“Joie.” He breathed her name again. “I will love you to the end of your days.”
The water poured over her, heightening her sensitivity to pleasure. She heard the honesty in his voice. The purity. Joie tilted her head to the side to give him better access, closed her eyes in anticipation. She was certain. She might not understand why it was right, but she had never been surer.
His teeth sank deep. White-hot pain pierced her body, giving way instantly to sheer ecstasy. Lightning flashed in her bloodstream, hot whips of pleasure tormenting her. Heat welled up, and threatened to consume her. She held him to her, closer, moving her body enticingly. It should have frightened her, the way he fed on her, devoured her with a hungry, craving lust more sexual than anything else.
Traian traced every line, and curve, every hollow, etching her body in his memory, wanting the moment to last several lifetimes. The rush hit him hard, a sexual hunger mixed with a dark craving nearly uncontrollable. For centuries his appetite had been insatiable, a terrible hunger that could never be assuaged, but now her blood satisfied his inhuman need. But his intense sensual need remained unappeased. He was hard and hot and heavy with desire. His tongue swept across the pinpricks on her skin. His lips traveled down to her breast. Ancient words beat in his head, words of a ritual imprinted on him before his birth. Once said, there was no going back. Traian and Joie would be bound for eternity.
The small sound escaping from her throat only urged him on. His tongue teased and danced over her taut nipple, caught the droplets of water as they beaded on her skin. “You are my lifemate. I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you.” His hands shaped her body, slid up to cup her breasts.
His face was dark, his gaze intent as he looked into her eyes. Joie felt a strange wrenching in the vicinity of her heart. A part of her tasted fear, wanted to cry out for him to stop, but another part embraced his words, understood the importance of each promise uttered. Her hands slipped over his chest, and she leaned forward to taste his skin, her teeth nipping his chest, directly over his heart. She had never been a biter, but something urged her to sink her teeth deep, to connect them together. She swirled her tongue over his heavy muscles.
Joie was killing him with her innocent sensuality. His body hurt, a hard, painful ache; he was desperate for relief. “I give you my protection. I give you my allegiance. I give you my heart.” His hands tightened on her waist, holding her so tight he felt her soft body melting around his. “I give you my soul. I give you my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.”
The words spilled out of him, the Carpathian ritual marriage, as old as time. He felt thousands of tiny threads binding them together as they were meant to be joined.
He caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face to his, finding her lips almost blindly, wanting to devour her. She opened her mouth to him, melted into him. Traian caught her up in his arms, kissing her wildly, and carried her to the bed, cradling her in his lap so that his heavy erection pressed tightly against her buttocks. He whispered softly in his language, a strong command, even as his fingernail lengthened and he drew a line over his chest.
Joie kissed his throat, her lips drifting down his neck, unerringly finding his chest and the gash there. A hot flame burst inside him, a firestorm of emotion and sensation. The back of her head fit into his palm as he held her to him, encouraging her to make the exchange. Heat poured through his body. He burned for her, his body hard and painful with need, even as pleasure swept through him. Traian shifted, lowering Joie to the comforter, following her down so as not to break the connection between them. When he was certain she had taken enough for a true exchange, he whispered the command to halt and closed the wound himself. At once his mouth was