No Rest for the Wicked Read Online Free

his palms perfectly.
    Christ, he’d suffered centuries without contact with others, much less touch, and now he was feeling his Bride, soft and pliant in his arms. He was afraid he was dreaming. Before he lost his nerve, his hands dropped to her waist, dragging her more firmly against him. “Tell me your name.”
    “My name… ?” she murmured absently. “My name is Kaderin.”
    “Kaderin,” he repeated, but it didn’t fit her. As he stared down into her shimmering eyes, he thought the name was too cold, too formal, for the creature in his arms. “Katja,” he rasped, surprised to find that his thumb was slowly brushing her bottom lip. The urge to kiss her was overwhelming. “Katja, I… ”—he began in a rough, breaking voice, and had to swallow to continue—“must…
    I must kiss you.”
    At his words, the dark hazel of her eyes turned completely silver. She seemed to go into a trance. He was not so far gone as not to notice this stunned reaction, but her full red lips were glistening, beckoning him.
    “I used to love being kissed,” she whispered in a dazed tone, her breaths growing hectic.
    Could he possibly stop with only that? With an unsteady hand, he cupped the back of her head, about to draw her to him. Surely she was strong enough to take him—she was some sort of warrior and would likely be quick to check him if he hurt her.
    For some reason, he sensed she wouldn’t give him that teary, betrayed look women had cast him in the past if he’d accidentally stepped on their toes or collided with them coming around a street corner, that look that brought him so low.
    “Vampire, please,” she murmured, “make it worth it. Make it… ”
    When their lips touched, he groaned; electricity seemed to prick at his skin. He pulled back from her. “My God.” Nothing had ever felt so powerful, so right, as this kiss. Her hungry expression deepened.
    If it took becoming a vampire to have just this one perfect moment, would he suffer it again?
    When he kissed her again, lightly at first, she moaned, “More,” against his lips.
    He clutched her tightly in his arms, then somehow remembered himself. No, fool… He eased his hold.
    At once, her claws bit into the backs of his arms, making him shudder. “Don’t hold back. I need more.”
    She needed more, needed him to give it to her. Because she was… his. When this finally sank in, his shyness burned away. In the course of a heartbeat, he now had a woman of his own. He wanted to roar with triumph. The feel of her claws sinking into him—as if she feared he would get away—was ecstasy. She needs me.
    “Kiss me more, vampire. If you stop, I’ll kill you.”
    He couldn’t help but grin against her lips. A female threatening him if he should stop kissing her?
    So he did, tasting her tongue, teasing it, then claiming her mouth hotly, wetly. He savored the slow undulation of her hips against him, in time with each thrust of his tongue.
    He kissed her with all the passion long denied him, with all the hope that had been wrenched from him returning. Weariness of life had just been replaced by purpose—because of her. He let her know how thankful he was… by kissing her until she panted and sagged against him.
    Yet he was losing control. Impulses came for him to do things to her body, wicked things, and he knew that soon he would obey them. “I’ll always give you more, until I die.”
    And now, for the first time in three hundred hellish years, Sebastian desperately wanted to live.
    3
    A s if she’d been hurled down from a great height, all the emotions lost to Kaderin, denied to her for the last millennium, crashed into her. Fear, joy, longing, and an undeniable sexual hunger warred within her—until he stoked her lust hot enough to drown out all other feelings.
    She was reeling, confused. All she knew for certain was that she needed release so badly her yearning pained her, made her whimper. And each of his fierce, possessive kisses increased her