What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] by Kari Gregg Page A

clever fingers touched. She'd never felt anything like it, nor wanted something—someone—more. She didn't know half of what he was talking about. Didn't care. As long as he didn't stop kissing her. As long as he kept touching her. Her hands no longer pushed him away but drew him closer. “Garrick,” she said on a throaty whisper.
    "Rick,” he said against her mouth, his tongue testing her bottom lip so that she trembled and shook. “For five hundred years, I dreamed that someday I'd have you beneath me and you'd call me Rick."
    His mouth settled on hers. Kate's mind spun dizzily past her at the taste of him, the feel of his tongue sliding past her lips and twining with hers.
    She should've been afraid. A wise woman would've been wary, but Kate couldn't be wise, not when his mouth was doing such wonderful things to hers. Her world narrowed to the silk of his hair in her hands as she urged the kiss harder, deeper. The hot, too-sensitive quiver of her skin wherever he touched. The glorious weight of his hips when they aligned with hers, and the sweet, sweet ache that weight birthed inside her when his cock rubbed at the damp heat of her pussy through frustrating barriers of fabric.
    She whimpered in protest when his mouth lifted, then moaned as he scattered kisses along the column of her neck. His tongue stabbed into the hollow of her throat, and she shuddered. “Rick,” she whispered, giving him what he wanted.
    Under her shirt, his palm glided over the curve of her breast. When her back arched into his touch, welcoming him there, Garrick groaned. “Yes, love. Show me what you need."
    He found her nipple, already pebbled, and when he rubbed it between his fingers, heat poured from her breasts to her cunt in a rush that left her giddy and breathless.
    It was too much and far too soon, but Kate didn't care. She fisted her fingers in his hair to guide his lips back to hers, and when his mouth captured hers, she lifted her hips to his.
    This time, he shuddered.
    She ripped her mouth free, only to trail it down the corded muscle of his neck. Her tongue laved his skin to take in the earthy flavor of him. Sharp. Pungent. He moaned when her teeth brushed his throat just under the collar of his shirt.
    She liked it.
    A lot.
    So she did it again.
    Garrick's hand raced from under her shirt to grope at his own. He cursed when his awkward fingers fumbled with the buttons.
    His jaw clenched when she slid them free herself with a whispered, “Let me."
    Inch by wonderful inch, she spread his shirt wide until the full expanse of his chest lay open to her. She lifted her fingers to light on his hard muscle, and he jumped. “Your hands,” he said when she looked at him. She smiled and his eyes snapped shut. “You're driving me insane."
    Considering how her blood boiled in her veins and her skin screamed wherever he touched, Kate thought him not crazy enough, so she smoothed her lips across his chest. “I love the taste of you."
    He sucked in a sharp breath.
    When her tongue darted out to circle the flat disk of his nipple, fingers twining in the curls of his chest hair, his palm cupped her head to hold her to him. “Don't stop."
    As if she would.
    She sucked his pebbling nipple into her mouth, teasing it with her tongue, her teeth—
    "Let go of her, you bastard."
    She shrugged away the hand that clamped down on her shoulder, holding firmly to Garrick instead. He was where she wanted to be, with his warm, silky skin finally under her fingers, her mouth on his flesh.
    "Wait, Luc. You don't know what you're doing."
    "I know I'll take your head if you don't get off her right now ."
    Kate reluctantly shifted her interest from Garrick's chest. Fingers digging into his sides, she hissed at Luc and the sword he wielded.
    Luc froze.
    His jaw dropped.
    "What've you done to her?"
    Garrick stroked her hair, and she purred low in her throat, rubbed her cheek against his skin just below his nipple. “Kate's vampyr is stirring. She's reacting