33

He grinned at me, and I pushed my hands into his hair, claiming his mouth as I rocked carefully against the hardness still inside me, enjoying each flutter and spasm of pleasure, and each tiny murmur of the same from Nic.

10

Leia

O

ne week later, life had already settled into a predictable routine. I woke in Nic’s arms, offered him my neck, and he fed a little, sometimes while he finger-fucked me, but often while he just created networks of goosebumps over my body by stroking his hands across my skin, weaving a fragile net of bliss around my body. It was almost my favorite part of the day.

Almost. Except our nights were even better. So many orgasms, even more bliss.

I floated from moment to minute to hour to day…thoroughly annoying Aimée every time I zoned out on our conversations, I was sure. But I couldn’t help it.

Nic filled my thoughts and my senses.

“Hellooooo,” Aimée waved her hand over my face. “I assume Flight Nicky-Forever has already departed this morning, with you well and truly onboard?” But she smiled indulgently as she tapped the cover of her book. “We’re supposed to be undertaking a serious discussion into why Mr. Darcy couldn’t reveal his true feelings for Elizabeth and you’re behaving like you’re somewhere in orbit.”

I sighed, trying to release my lingering thoughts of Nic. “Sorry, sorry. I’m back in the game now.” I’d started to treasure my time with Aimée. She was like a sister for me, too, and my first proper friend. “I’ll do better.”

She laughed. “Oh my God, no. You’re going to be insufferable for at least a couple of years. I’m a fucking vampire already, and I was exactly the same over Tomas. I can only imagine how he would have affected me if I’d met him as a human. Plus, you and Nicky have the whole true mates thing going on.”

She fell quiet for a moment then put her book aside. “As much as I love this whole meeting in the library, book club vibe, how about we go poke around Nicky’s big house for a while? I’m sure there are rooms here you haven’t discovered.”

“Sure.” I put my book on top of hers, smoothing my hand over the cover as I did. A fucking first edition.

I could hardly believe he’d let me touch it. But he wasn’t as hot and cold with me anymore—he was attentive and gentle, even though power and authority radiated from him, his presence more commanding now than when I’d first come here. I shivered as I thought of it, and the way he looked at me in the bedroom. Underneath all the command he demonstrated for others, though, he cherished me.

“You’ve gone again,” Aimée said. “Come on, let’s go snoop around.”

“Are you sure Nic will be okay with it? I mean…” I gestured uselessly as we walked up the staircase, taking in the grand furniture and the fittings. “It’s his house.”

“And you’re his mate.” She shook her head, tossing blonde curls from her face before they fell back into the exact same position. “Besides, there are places in this house I’ve been wanting to look for years.” Her clear blue eyes sparkled with mischief, and I huffed a laugh.

“You’re going to get me in trouble.”

She laughed this time. “And I have every confidence you know how to get yourself out of any trouble you find yourself in. Tomas responds very well to certain things when I need to make up for something.” She winked. “I can give you some tips, if you like?”

I stifled a small shudder. “Uh, no thanks. I still have to look at your guy over the dinner table tonight and not think about those kinds of certain things.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “I think it’s really cute that Nicky arranges dinners for you, and we all just sit around pretending to eat. He’s obviously started to tolerate at least one human very well indeed.”

She pursed her lips like she was considering something and led me to a door I’d never paid much attention to.

“Attic?” She opened the door without waiting for a reply and shot me a wicked grin. “I say totally attic.”

As we walked up the narrow set of stairs, she waved her hand in front of her to clear the cobwebs stretching between the walls.

“What’s up here?” I asked.

“Aside from way too many spiders? Storage rooms full of years and years of useless crap that my packrat brother can’t bear to get rid of, apparently. Well, I hope. How will it be interesting otherwise?” She waved her arm again and coughed. “Maybe servants used to sleep up here? Or should have? But I think Nicky has had the same staff forever, and they’ve never used these rooms. But it gives us lots of scope to explore. Shit, I hate spiders,” she mumbled as she swept away yet more webs. “Too many of them bite.”

“It doesn’t look like Nic’s been up here for a very long time.” I took in the dust-coated surfaces in the first room we stepped into.

Aimée grinned. “Then it’s perfect for looking around.” She made her way to the back of a room and opened a box. “Lots of dust.”

I sat in a rocking chair off to the side and watched her systematically open and discard boxes, not even fastening them closed again when she shoved them aside. “There has to be something more interesting up here than 1980s technology,” she muttered. “Let’s check one of the other rooms.”

“Aimée?” I asked her name as a question as she opened the doors of a large cupboard in the farthest room from the stairs. A dim bulb glowed and flickered from the ceiling, and half-light made its way through a shaded window.

“Hmm?” She was almost bent into the box she was searching, and that made it easier to talk to her.