No Rest for the Wicked

24

"Did you dress for me?" Sebastian visibly swallowed when Kaderin stood at his arrival.

He'd been doing that tentative-step thing as he entered, but after his gaze raked her from head to toe, he strode forward as though pushed. There was no mistaking his appreciation of her tight black sweater, short skirt, and strappy heels.

She was glad when his avid gaze strayed again to her breasts, or he might have seen her dropped jaw.

The vampire was undeniably hot.

He was so tall that the highest point of the plane's seven-foot ceiling barely cleared his height. He wore dark jeans that highlighted his narrow hips and a dark shirt that molded to his muscles. Everything was tasteful and seriously expensive. His face was completely healed, and his longish black hair was damp at his collar from a recent shower.

Sexy. He has too much of a biological advantage. What female could be expected to turn him away when he wanted to be inside her?

When he met her eyes again, he had such a ravenous look that she grew flustered, feeling a blush creeping over her cheekbones. Blushing. Now the vampire has me blushing. "This is how I usually dress." After nervously trying on thirty combinations of clothing. "That is, when I'm not fighting, running, or climbing."

He reached forward to brush his hand at her nape. "Or diving from cliffs to tackle unwitting sirens," he said with a half grin.

So, he was going to be charming tonight? Little did he know that she was a-sure-thing. He didn't have to unleash an arsenal of devastating good looks and that quiet, unstudied charm.

She was his tonight.

Before he'd arrived, she had been miserable. She'd felt so alone and so, well, doomed. After much soul searching, Kaderin had made a decision.

In the young, immortal words of Regin: Fuck it. If she was going to die, Kaderin was going to have one night of passion before her dirt nap. And she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to be with more than him—for this one night.

She'd told him this was how she usually dressed, and that was true, but she didn't want him to suspect that she'd tried on everything in her bag twice. She'd stared in the mirror, considering her appearance for the first time in ages, wondering what he would find attractive about her—or was it merely the blooding that made him fancy her? She'd been so anxious about being intimate with a man after so long, she could scarcely close the tiny fastenings on her heels.

Sad but true, she was grateful to him for his company. If he weren't here, she would have done nothing but mull her death, but now he was with her, and there was something in his eyes, something a bit alarming that thrilled her.

She bit her bottom lip. Call her Betty Fucking Crocker, because the cake was so going to be worth the bake.

"You look beautiful." Such simple words, but the way he said them, his eyes so compelling, gave her shivers.

She glanced down at herself and back up. "Not too small?"

That gorgeous grin again. Gazing at his chiseled, masculine face changing expressions was a decadent pleasure. "I love how you are made. Even as I'd worried about hurting you when I touched you." Listening to the low timbre of his voice was just as blissful. She knew she shouldn't enjoy these things so much, and yet she couldn't help it.

"Hurting me?" She gave a light laugh. "Losing limbs hurts. Boiling oil hurts. Whatever you can dish out, I can take—if I wish to."

He closed in, all hot, massive male, towering over her. Gods, he smelled good.

"And do you wish to, Kaderin?"

Yes! She wanted him to kiss her, to lick her body. Him, a vampire. When she nodded breathlessly, his hand cupped her face, drawing her in so he could take her lips.

His kiss was gentle at first—though she could tell he struggled to make it so. Then he groaned, and it turned desperate, that gallows kiss. Tonight she shared the sentiment completely.

The lights blinked twice, and she finally forced herself to break away. "We're about to take off. It's, uh, customary to sit."

He dropped into the closest seat, seizing her waist, then dragged her across his lap. When he settled her ass over his rampant erection, he hissed in a breath, and she gasped, reminded of his size.

In an awkward attempt at conversation, she asked, "H-have you ever been on a plane before?"

"No." He brushed her hair from her neck to press a sizzling kiss to the bared skin. "And I doubt that I'll remember much of flying this time."

When he nuzzled her neck, she stiffened and pulled away. "No biting?"

"No, I promise," he said. "I am sorry it happened that night."

As her uncontrollable emotions continued to do, unbidden words bubbled up from nowhere. "Sebastian, no matter what happens in the future, I want you to know that I'm... " She glanced down and murmured, "I'm glad you're here now."

But he curled his finger under her chin and caught her eyes. He looked proud of her. "Thank you for telling me this."

"I just felt I should."

"These feelings are confusing, are they not? Mine are, too. But we'll muddle our way through."

She wouldn't be around long enough to...

With that thought in her mind, she turned to straddle him. Her hands trembled as she cradled his face. She leaned in to press her lips against the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and lower to his neck, then returned to brush her lips fully against his. As before, the mere contact of his lips with hers made her breathy and abandoned. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, setting in to him, licking his lips, his tongue.

She drew back to work her sweater up and off, then reached back and unsnapped her lacy bra. When she faced him again, his gaze was rapt on her bared breasts, his jaw slackened.

Today in the cave, she'd determined that he hadn't wanted to rush their encounter. Now, she again had the idea that he wanted to take this slowly, and judging from his reaction, he thought she'd just skipped a step.

"I... Katja... " He swallowed, seeming to memorize the sight. As if he believed he'd never see something like this again?

The awful truth was that she enjoyed him gaping at her breasts, enjoyed his pained expression when her nipples hardened right in front of his eyes.

"So lovely," he said, his voice rumbling in that sexy way, shooting heat through her that centered between her legs. Gods, she'd missed this.

He placed his hands flat on her back and pulled her forward to lightly lick one of her nipples. She moaned at that small contact even before he took it between his lips. Groaning around the peak, tongue flicking, he sucked hard until it throbbed. He released her only to repeat the attentions to her other breast, then he stopped to gaze again. She had the crazy idea that he wanted to see what he'd wrought with his lips.

But his breaths were heating the wet peaks, making her ache. "Please, Bastian," she murmured. If he was going to touch her, he needed to do it now.

He moved her until she lay across his lap, her neck against his arm. "Spread your legs," he rasped, pressing them open until her skirt rode up enough to reveal her panties. He grazed the backs of his fingers up her inner thigh.

With his eyes heavy-lidded, he pulled her panties aside with one hand, reaching his other hand around her waist and down to begin stroking her. He bit out a foreign curse at how wet she was. "For me," he said, his voice hoarse. It wasn't a question, but she got the sense that he wanted her to assure him.

"For you," she whispered, making him shudder.

"That pleases me. You should be, since I'm hard for you constantly." He rubbed her wetness around, making her gasp, seeming fascinated with how slick she'd grown. When he slipped his finger into her, he groaned from low in his throat, and she writhed, feeling his shaft pulse beneath her.

"I'm going to kiss you here"—he rocked his hand upward, delving deeper, as his thumb slowly stroked her clitoris—"all night."

She cried out. She'd always found that act intensely erotic, and now the wicked thought of a vampire doing it to her made her squirm.

Who was this domineering, sinfully sexy man? He'd seemed cautious, even tentative, in the beginning. But not now.

Never had a takeoff felt so good. "Bastian, I need—"

"You want me to kiss you, Katja?"

"Yes!" She rolled her hips to work his finger in and out, and he groaned against her damp nipple.

He continued this agonizing play until they leveled off and the lights in the cabin dimmed to darkness except for the light over the table opposite them. He lifted her and gently placed her on the table, pressing her back.

His hands skimmed up under her skirt until he could hook his fingers around her panties. She shimmied to help him as he tugged them off.

He pushed her skirt to her waist, then sat before her in the plush seat, in the dark while she was lying back in the light. He placed his palms on her legs and gently spread them. When she was bared to him, he rasped, "You're beautiful," making her sex clench. She whimpered as he continued to stare.

She'd never been looked at like this, never felt so exposed and vulnerable. And yet she trusted him with her body. At last, he pressed his lips to her thigh, kissing higher with wet licks until she was shivering, threading her fingers in his thick hair.

She sighed, drawing up her knees and letting her legs fall open for him to do as he would.