Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Soo, I'm sorry this took so long to update. I wrote this chapter the night I last updated, but I just couldn't decide if this was how I wanted it to happen...

Let me know what you think, since I agonized over my decision forever! :)

Chapter Eighteen:

I tremble, and though her words are soft, they set off a loud chain reaction—my heart thudding in my chest and my blood rushing in my ears and my breath coming fast and hard. And yet, she lays there, neck exposed, open and vulnerable, eyes closed and trusting.

Without any conscious thought to do so, I feel myself move closer to her until the tip of my nose is running along her neck, her racing pulse louder in my ears than my own… but I hold myself back. I breathe in her scent, I listen intently to her body, and I see the tensed position of her jaw, bracing herself for pain. I turn her head softly so that she's facing me, and her eyes flutter open softly.

I kiss her gently, softly, letting my tongue explore in ways it was too frantic to think of the night before—letting it trace the outline of her lips and jaw, brush against her tongue teasingly, slide along her collar bone and circle each tight, hardened nipple until her labored breathing and arching back indicated she wanted more.

I sucked each of them into my mouth, in turn, sucking hard until desperate gasps broke through her lips, and I was certain that her body was tensed for a myriad of other reasons. I let my fingertips precede my lips in their journey downwards, parting her legs like the petals of a delicate flower and finding myself lost—completely out of control—between them.

The scent of her longing assaulted me, gripped me, making my slow tease almost unbearable for me. I had to grip the bed sheets to control myself… to allow myself to kiss along her inner thighs, my tongue flickering over the racing pulse points I found there as well. I could smell her blood here, too, mixed with the musk of sex and sweat… it was the most intoxicating thing to be wrapped up in, accompanied with the rushing sound all around me and her gentle panting coming from above me… there isn't a part of her that seems nervous now.

I've told her what I'll be tempted to do, down here, and yet… she trusts me, completely. She isn't afraid.

I flick my tongue over the bundle of nerves, and her gasp and bucking hips tell me I'm doing something right. Even with the heady influence of her aroma swirling around me, I can smile with a sense of masculine pride at how she desires me… at the fact that I am doing this to her. I draw a circle around the nub and her whole body shakes, a cry breaking through lips I can't see but which I have known intimately for years.

Slowly, my own hands shaking, I run a finger through her folds and draw a circle around her entrance. A soft, broken word comes from above me this time. "…Please…"

I had wanted to go slow… tease her until she could not possibly endure another moment. I had almost broken my resolve to go slow for my own selfish needs and desires, and yet I had managed to restrain myself… but that one word, from this woman's lips… the most amazing, most beautiful woman I had ever known begging me through raw lips to satisfy her… there was no stopping me from fulfilling her every desire, if she asked me like that.

I slid my finger inside her, quickly but still gently, and on the second stroke added another finger, because she was clearly ready for it. I attached my mouth to her clitoris, sucking and teasing, until she was screaming out incoherently, her entire body putty in my hands, and still I would not let her come. She rocked against my fingers, whimpered and moaned and tossed her head, arched her body against my mouth, desperate for release, and I held off, waiting…

Finally, the word I had been waiting to hear again ripped from her lips in an almost painful plea, need evident in each syllable. "Gil… please…" And I begin to speed up, thinking this is the end of her sentence… thinking how proud I am of myself that I haven't bitten her yet. That I will in all probability make her come without breaking her delicate, perfect skin. But I'm wrong—she wasn't finished speaking, and she continues, even as her breath hitches with my renewed and stronger attentions. "Bite me."

"Oh god." I mumble against her, the fingers inside her pounding harder but the hand wrapped around myself, gently teasing myself to the sound of her reactions, freezes. She arches up and the shuddering, shaking, aching movements of her body tell me before I hear her keening cry that she's coming. My fingers don't stop, her muscles still clenching around me, and my hand can't help but regain its movements as my head turns and I latch onto the skin of her thigh, the blood rushing in my mouth under the thinnest layer of skin.

I don't bite—I wait for her to come down, both hands still working… but she doesn't stop. She keeps going, as if my fingers are keeping her in a state of constant, earth-shattering, all-consuming bliss that she can't come down from on her own… I have to stop, to bring her down, and good lord I can't stop. I can't stop my fingers and I can't stop the hand pumping me despite how hard I'm trying not to come again, and I can't stop my teeth from clenching around her soft, soft skin, breaking the surface and feeling the delicious, hot, overwhelming pool of her blood into my mouth.

With a scream, I explode, my voice mixing with her desperate moans that have yet to cease and I swallow convulsively, drawing it into my mouth as if it is water from the fountain of youth… ambrosia, food of the gods, the apple from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. There has never been a greater moment of pleasure my whole life long, and I cling to it, trembling with the force of it.

She tastes like happiness, and fulfillment. Like chocolate covered Strawberries and the bubbles in champagne and the sweetest, ripest of fruits, and like the warmth and comfort of home. She tastes like intimacy and sensuality and pleasure. She tastes like contentment, and safety, and trust. She tastes like love.

I press my tongue to the wound I inflicted, adding pressure to stop the bleeding, reveling in the feel of her pulse under my tongue and the taste lingering in my mouth, and let my fingers slow, taking her down gently, until her body lets out a final, blissful shudder and stills. I replace my tongue with my palm and look up at her, needing to see the deliriously sated expression on her face… needing to reassure myself that this was okay, and that I hadn't hurt her too badly. That this would always be a memory of pleasure rather than pain.

I'm not disappointed. Her head rolls gently on the pillows, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her whole body flushed and limp, spent. I gently take one of her hands, still loosely holding the clump of sheets she had held on to in the throes of passion, and place it over her wound. She blinks several times before she holds her hand there herself, eyes still out of focus.

I chuckle softly, hurrying to the bathroom to bring in a first aid kit and bandage her up before the endorphins stop rushing and she's able to feel the pain. After the wound is cleaned and bound, I gently suck the blood from her hand, where it's beginning to dry, desperate to not lose a drop of the most life-altering, pleasure-inducing elixir known to man, and kiss the rest of the way up her arm, laying beside her and pulling her close to me, cradled in my arms.

She has energy enough for a deep, contented sigh and a flutter of eyelashes, and then she drifts to sleep again. I grin, licking my lips over and over again, savoring the taste, and the moment, and my ridiculously unexpected good fortune.