Lightning slashed and sizzled, whips of heat that seemed to lash them with their fury, seemed to dance through their bodies, feeding the storm in them, around them. Gregori propelled her backward until she came up against the iron lacework of the arbor. His hands turned her, so that her breasts were between the slats and she caught at the metal for support, her fists clenching as he lifted her lips. His palms caressed and stroked, the softness of her driving him mad with need. He pressed against her bottom with his own raging body, the hard length of him swelling even more. He had never needed anything more.
Savannah made a sound, a little cry torn from her throat. The soft plea shattered his last control, and he surged into her sheath of hot velvet. He heard himself groan with pleasure, the wind taking the sound, wrenched from his deepest being, and sending it off into the turbulent night. His hands held her hips pinned as he buried himself deeper and deeper, hard and fast, as wild as the battering winds.
Her back, so long and flawless, stretched out before him, and he bent his head to lap at the beads of water there. She was small, so delicate, yet strong and as wild as anything nature could conjure up. The insatiable heat of the Carpathian ritual was on them, but his heart was captured for all time, so that as wild as he was, he was equally tender.
He felt her weaken, a momentary dizziness. He knew instantly what was wrong, although she tried to conceal it. He had taken too much blood. Without consent, without comment, he lifted her. Her small cry of bereavement was satisfying to his male ego as he took them across the patio to a lounge chair. Settling himself into the wet cushions, he pulled her onto him, so that she straddled him.
Savannah cried out as she lowered her fiercely aroused body onto his. He filled her completely, white-hot friction, tight and erotic. Gregori caught the nape of her neck, forced her head toward his chest. You will feed now.
She was like a wild thing, her body moving frantically over his, taking his iron control and reducing it to ashes. His hands spanned her waist, and he allowed himself the luxury of sheer pleasure, the lightning sizzling through his own body, flames consuming him. His hands moved up the perfect line of her back, found her hair, and forced her head to him. I need this from you. I need you to take me into your body. He clenched his teeth against the pleasure threatening to drive him mad.
His command was really a plea, and Savannah leaned forward, her body riding his, her tongue lapping at the beads of water on his chest once, twice. His body clenched as fire streaked through him, pain and pleasure melting into one sensation. Her teeth bound them together as his body did. Body and soul. God, he loved her, felt whole, complete with her. The terrible emptiness, the black void, was pushed aside for all time by the beauty of her spirit, her soul.
He whispered ancient words of love through clenched teeth, surging into her, filling her heart as he filled her body. When the explosion came, it was as turbulent as the slashing whips of lightning, as loud as the cracks of thunder, as wild as the winds ripping through the night.
They clung to each other, exhausted, sated, awed at the beauty of their lovemaking, the beauty of the storm. Even as they sat welded together, her head over his pounding heart, his arms tight around her, the winds began to die down, nature easing its frantic force as their hearts slowly returned to a normal rhythm.
Gregori kissed her temples, the line of her cheekbone, brushed his mouth along the corner of hers, nibbled his way down to her chin. “You are my world, Savannah. You must know it.”
She held him, shocked at the intensity, the force of their need for each other. “If this thing between us grows stronger over the years, neither of us will live very long.”