Of Blood & Consequence (Book 2 of The Blood Bond Series)

8. Push The Limits

On her off-hours over the next week, Delia spent a lot of time looking into school, the other half talking with Gran and trying to convince herself that everything was peach-keen. The tightness in Gran's voice could have just been exhaustion or worry about Delia's mother, who still hadn't spoken with her child or her mother. It was utterly maddening, wondering where the woman was.

Sighing, she sat back from her laptop as she was trying to look into her mother's 'find my iphone' account. Her grandmother and Sasha shared a cell phone plan, and Gran had given her the information she would need to get into her account. The last place that Delia could find her mother's phone active was the Phoenix airport. Since then, nothing. That could only mean that wherever she went, she wasn't using the device. If she was abroad somewhere, that would make sense as she had a tendency not to get the needed SIM card for the phone when she was traveling in Europe or other parts of the world.

In essence, her phone was used mainly as a camera to take photos of the places she had been to regale her disapproving daughter and resigned mother after she had gotten back from wherever she had flown off to.

"Delia."

She looked up to see Michael's concerned face. Concerned and determined face. She knew she was obsessing a bit, so it didn't surprise her that Michael had noticed her preoccupation with her mother's whereabouts.

Sighing, she turned off the laptop and stood up to put it away. Michael stopped her with a hand and placed the laptop on the coffee table before pulling her in close. His arms wrapped around her, and the sense of peace that always came with their connection was tonic to her soul. She sighed and relaxed into his form, inhaling his male muskiness like it could solve every one of her problems with a few whiffs of his woodsy scent.

"Come to bed," he murmured into her ear. "It's getting late."

Her eyes flickered to the clock in the far corner. She was startled to see it was well past midnight. Time didn't just fly by when you were having fun. It jetted past when you were attached to your computer 24/7 like it would give you the answers to everything you needed.

"Okay."

She vaguely remembered feeding about an hour ago, and she found that her hunger for blood had morphed into a need to be close to her mate. Like he was all the sustenance in the world, she followed him into their bedroom, starting to strip herself once the door was closed and the lamp was switched on at the side of her bed.

"Let me."

Michael's fingers skated down her arms and up her sides as he pulled her billowing t-shirt up and over her head. It was actually his clothing that she wore, and Michael was always proud and amused when she preferred lounging around the house in his duds instead of her own. It made her smell even more like him, more like his, and any vampire worth his salt could appreciate that.

Her boxers—again his, actually—were pushed off her hips to the floor before she stepped out of them.

Once bare, Michael hurried her to the bed, bending her over the side with a crack of his palm to her ass.

"Ass up, cuore," he growled hungrily before dropping to his knees behind her.

The soft flesh of Delia's backside was kneaded as Michael got comfortable, licking the dripping arousal that always seemed ever-present when she was near him.

Near him. Over him. Under him. If being in his presence made her wet, she could have replenished the oceans had they run dry with just a few hours alone with him, tangled together and panting.

He licked a slow line from her clit to her asshole, and her back wanted to arch so that her chest would press against the bed and rub delicious friction against her aching n*****s.

Delia cried out as Michael made an appreciative noise behind her, his lips and tongue too busy sucking and nibbling to form discernible words. Still, he spread her ass cheeks and ran his nose along her dripping slit before f*****g her with his tongue, lapping up her arousal like blood from a human source.

Tasting it. Savoring it.

Delia's hands scrabbled to seek purchase against the sheets as her p***y ground against Michael's face, riding his tongue as the scruff on his jaw rasped tantalizingly against the insides of her thighs.

She didn't know how he could do it, but he growled against her clit, his chin nudging it and causing it to engorge with desire as his tongue flicked in and out of her hot center.

One of her hands moved back to try and grab onto his hair, fisting it when she was finally able to grab hold. He landed a slap to her other cheek, pushing her even higher as she tightened around his thrusting tongue.

"f**k, Michael!"

She shattered into a thousand minuscule pieces as she climaxed, his mouth still working to draw out her pleasure before slowing as it laid flat against her pulsating s*x.

Flipping her over, Michael extended her legs wide. His throbbing c**k notched against her slippery core and pushed through, his hands locked around her ankles to keep her spread for him as he seated himself as deep as he could go.

Rolling his hips on retreat, he bent over her, his mouth still wet and seeking her lips. Finding them, he licked inside her mouth, sucked on her tongue, forcing her to taste herself. Her arms curled around him and over his shoulders, her ankles locking around his waist when he was forced to let go.

It only allowed him to push through handfuls of silky hair, rubbing the pads of his fingers against her scalp as she moaned into his urgent mouth, feasting on the low rumble that vibrated his throat and the slow, complete pumps of his hips.

Their mouths drew away, heated stares connecting as Delia sought out the tiny gold flecks in his eyes as her arousal spiked with every grunt he gave her as his legs and ass flexed.

"Michael..."

He kissed his name away, too desperate for her to break connection for any longer than a deep breath scented with their joining and Delia's plumeria-scented skin.

As he licked and sucked down to the mark on her neck, he felt her clench around him, and with the first touch of his tongue on his mark, she exploded in fluttering pulses around him. Grinding his hips into hers for a moment, he felt his shaft get squeezed as she rode her orgasm out.

"f**k, Michael." She whimpered his name, and the needy sound drew his eyes to hers as her lips parted in the sweetest words one could ever hear. "I love you."

He smiled hearing them. It didn't matter that he was balls deep inside her right now. The look in her eyes said she meant them, and his thrusts faltered as the sincerity etched into them slayed him.

"Ti voglio bene, amore mio," he vowed through the raspy, raw timbre of his deepest bass tones. (I love you, my love.)

He could feel her soft breath panting against his lips just before he claimed them again, loving the scrape of her fingernails against his scalp. They sent a pleasurable shiver raking down his back to tingle at the base of his spine. It filled his balls, and he had to stave off the need to fill her completely with his seed.

Rolling her over again, he looked down as his c**k jutted out, wanting to pierce her again and slowly moving forward after being dislodged from deep within her. As he centered the blunt tip, his other hand trailed over the smooth line of her back up to her neck and winding through the smooth strands before jerking her head back.

"Vuoi che ti scopi e ti facia venire?" (You want me to f**k you hard and make you come?)

Her back bowed and Delia cried out, her hands bracing against the mattress as he pounded into her harder, riding her g-spot until her legs trembled and threatened to give way.

Delia was no longer bent over the mattress, and Michael reached between her legs to slick his fingers over her clit. His slow strokes hastened as his pace quickened, his pelvis slamming into her as he became rougher, every slide of his c**k punctuated with a slapping sound that fed his thirst for her.

With his lips at her ear, he gave her every raw sound, every raspy promise, every deliberate drive of his hips meeting flesh as he chased her pleasure until she was calling out his name as she fisted around him, threatening him to spend inside her.

"No!" he barked, pulling out of her and scooping her up until she was pressed flat against a wall.

Delia's legs went out from under her and she circled her legs around his hips, linking her ankles together as she's slid down Michael's c**k and immediately pushed up again.

His pace was quick and brutal, and his grinding actions quickly thrust her to the brink as the quick build-up of her orgasm lanced through her like a piercing shriek would have split her eardrums.

The moment she clenched around him in her climax, Michael let out a sound like a snarl, jerked his hips into her a few times, and slowed his pace as he filled her completely.

Delia could feel the throb as he emptied out and drove her fingers into his hair, pulling his face to hers. Their lips found each other before he dropped her gently to the ground where she rolled onto her toes to keep kissing him.

After cleaning up, the two of them climbed under the covers and started to talk. It was merely friendly at first, covering some of what they wanted to do the next week—which honestly wasn't much. Delia was interested in getting more human contact practice, and Michael was teetering on the edge of broaching a subject before Delia finally pulled it from him.

"Delia, you have to stop obsessing over your mother and Gran," he told her when she'd quipped that he had something on his mind he wasn't telling her.

"I'm just trying to take care of my family, Michael. Surely you can understand that."

He almost guffawed at her remark. Not that she would know about how independent and dangerous the Jensens really were, because he still hadn't brought them up to her except in passing. Though Delia wanted to pry, she knew it was a subject matter that he wasn't all that eager to talk about. Whenever she'd brought his parents and any siblings he had up, he simply moved past the topic by either f*****g her incoherent or changing to topic to something about Delia's mother and Gran.

"I promise we'll do more work on your blood lust next week," he vowed before pulling her into his embrace on the bed. "Then we can make a trip to Arizona and you can see for yourself that everything is just fine. Have faith."

She mumbled something inaudible into his chest and fought the urge to back away. She didn't want his many promises; she wanted the reassurance that everything was fine with Caroline Parker, visual proof that she was cared for and healthy.

If she couldn't get that from her mother or her Gran's quipped and quick guarantees, she would have to see for herself.

"You should focus on you for now," Michael reminded her. "Schooling, your blood lust. You have to at least make sure that you can tame your hunger in the human world before we can drive to Arizona and see for ourselves that your Nena is fine."

But all the words in the world couldn't keep Delia from thinking that something was definitely very, very wrong.