Warm lips, soft as silk, and a lick of wetness as he pressed his tongue against her and then he slid inside and the kiss grew. Their breaths mingled, hands found each other and pulled their straining bodies closer. Warmth turned to drugging heat that filled her bones, her blood like need. It grew, sparked threads of pleasure that had been left unseen to the night before.
He kissed along her jaw, hot breaths beating against her before he kissed the sensitive skin at her neck, biting until the skin pulled tight. A soft moan escaped her as little erotic shards raced inside her. Two hard points pressed against her neck, a warning or maybe a signal of what he wanted to do. She craned her neck revealing the expanse of her neck to him needing him to bite her, wanting him to take from her and bring back that connection between them that seemed to make the world stop turning.
His tongue wetted her. He pressed his fangs back against her wet neck. She shivered like a naked woman standing outside on a cold night.
“Felicity,” he said, his voice no more than a growl.
The pressure began in her neck as he sunk those fangs in ever so slowly, so carefully. Centimeter by centimeter he bit down until his lips met her warm skin and his fangs fit into her throat.
It was at that moment his pocket rang, or, rather the phone in it. Just as slowly he pulled away as if hesitant to ruin the moment, but he did and it was shattered.
He answered the phone with a snarl. “What?”
She couldn’t hear the voice on the other line but she watched his eyes narrow and knew they’d not be going back to their special moment together. Nope. She would not be disappointed. Then why did she feel like stomping her foot and pouting? Felicity scolded herself. Stop being so ridiculous.
He closed the phone with a snap, pocketed it. “Come on. It’s time to get ready.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door. “Ah, and one more thing.” In a flash of movement she barely saw, he had her back against the wall and his lips devastating hers.
If she was forced to describe the kiss she say it was hungry and hard, but even that did not begin to describe the kiss. He devoured her with his tongue and lips. He wrapped her in his arms and gave her no room for escape and as his teeth bit down on her bottom lip, he drank in all her little gasps and moans like an incubus demon feeding off her arousal.
Then it was over. She braced herself against the wall, blinking while trying to get bring her body back down to some semblance of calm.
His eyes searched her face. He nodded once then leaned down close, his eyes bright as he pressed a soft kiss to the tip of her nose and said, “You’re beautiful, sweets.”
Chapter 23
Time flew by so fast that Felicity resisted the urge to look behind her to find where it went. It seemed like only minutes ago she climbed out of Dom’s bed alone to pace his bedroom floor. Some god must be toying with her because now she stood inside a quiet room adjacent the large hall where more than one hundred people waited to see her mate with Dominic Blackmoore.
Where had the time gone? Where had she been for it all? She couldn’t have been present even though she knew she was. She went through the motions, played the part, but all day long it felt as though a piece of herself had left her.
The whole evening passed in a whirl. She hardly had time to sit down before Diane, Eduardo, or even Beth pushed her from one task to another. They chose last minute decorations details, which Felicity appreciated as it let her contribute her own taste into the ceremony.
Something did not sit right inside her, but she didn’t have time to sit and consider it because there was so much to do. Did she want this color or that color? Did she prefer the flute glasses smooth or engraved? This color or that. These flowers or those.
Such little details that if she had had the proper time to prepare her own ceremony as most women do she would already have picked out. Instead, she was going to a ceremony that originally was not for her. The thought shouldn’t matter, yet some strange, agitated feeling curled inside her and proceeded to grow as the day went on. This wasn’t her ceremony.
She’d been cleaned, styled, waxed, shaved, misted, and all around beautified. That still hadn’t been the end of it. Next came the process of picking out a dress. Things had been happening so fast lately that she hadn’t even thought about the one aspect of mating that most bruids took seriously—the dress.
The bruid would keep the dress forever. It was never worn again but the symbol, what it represented, was considered sacred. Bruids were supposed to wrap the dress up neatly, bind it, box it, and stuff it away in a place where it could never become damaged or tainted.
Felicity knew all this but she never once thought to pick out a dress. Fortunately for her, Diane and Beth had been conspiring behind her back. With Beth’s wisdom at the style of clothes Felicity liked, she and Diane had ordered a plethora of gowns. And really there were a plethora of gowns.
They pushed Felicity into a chair as Beth and Diane held up dress after dress for her perusal. She undertook the rather fun task of saying yes, no, or maybe to each dress. Before she knew it, they were down to twenty dresses. That was where everything got tricky, but she’d finally settled on the perfect dress. She hadn’t known it by looking at it. No, she had to feel the material draped against her bare skin before a special ping in her chest started to ache. Then she knew; it was the one.
Then why, she had asked herself as she stared at her reflection, did something feel wrong? Is this how all bruids felt? How could anything feel out of place when something incredible was about to happen? She loved Dominic. In such a short span of time she had met someone who made her heart flutter, who was strong and stalwart, and he cared for her. It was as if all the little pieces of some invisible puzzle had been put together.
Then why do I feel this doubt? Felicity stopped herself short at the thought, reeling.
The dress was a brilliant deep red—Dom’s favorite color according to his mother. Tulle material draped over her shoulders leaving her neck and arms bare. The bodice clung to her form like a glove but not too tight. The inside was silk or satin she couldn’t tell which. All she knew was that it was soft and luxurious feeling and if she could sleep in sheets made of the material she would. Shiny diamonds covered the bodice that twinkled in the light. They speckled the bodice making her feel like a queen wearing real diamonds on her dress. That was only one small part in comparison to the rest of the gown. The part that sold her on it. The part that made her breath catch and her eyes widen as her heart thudded with rightness, with a feeling that this was the dress. This was the dress she’d become someone’s mate in.
The bottom reminded her of something old-fashioned an aristocrat might wear attending a real ball where couples danced strict dances and women always carried fans. The bottom billowed out around her like the top of a goblet and a length of material stayed behind her leaving a train as she walked. All of that, she loved, but it wasn’t her favorite part. Her favorite, the part that made her know that Dominic was meant to see her in it, was the downward arches that pulled the material into waves and were held up at the ends by a large, diamond-shaped gem. It was the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen, and she would mate with Dominic Blackmoore in it.
She refused to even think the word lest it curse her, but like a magnet, the more she tried to push the thought away the closer it came until its nasty face reared.
Doubt.
“How do you feel?”