glide over his skin and the air in the room seared her lungs. She tilted her head, offering her neck, needing him to bite as they came together.

  She was so close. The superheated bubble in her belly grew, ready to engulf her. Her nails curved into his flesh in a silent demand for more.

  Aidan pressed her hard into the bed as he fucked her. His fangs found the shallow bite on her neck and reopened it. She moaned and came as he sank his teeth and shaft deep into her. His groan of satisfaction rumbled through her skin and made her core quiver again.

  Together they lay with their legs tangled. Both spent. He released her hip and rested on his elbows above her. His weight was comfortable and familiar when nothing else was. Her heart rate slowed, but she didn’t open her eyes in case the tears spilled. That was it. Maybe the last time she’d lie in his arms.

  “You okay?” Aidan murmured in her ear.

  She took a breath laden with the scent of sex and sweat and Aidan. “Yes.”

  She was better than okay. She was going to survive and she was going to marry him and she wouldn’t allow any other thought to linger and take hold.

  He kissed her, his tongue tracing the cut on her lip as if he were savoring the lingering taste of her blood. “I won’t be able to bite you after tonight.”

  Her eyes opened as her heart skipped a beat. No more bite? But they’d only just begun. What was she going to do without it? What was he going to do? How could he just stop when he’d longed to taste her for so long?

  “Why?” She couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice.

  “Lycanthria turns Vampires into savage killers,” he said without looking at her.

  Horror crawled under her skin, freezing every drop of her blood. The room seemed to tilt before crashing. Aidan had kept the most awful part of her treatment to himself. Lycanthria was a blood born disease. She knew that, but she’d never thought of the consequences. She’d somehow thought him immune.

  “I could infect you?”

  He looked at her, his expression firm as if he’d expected this reaction and had already formulated the arguments. “Only if I taste your blood.”

  “You should have said.”

  “Said what? Tasting you will be as fatal as biting the sun?” His jaw locked. “I had to let you decide, and I didn’t want this to affect your decision.”

  Oh, and it would’ve. It did now, even though the Were blood was ready. She would lose this connection with him. The thrill she felt at the touch of his teeth was nothing compared to what he would lose. She put a hand against his cheek. The golden fire in his eyes was the burning of his soul. Her heart cramped. How could he start the craving only to cut her off and leave her with nothing but a memory? Leave himself with nothing but a lingering taste?

  No tastes, no nips, no blood. Ever.

  “How could you suggest this maybe-cure, Aidan?” Her fingers moved to his lips.

  He kissed her fingertips. “I can give up your blood if you can give up being human.”

  And now she knew what a sacrifice he was making, how much he liked to bury his fangs in her neck as he came. It was part of him. Part of being Vampire.

  “Aidan.” She shook her head. It was too much to lose. For both of them.

  “It’s the only way, Lil.” He kissed her again and withdrew from her body.

  She was left empty and aching for more. Now she understood why he wanted a third option, but it didn’t exist for either of them. Not yet, and who knew how far in the future a permanent cure would be found? Tears stung her eyes and burned a salty path down her cheeks. She brushed them away, the new ring catching in her hair.

  Lilith looked at the diamond and the promise it held. The only way she could keep it was to take her medicine. Her fingers brushed the loaded syringe.

  “You are sure this isn’t snake blood.” She did not want to be eating mice when she got snackish.

&nb
sp; “I’m sure.” Aidan was dressed, but only in jeans as the room was too hot to be fully clothed, offering her a hint of what fans would see at the Lucinda’s Lover shows. She’d gotten a sneak peak of him clothed in the leather pants and eyeliner he’d wear for performances. The view had left her wanting more than an encore.

  She smiled at him. “Summer wedding?”

  He held out his hand for the syringe and she handed it over. She couldn’t inject herself in the backside and apparently the best place to stick it was in a big muscle.

  “Dusk?”

  “Sunlight a problem for some guests?” She rolled over onto her stomach, her arms crossed and the ring on display. He’d asked knowing that he would never be able to bite her. He loved her regardless of what she became. The same way she loved him, even after she knew he was Vampire.

  “Not all Vampires are as circumspect as me.”

  “Meaning they like more blood.” Cold antiseptic touched her skin. She pressed her teeth together to stop them from chattering with nervous energy and tried to relax her butt muscle so the injection wouldn’t hurt as much.

  “Indoors or outdoors?”

  “Garden—” She gasped as the needle entered her skin.

  Fire exploded in the muscle as the virus spread. Her back arched and her body went rigid, pain stripping every nerve as if she were being turned inside out. Then the room went mercifully black.

  Aidan watched the clock. The seconds ticked past too slow. He knew the stages of transformation, but it didn’t sooth his mind. Watching someone he loved get torn apart by Lycanthria was tearing him apart, yet there was nothing he could do beyond keeping the room hot and making sure she didn’t hurt herself.

  She’d have bruises from where he’d held her down. Her limbs slipping and sliding and changing shape. The bones cracking and popping as her body struggled to work out what it was—seal or person.

  That was the easy part. Now her body was rigid, stiff with fever, he kept checking her temperature. He couldn’t cool her because that would slow the change and a slow change would result in death, but if she went into convulsions, the transformation would go bad very fast.

  With one eye he also kept watch on the door. Even though there were only three people who knew what they were doing, that didn’t mean Fendrake hadn’t heard. He was half expecting an Agent to come through the door and arrest him like the criminal he was. He’d started medicine with such high ideals, healing and helping the poor after watching so many die while his Vampire blood—the only thing his father had given him—had kept him healthy. Music had been an indulgence. After the war, it had become his salvation.

  Now he was back where he’d started, willing to break the law to survive, for Lil to survive. With a sigh her body relaxed. He laid his hand on her forehead. The fever had broken. Her heart still beat, it hadn’t stopped like he’d feared. As long as her major organs didn’t start shutting down in the next three hours she would survive. She was doing better than the random bites he’d attended. He’d never thought that knowledge would have a purpose in his life.

  While there were rules against Weres biting and infecting humans, the same way there were rules against Vampires killing, accidents happened and Fendrake made sure no one heard. There was no such thing as good publicity for non-humans. Even if they found a cure for cancer, humans would still fear them and hunt them. Lil would have to learn the dangers of being non-human.

  His finger brushed a damp lock of dark hair off her face.

  They would have to find out together how to make a Were-Vampire relationship work.

  Chapter Five

  From beneath the water, Lilith watched the sky darken. Around her the sea became inky. Swimming at dusk made her nervous, other animals became active and began hunting. Last week she’d glimpsed what could’ve been a shark. She hadn’t stayed around long enough to find out. It was times like this she wondered if she should’ve been a Were-snake safe in front of the heater.

  She swam toward the shore, her body a sleek torpedo slicing through the water. She did a spiral and scattered a school of fish without catching one. Then there was the fun only a seal could have and she knew she’d done the right thing. A snake could never feel the weightless glide and sweep of water over fur.

  In the shallows on her stomach, her heart found the rhythm of the waves as they pushed against her. The power that the infection had given her was never far from reach, but she always had to prepare herself for the shift between forms. It was kind of like breaking her leg to prove she could heal in under five seconds. The pain was over before it really began and with each shift it lessened. Born Weres felt no pain, only the altering of their body like bending a sapling. But she was getting used to it one shift at a time. She pushed out a breath. A ripple of energy burst from within, cracking bones and pulling muscles. Her body changed from seal to human as efficiently as if she’d been doing it all her life and not a few short months.

  Lilith shivered as her bare skin was touched by the smooth, cold pebbles of the beach. In winter this wasn’t going to be fun. She gritted her teeth as she shook out the needles of pain in her limbs, then stumbled as she stood. Her legs burned with the strain of supporting her. After a couple of paces she was okay and her muscles remembered how to work in their human form.

  So did her stomach.

  It growled like a wild beast. Shifting burned a lot of energy, but the temptation to have a snack and catch a fish, or two, while swimming was one she avoided. Now. Once had been enough. She’d spent the best part of an hour throwing up after returning to human form, with Aidan patiently holding back her hair. Just the thought of having a raw, scaly fish in her stomach made it turn as if caught in a rip. Her therapist assured her it would pass. She hoped it wouldn’t. It reminded her she was human.

  She scanned the beach for Aidan. Although he may not be able to protect her in the water, he was there for her the rest of the time. He never let her go alone to shift. She saw him sitting against a rock, waiting for her to return, and smiled, knowing he could see her perfectly in the fading light. To her he was nothing more than a dark shadow. The shadow stood and her nipples tightened in expectation.

  Food could wait. Her blood was still running hot from the shift.

  Lilith crossed the pebbled beach, hips swaying and water trickling over her skin, to Aidan’s waiting arms. He wrapped her in the towel and used it to pull her close.

  “Good swim?” He slid her engagement ring off his pinky and back onto her finger.

  She relaxed as the gold band slid on. She felt naked without it, but seals didn’t wear jewelry and she didn’t want to lose it. The diamond ring was more than an engagement ring—it was a reminder they could survive anything.

  She ignored the bite in the air and kissed him. She wanted to feel his mouth crushing hers, but he kissed with care and without teeth, the way they had to now, but the remnants of the shifting energy still coursed through her, seeking a release. She worked her hands under his shirt. He flinched as her cold fingers raked his skin.

  A low chuckle reverberated in his throat. “Eager to get warm, love?”

  “Always. What were you reading?” Lilith dragged his jeans zipper down and wrapped her hand around his cock. His was hot and satiny-hard.

  “Cross checking tour schedules and beach locations.” He kissed her again as his fingers slid beneath the towel.

  The infamous Lucinda’s Lover was about to embark on their first European tour. Their first album was still number one, defying the critics. And Lilith knew why. When they played they wore nothing but leather pants and black eye makeup. They looked like sin made flesh and sex made easy. Their music was raw and rowdy or soul-destroying mellow. Women sighed and swooned in their presence. But no one would look at Aidan and think he was Phoenix the cellist.

  With a smile on his lips, he thrust his cock into her hand. He liked it when she was still running hot from a shift. His smile was contagious and her lips moved, tightening her cheeks. How had she got
ten so lucky?

  The cancer’s spread had halted, and aside from changing into a seal once a week as part of her treatment, she was fine. She was alive and marrying a Vampire rock-star tomorrow. In her belly, excitement fizzed. Despite everything, she was as nervous as any bride-to-be.

  He lifted her against a boulder. The rock was cold and the towel offered little protection. In front of her, Aidan’s body was warm and familiar. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her body burning from the inside. His hands scalded her sea-cooled skin as he held her hips, ready to slide his cock into her slick core. She was ready for him. The energy of the shift made her blood hot and fed her desire. She rocked her hips so the head of his shaft rubbed against her pussy, teasing as he moved against her folds without entering.

  His lips burned down her neck licking off drops of saltwater, warming her better than any fire. His mouth travelled over her collarbone. He licked the water off the tip of her nipple, then closed his mouth over the tight bud, engulfing her with heat and sending shivers down her spine. She arched her back and he released her breast, but continued thumbing the peak of the other one. She squirmed in his hands. She couldn’t wait. She had to have him.

  “Now, please.”

  He shifted his hips and his shaft pressed into her pussy. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Aidan circled her clit as he thrust into her, as hard and unyielding as the rock behind her. Her sheath clenched around him as she came fast, the rush stealing her breath.

  The remains of her shifting heat dissipated into the night, leaving her limp in his arms. Aidan placed his lips to her neck, his breath raising gooseflesh. A tremor ran through her as her body remembered the sensation of his bite and longed for his razor sharp kiss.

  He breathed her in with his teeth against her skin. A couple more strokes and he tensed and groaned, but he didn’t bite or scratch her skin.