Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA
"No," I growled at my wife. "I won't say her name any longer."
"Promise me," she insisted. "You feed from my wrist and you say Priscilla."
She smelled so fucking good, like blood and sweetness, and the Hunger was surging forward to get what it so desperately needed.
"Agreed," I managed gutturally and when she nodded, the Hunger took over immediately after being denied for so long. It grabbed Odette's wrist, fangs already descended, and broke through the skin into her veins as she gave a small gasp. To try to take some of the sting and pain away, I stroked her thigh.
Relief.
Relief.
Delicious, wonderful, strength-giving elixir, the first coppery taste of it rushed over our tongue, sliding down our throat as the Hunger sucked harder, pulling more and more of her lifeblood into us. We drank and drank, until our desperate need was sated and another need was taking over. We sealed our lips over the two jagged wounds in her wrist, the holes from our fangs closing rapidly.
Want.
Want.
Our eyes met Odette's and she was watching us as we made quick work of her clothes, exposing her body to us, the lush curves of her body as irresistible as her blood to us. Our hands went to her breasts, our mouth beginning to descend to them --
"No," she whispered and her voice was hoarse because the donneuse was aroused from a feeding so she would be ready for us immediately after. The promise of sex, such a primal need, was the only thing that could stop the Hunger from draining the donneuse of all of her blood and killing her.
"Just do it," she said.
So we slid into Odette, her heat and wetness wrapping around us, and somehow that warmth always calmed something in us as we began to move in her. We noticed Odette had her hands up by her head.
"Touch me," I whispered thickly.
She refused to respond but kept her hands up by her head.
My eyes closed briefly as I came forward more and the Hunger receded. I reached down to touch her between her legs, but she again said that word I was coming to despise: no.
Given no choice but to finish, my thrusts became more frantic after so long without the release and before too long, I felt the familiar sensation building, building until I knew I was going to release.
"Say it," she hissed.
"Priscilla," I groaned as I came.
And before, that's where it would have ended but now that I had kept my promise to her, I continued."Priscilla...is not the one I want, Odette."
Her eyes widened, and I leaned down to capture her lips with mine for the first time since we'd been married. But her little hands pushed against my chest as she turned her head away from me.
"No," she said.
My eyes closed again.
"Pull out," she said, and I did as she asked.
After what I'd done to her, I had no choice but to listen and do exactly what she wanted right now. Until we could talk, until I could explain, until I could right all the wrongs I'd committed against her, this was the way it would have to be.
I slid slowly from her, wanting to prolong the feel of her wrapped so tightly around me as long as possible.
"Odette," I said, noting my voice was almost back to normal after over a week. "We have to talk."
"No, thank you," she said quietly and slipped from underneath me to move off the bed. "You need to be gone by the time I get out of the bathroom."
"That's not happening," I told her, knowing that was the one thing I couldn't give to her. "You're coming home with me."
"I'm in the middle of a grand adventure with Hugo," she said to me. "I can't possibly go home now."
Thinking quickly, I nodded.
"Then I'll go with you," I said. "We'll drive home together and the three of us will have a grand adventure together."
Her face was obstinate.
"Roscoe misses you," I said. "And I do, too."
"You lie."
"I'm not lying, Odette."
"And what's with calling me by name suddenly? What happened to Vautour?"
"Are you ready to talk?"
At that she stepped toward me, her eyes angry. "I put up with your treatment of me for a year and a half, Alarie. I found and delivered the woman you loved right to your doorstep so I could be free of you and my entire family, so no, Alarie, I am not ready to talk and I never will be. What I am ready for is my freedom, and I damn well earned it."
I felt each word of hers flick me like a whip, the feeling of misery almost worse than when I'd realized, fully and completely, that she'd been entirely innocent.
"Odette, take this for what it's worth and just realize this is only the beginning of everything I need to atone and apologize for: I am sorry. I'll make that more clear and more precise in the days to come, but for now, I want you to know I'm sorry."
"Now you're sorry," she said. "Now, when it's too late."
"It may seem that way, but it's not too late because I won't let it be."
"You can't control it."
Stepping right up to her, I traced the shape of a heart over her own heart.
"Your heart, Odette, is bigger than any person's I've ever met. I know at one point there was something you held for me in there, and if there's anything left for me in your heart, and I'm hoping there is, even if it's just the tiniest little flicker, I'm going to find it, and I'm going to fan that flame until it becomes a fucking fire you can see from the sky. That's my promise and vow to you."
She took a step back -- stumbled back? -- and turned from me without a word to walk into the bathroom. I sent a quick text to my assistant who was waiting for me on the family jet, and let Newton know I would be out for at least a week and to return home without me. Thinking through my schedule, I knew there was nothing more pressing than the Vautours' trial, but I needed Odette present when I handled them so they could await her leisure.
Both Roscoe and the trial of the Vautour family were the big incentives to convince her to return home with me, even if just for a while, but I was hoping I could convince Odette to give me more time because there was so much I needed to convey to her. So much I needed to apologize for, and I closed my eyes against that sickening feeling.
When the door to the bathroom opened and Odette stepped out, she looked surprised to see me still standing in her room, and she pulled her robe a little tighter around her.
"I told you to leave."
"And I told you I couldn't," I said.
"Wouldn't," she argued.
"Both, then," I said back, wanting nothing more than to go all primitive Hunger on her, throw her over my shoulder and take her back to our home. Although it was satisfied for now, the Hunger had stirred at the thought of forcing Odette to return to our home.
Ignoring me, Odette got into the bed and pulled the covers around her tightly, right up to her chin.
"If you even try to get into this bed with me..." she warned me, but didn't finish the thought because though she was a vampire, she wasn't a male, and it was impossible for a female vampire to win against a male when it came to sheer strength and speed.
"I won't," I said, pointing to the only chair in the room. "I'll sleep right there."
"I don't trust you," she said with some uncharacteristic, but well-earned, bitterness in her words.
"I know," I said.
But I was going to change that, starting the next morning.
Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA
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The Vampires #2: Heroux and Odette
RomanceMy father blackmailed Heroux Alarie into marrying me, with the promise he would tell the Alarie where the woman he loved was at the end of three years. He called her name out every night after he fed and released with me. He made it clear he was wit...
