Dark Destiny Page 0,75

partial withdrawal, felt her tremendous physical need so at odds with her mental hesitation. At once he lifted his head, moved his leg to allow her freedom. "We can slow down. I could spend hours just touching you. Or holding you. Or kissing you." He found her mouth with his, blazing his brand of possession straight on her heart.

Destiny was stiff beneath him, but his mouth held familiar heat and his hands were gentle as they wandered over her body. He was patient starting over, kissing her until she was breathless and kissing him back. Until her body slowly began to relax. Until she was hungry for him again. Until the brush of his fingers on her skin sent tiny flames dancing and singing through her body.

Nicolae shifted once more, his knee sliding between hers, nudging her legs apart so that he was pressed tightly against her. She could feel him there, at her entrance, where she was ready with a moist invitation, beckoning and tempting him to her. A small sound escaped. She couldn't find enough air to breathe.

"What is it, little one?" His voice came out of the darkness, velvet soft, his hands skimming her body with exquisite tenderness. "Where are you going?" She was tensing up beneath his hands and he couldn't bear it, couldn't bear to let her go. He fed her his heightened awareness, his own desire, slowing his own heartbeat to aid her in accepting him. He moved his body away from hers to give her time to accept what was between them.

Fighting his instinctual need to exchange blood, he feathered a trail of kisses from her throat to her abdomen. His mouth was on her flat stomach, his tongue swirled around her belly button, that intriguing sexy dimple he had so greatly admired. Her hands stroked his back, her body softening slightly, once more preparing to surrender to him.

Destiny was determined to give herself wholly to him, to take him for herself. She had been alone too long, needed him too much. He was everything she had ever dreamed about. She would do this!

Laughter hissed in her ear, evil and taunting. The monstrous creature was dragging her by her hair as she fought him, pounding into her, heedless of his size and strength. Uncaring of her broken bones. Uncaring of tearing her body in half. The pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced, and it was endless, trapping her there. She felt the taste of blood in her mouth as he forced her to drink from that dark, corrupt well. It was an acid burning her throat, her stomach, a blowtorch burning her from the inside out.

You will be like me.

The stench was overwhelming, part of the madness of her existence. Evil permeated her pores, seeped into her from him.

Abruptly she pulled her mind away, tears leaking out of her closed eyes. She wanted this. She ached for Nicolae with every fiber of her being. He was as necessary to her as breathing. She wanted him, but darkness was descending and her lungs refused to work. A heavy stone was crushing her chest; hands seemed to be gripping her throat, strangling her. She could have stopped Nicolae long ago, but she had insisted. She was unclean. She would always be unclean. Nicolae's love couldn't make her whole again. Pure again.

She would only disappoint him, hurt him, risk his becoming as she was.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she whispered, turning her face away, jamming her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming. She was humiliated beyond imagining. To tease Nicolae, bring him to this point and not be woman enough to give him what he needed, was intolerable. She tried to pretend, to recapture the intensity of her desire, but the walls of the chamber were shrinking, threatening to suffocate her. She knew she could not be what Nicolae so desperately needed.

"I can't do this." Destiny shoved hard at the wall of his chest, panic-stricken, fighting just to breathe. "I tried to tell you I wouldn't be able to be intimate, but you wouldn't listen." She shoved again, desperate for space, desperate to breathe.

Nicolae shuddered with the effort to control his body, to contain his passion. Her blue-green gaze shimmered with tears, darkening with turbulence, a foreshadowing of her rising instincts to fight her way out of a situation she couldn't handle. He felt her resistance in his mind, in his body. She was rigid, straining away from him, trembling. And there was