He undid the front of my jeans, dragging down the zipper.
My insides clenched and I clutched for his shoulder as everything disappeared; sound and smell and sight, gone.
“Can I touch you, Basilia?” He sounded almost furious.
He wasn’t.
We were as desperate as each other.
I needed him to touch me. Just another fucking line blurred that I couldn’t bring myself to care about.
Looping an arm around my waist, Kyros held me upright, hovering his mouth just over mine. “Tell me.”
In answer, I grabbed his hand and slid it down my stomach and beneath my panties. “It won’t take long.”
Like, one touch. Seriously.
His eyes flared and his fingers unfurled under my panties, making me jerk.
I slapped my hands back on the wall. “Please hurry.”
Kyros hummed, watching me as he supported my weight entirely. “No.”
One thick finger entered me, pressing in with agonising slowness. I cried low as my body tightened from my toes to my fingertips, my insides drawing in to the tip of his finger.
“Fuck,” Kyros whispered, his rapt focus on my flushed face.
His thumb circled my clit once. And the tightening catapulted to the peak with unfathomable speed.
Twice.
White obliterated my senses as Kyros’s hand moved rapidly.
Kyros’s thumb was circling.
His finger moving. So fast.
I couldn’t make sense of anything but the weightless bliss being wrung from my body.
His forehead was against my shoulder as he milked my orgasm for all it was worth.
Pleasure turned to pain as he continued.
His name lodged in my throat and I wiggled to dislodge his thumb from my sensitive flesh. It was so much. “Ky—”
He growled, unrelenting. The pain morphed to a slow heat that built, spreading through me again.
My shocked gaze flew to the ceiling. I was…? The pleasure jumped up and up again, bowling through my shaking frame.
Oh my god, I was.
This time I heard the scream that tore from my lips as my body tried to implode around his hand. He didn’t let me collapse and curl into a ball, keeping up a steady pressure until the hazy grips of my second orgasm left me.
After one last pulse, he slid his hand free.
“I need to set you down.” His voice was strained, and I shivered. Blurring me to the futon in the middle of the wardrobe, Kyros raced from the room.
Pure possessiveness rolled through him. His mind shook with the need to claim me again.
And I was in no position to help matters.
Sprawled on the futon, I reached blindly to do up my jeans. Fuck me. I couldn’t believe what just happened. Twice. Really?
I wanted to stretch like a cat in front of the fire. I wanted to return the favour. I wanted nine days of mind-boggling sex from back-to-back thralls.
The shower turned on, and I flashed a smile.
What’s the bet it was cold?
6
Almost weirder than anything that had happened during Kyros’s sleepover was driving to work with him. Earlier than my shift demanded I needed to go.
He’d woken, delivered multiple orgasms, and left. I spent all day with him between my appointments. If he kept this up, I’d have to schedule Churchill meetings on Sundulus roll days.
Then there was my constant fear Mrs Gaughton would want to introduce herself and tell him about how she’d come to move in. Kyros thought of Bluff City residents as addresses; there was no way he’d recognise her, but still. His curiosity about my life may lead him to question her.
“I’ll drop you at the tower,” Kyros said as I waved goodbye to Fred.
Yep, my butler knew Kyros was a vampire and his face gave away nothing.
And yep, pretty sure the whole house heard what went down this morning, including Fred.
Damn. “Drop me there? You’re going somewhere else?”
He hesitated.
I narrowed my gaze. “Tell me.”
Kyros tilted his head. “You’ll find out anyway.”
That was his only incentive to tell the truth?
“After the Tonyi triplets took you into Fyrlia territory, the clans made a deal to avoid involving an impartial clan.”
I knew that much. “What was the deal?”
“Part of the deal is that I spend two and a half hours with King Mikael every Friday night from 10:30 p.m. until 1:00 a.m.”
Wow.
For starters, that would mess up Kyros’s ability to lead his team for that day’s roll. More importantly. “This has been going on for a few weeks?”
Kyros nodded, directing the car through Black.
There was no way he was okay with this. “I’m willing to bet that Mikael spends the entire time filling your head with twisted shit about you being his son.”
Resignation.
I gritted my teeth. “That’s so messed up. Why would your father agree to that?” I just couldn’t understand what made Julius tick. He loved his children. Humiliated his son. He’d displayed the occasional good quality but was an all-round cruel fucker.
“I made the offer,” Kyros said.
What?
“Why would you ever do that?”
Reluctance filled him.
“You don’t doubt who your real parents are, do you?” I pressed.
He pursed his lips. “No. Not really. But you’ll get angry.”
“And angrier if you don’t spit it out.”
We pulled to a stop at a red light. “If I hadn’t, the impartial party would have interrogated Tommy. If what I suspect about how much your friend knows about my kind is correct, she’d now be dead. At the best, she’d currently be compelled. I didn’t tell you because you don’t like me interfering in her life.”
I nearly choked on the irony of that. Interference didn’t include him saving her life.
“How did you know?” I asked him softly.
“You’re happier when she’s in your life. You were lonely and very suddenly happy. I then discovered she’d re-entered your life. Friendships like the one you share don’t tolerate lies. Therefore, you’d figured out some way around my fucking excellent compulsion.”
Eek.
I couldn’t take the credit for that. Angelica gave me Tommy back. My hands twisted on my lap.
“Don’t ask what you’re about to ask,” he said quietly. “I told you I wouldn’t harm your friend and I meant it.”
My exhale shook, and I felt his frustration swell at my mistrust.
It was Tommy though.
Kyros slid me a look. “Will you tell me how you were able to get around the compulsion?”
“Hmm, what?”
The vampire rolled his eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”
The light turned green and he guided the car—an identical vehicle to the one I’d driven over the cliff from what I could tell—through Blue.
“You told Tommy the truth about Theodore and she didn’t take it well,” he murmured as the tidy apartments and community gardens whizzed by. “I felt your pain yesterday morning. She left?”
“She loved him and couldn’t accept he was dead, that I did it, or that he was Vissimo. Any of it. She won’t be back.”
I hadn’t dared to let myself feel anything but numbness about that yet.