“Oh God!” I tear my mouth from his as every feeling I’ve ever had in my life wells up inside me all at once.

“Too much?” he asks, and he sounds as breathless as I feel.

“Not enough,” I answer, and then I’m diving back into his arms. Into him. Into the wild, endless incandescence that is the two of us.

His hands slide under my ass, and I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. And then we’re fading, straight off the roof, down the three flights of stairs, and up the hallway that gets us to my room.

His mouth never leaves mine once.

85

Of Bites and Bonds

I think there’s a part of me that always expected it to be awkward if we ever got this far, that expected it to feel strange to be in the arms of this boy who lived inside my head for so long. This boy who knows everything—good, bad, and indifferent—about me.

But it doesn’t feel strange at all. It feels…perfect, like this one moment in time was always meant to be.

We’re still in the hallway outside my door, like Hudson’s afraid of what it will imply if he takes that one last step and moves us inside. But I don’t care where we are, and I sure as hell don’t care about rules or social niceties or anything that doesn’t involve getting his body on mine. It’s nice that he does, though. Nice that he wants me to be sure.

But I am. Oh my God, I am. With a little moan, I slide my hands to the hem of his shirt, skim my fingers across the flat, hard plane of his stomach. Then scrape my teeth across his lip the same way he scraped his against mine.

And the heat takes over, a raging conflagration rising up in both of us until it spills over and sets fire to the world.

I whimper deep in my throat even as I grab on to his broad shoulders. I yank at his shirt, dig my fingers into his hard muscles, try desperately to pull him even closer. And something seems to snap deep inside him—something wild and brutal and all-consuming.

He groans as he fumbles us through my door and somehow manages to get it closed behind us. Then he’s backing me straight into the nearest wall, his chest and hips and hands pressing into me so completely that I can’t tell where I stop and he begins.

And still I want more. Still I’m imploring him, little gasps and pleas pouring from my lips even as he devours me. Even as we devour each other.

Kiss by kiss, touch by touch.

At one point, he pulls his mouth from mine; sucks in deep, shuddering gulps of air; and grinds out, “Grace. Are you sure? Do you want—”

“Yes,” I breathe as I pull his mouth back to mine. “Yes, oh my God, yes.” If he doesn’t do something soon, I’m going to die. Just self-immolate right here and go up in flames.

Hudson snarls as he sucks my lower lip between his teeth, nipping at it just enough to have me gasping and arching against him. He gasps then, too, and this time when one of his fangs slides against my lip, nicking me just a little, he groans like a man who’s tasted heaven…or one who is about to lose it.

And it makes me completely consumed with what I want him to do. What I need him to do. I arch my back, pull my mouth away from his, and tilt my head to the side like an offering.

He growls deep in his throat. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” I tell him as I press his mouth to my skin. “What I’m begging for. Please, Hudson,” I whisper as the heat inside me threatens to overwhelm me, to pull me down into a raging inferno I might never escape from. “Please, please, please.”

He lets out a small moan, his hands clenching in my hair so that he can pull my head even farther to the side.

I expect him to strike right then, to tear through me like the rampaging beast that has us both in its claws. But this is Hudson, steady, deliberate, careful Hudson, and tearing into me is apparently not on his agenda, even though he’s right there, his mouth pressed against my jugular.

“Please,” I whisper.

His lips slide gently across my shoulder.

“Oh my God,” I gasp.

His tongue brushes delicate patterns into my collarbone.

“Do it,” I urge as his fangs scrape lightly against the sensitive skin behind my ear. “Do it, do it, do it!”

He roars then. It’s deep and harsh and animalistic, and it sets everything inside me on high alert, my entire body stretched taut as a high wire as I wait. And wait. And wait.

“Hudson, please,” I beg. “It hurts. It—”

And just like that, he strikes, his fangs sinking deep into my throat.

White-hot pleasure slams through me and I erupt, whimpers tearing from my throat. Hudson freezes, like he’s going to pull out, but I grasp at him like a wild woman, my hands holding him tight against me.

He growls in response, his hands clutching at my hips as he starts to drink.

And that’s when I scream, not from the pain but from the explosion that rocks me all the way to my core.

And still he doesn’t stop. Still, he continues to drink from me as his hands skim over my body. There’s no surcease from the heat, no ending to the feelings sweeping along my nerve endings and rioting deep inside me.

There is only fire, only flames. They incinerate every barrier I have, laying waste to every stumbling block I put in our way, taking over everything until I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but burn.

Hudson must feel the same way, because even when he stops drinking from me, even when he pulls away, when he licks the wounds and closes them, he doesn’t stop touching me. His hands are everywhere, his mouth everywhere, and all I want is to make him feel as good as he makes me feel.

I reach for his shirt, pull it over his head, and then my mouth is everywhere, too.

He groans, his hands cupping my ass again as he moves us to the bed. And as he lays down next to me, his long, lithe body pressed against mine, nothing has ever felt so good.

But even as I think it, it freaks me out a little. Because this is Hudson, and every warning bell inside me screams that if I let him in, if I choose him, then losing him will absolutely destroy me.

I pull away for just a second, and Hudson pushes up to his elbow, expression quizzical but eyes watchful.

“It’s just the mating bond,” I tell him.

He lifts a brow. “What is?”

“This.” I move over to straddle him, my knees around his hips. “All of this. It’s just the mating bond.”

At first, I think he’s going to argue, but when I lower my mouth to his, he grins against my lips. And says, “I can totally live with that.”

86

Kiss and TED Talk

Hudson groans a little, arches into me, and it’s my turn to take over. My turn to press kisses to his neck, his collarbone, the hollow of his throat.

He smells good—so good—like sandalwood and sun and warm, inviting amber. I want to burrow into him, to stay right here against him for as long as this moment and this world will let me.

Hudson must feel the same way, because he’s in no hurry to move this along or to move out from under me. Instead, he tangles his hands in my hair, wrapping the individual curls around his fingertips and knuckles until he’s tied up in me in a way that feels right and real and terrifying all at the same time.

It’s just the mating bond, I tell myself again as I rock my hips against his.

Just the mating bond as I lean down to kiss him and my hair forms a perfect curtain between us and the rest of the world.

Just the mating bond as he presses against me over and over again until I go spinning through time and space once more.

For long seconds afterward, my whole body feels like stardust. Like little droplets of light, millions of tiny explosions, flying, falling, floating through space.

Hudson holds me the whole time, his mouth soft and tender against mine as he presses kisses to my shoulder. Nuzzles into the hollow of my throat. Skims his lips over the sensitive spot behind my ear.

I’m shaking by the time he finally lifts his mouth from mine.

He’s shaking, too, his body tight as a bowstring. But when I slide down and reach for his Armani belt with hands that are suddenly all thumbs, he pulls me back up and rolls us over so that he’s stretched out over me now, his hips slotted perfectly between the V of my legs.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says with an ache in his voice. It’s the second time he’s ever said it to me, and it makes me ache all over again, too. Makes me tremble even more.

“You’re pretty okay to look at yourself.”

He shakes his head, makes an amused sound in the back of his throat. “I’m glad you think I’m okay-looking.”

“Well, you smell pretty good, too,” I tell him like I’m pretending to consider. “So you’ve got that going for you.”

He’s full-on laughing now, and it’s a good look on him. His eyes crinkle at the corners just a little, and that tiny dimple flashes in his left cheek. “Well, as long as I’ve got something.”