He sighed.
And pulled her closer, relishing the feel of her lips on his throat. His teeth clenched against the agony of his own tearing flesh as she buried her blunt mortal teeth into him...fed upon him. Exquisite torture.
He closed his eyes.
And ran his slender fingers across the supple flesh of her back, laid bare to him as the cloth of her bodice tore beneath his iron grasp. He could not see the way the moonlight played upon it...outlining the bones beneath the alabaster skin. This did not bother him. He'd seen it before.
He had waited for so long.
When he'd happened upon her that first evening, he had nearly thought her a dream. She'd glided along the garden path and he'd been overtaken with the notion that she was an angel. Through the long nights since, he'd thought of little else but to hold her this way.
He closed his eyes.
And it was as if he could still see her...floating along below him as he rushed from rooftop to rooftop to keep up...taking care to remain silent...undiscovered. There were a few times when he swore she'd seen him. But how could that be? His stealthy movements should have gone unnoticed by her mortal eyes.
He questioned his abilities.
Even as he drew her near and whispered lovingly against her hair...breathed in her scent like a whisper of lilacs on the wind, he wondered how it was that she could have discovered him. How could she have known him for what he was? And what could have drawn her to approach him despite it?
He shivered.
And plunged his hands into her hair, marveling at the softness of it...the very reality of it. She was sweetness incarnate. He flicked his tongue along the contours of her throat, savoring it the way one would the flavor of a fine wine.
He wanted her.
Not to devour her the way he had countless others in the past, but to know her...to hear her voice and learn her secrets...to show her things she couldn't even imagine. Things that he'd seen so many times that he now took them for granted would become new again through her eyes.
He could take it no more.
With a sudden motion, he pushed her from him and grasped her bare shoulders. He searched her sleepy eyes and leaned forward to lick the crimson tears from her cheeks. He could see the changes in her already. And it made her even more lovely.
He whispered to her.
Admonishing her into silence...ending her astonished sobs. She glanced toward the wound she'd torn above his shoulder, stunned to the silence he desired when she saw that it was already healing...the flesh repairing itself before her eyes.
He took her face in his hands.
And turned it up to his. He didn't even know what he planned to do until he was doing it. He met her lips with his, tasting himself on her tongue, hearing her moan as she relented to his embrace. He let his mouth wander along her cheek...her chin...her throat.
He paused.
And she pulled him closer, begging for his touch. They were alone here. There was nothing else. They seemed to be melting into one another until there was only one figure against the bricks of the alleyway wall. He could feel the rise and fall of her breast as she struggled to regain her breath. And he wanted more.
He bit her.
