Read 4 - We Are Gathered for Free Online

heart seemed to push into overdrive and every nerve ending wasn’t far behind.
    “Please?”
    “You’ve had seven hundred years to figure it out, Tristan. Surely, you can tell by now.”
    “You don’t understand. I’m a vampire. There is no desire without our mate.”
    “What?”
    “I needed my mate. You.”
    Hot breath touched her neck, followed by a scraping sensation, sending rockets of longing and desire to every portion of her. It almost overrode comprehension of what he’d just said, and then the light sucking motion obliterated every bit of conscience, as it sent her spirits right through the stone above her and into dark, endless sky.
    “Wait. We need to talk. This mate thing… Oh, Tristan.”
    Her back met the cool slick feel of tightly woven sheets, proving not only had he moved them to a structure resembling a bed, but he was perfectly adept at unfastening women’s clothing. All of which was a relief, and a worry at the same time.
    “Yes?”
    He was on his knees beside her, peeling the shirt off, moving more sculpted male than she could absorb. They were in a large enclosed bed, in what looked to be a stone-walled chamber, lit with his usual torchlight, and that just wasn’t fair. She wanted to see more. A lot more. He stopped his motion of yanking the shirt bottom from his beltline and looked over at her, and then started moving away.
    “Where…are you going?”
    “To get more light.”
    “Get back here. Now.”
    “You don’t wish more light?”
    With him standing beside her bed, engorged male making a large sized lump in her line of sight, while flickers of golden glow touched his upper torso, she wasn’t surprised to find her mouth bone-dry.
    “I…I don’t know.”
    The mattress dented again as he entered it, this time on his hands and knees. The view was heart-stopping. Literally. She gasped to restart it, and that just had him crawling closer, leaning above her and breathing huge gulps of air all about her, making everything moist and heated, and way too bright.
    “I go too fast?”
    Rori gulped and then shook her head.
    “Too slow?”
    If he was going to raise one eyebrow while he asked it, he shouldn’t be surprised at the immediate reaction. Her entire frame pulsed right off the mattress and into his arms, as if directed there. Nothing had ever felt so right! Rori clung to him, bringing him down atop her when she sank back, but this time, roving her hands all about his back and shoulders, following every lump, every scar, every tensed muscle. Her thighs parted, allowing him room to fill the space, and then he just stopped. He pushed up, looking down at her with a fathomless black gaze, while making little surges against her, as if there weren’t at least two layers of material separating them.
    “Rori.”
    Her name sounded like a caress. It matched the one he placed atop her nose, before grazing his lips along it to her forehead. He added to it with whispered words in a foreign tongue, as well as the weight and pressure of his lower abdomen matching against hers.
    “My Friudil. ”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Sweetheart.”
    “Uh…Tristan. We really need to talk.”
    Her body made another lunge into him, making her whispered words sound that much more gauche. Trite. Stupid.
    “Talk?”
    “This…isn’t normal for me.”
    “I do it wrong?”
    She smiled. She couldn’t help it. He looked so worried.
    “No. Everything with you is perfect. It’s just—. I’m just—.” Man! This was harder than she’d suspected. “I’m not the type for casual sex. I don’t go to bed with a guy on a first date. I mean…not normally.”
    “You don’t like a bed?”
    “Look. You’ll think I’m a bit touchy…but I mean, I’m not like you.”
    “True.”
    He breathed the word against her earlobe, sending rivulets of shivers down her neck, over her shoulder, and from there it just went all through her frame, whispering of illicit wonders, promising craven delights, and