They said I had a year left to live.
I got three months.
—Vivienne Wells, 25 years young.—
* * *
Lips, teeth, breath—they all drag along my throat, hot and hungry. Fingers dig into my hips, hard enough to bruise and I should care about that. Should protest. Should… something.
But my body has its own opinion. That opinion?
More.
My brain's hazed, its functions gone awry. Wasn't I dying…? There were so many beeps. I could feel my heart slowing down. Breathing was harder. I fell asleep, I think, but the kind of permanent sleep where I knew I'd never wake up again.
I was panicked.
Scared.
Peaceful.
Free from the ravages of cancer, of chemo, of pain.
And now I'm… having a sexy dream? This doesn't track.
But then teeth scrape across my collarbone and a low, raspy voice murmurs, "Are you sure?"
My body nods, both arms wrapping around him and pulling him close.
Throbbing.
Painful, thrilling, terrifying, but ultimately destroyed by the stranger in my arms, this vivid moment. I guess dying single was my life's biggest regret, which seems strange.
If you'd asked me, I would have listed so many other things first. Like how I hadn't appreciated my parents enough, or switching my college major and therefore my entire life trajectory. Giving up my future for a boy who didn't last, even when the aftereffects did….
Ow.
The stranger bites me. Bites me. Full-on contact with the side of my neck, biting hard enough tears come to my eyes, positive he's about to kill me.
And yet, instead of gaining adrenaline-fueled strength to shove this murderer off me, my arms bring him closer. A moan escapes my mouth against my will.
His head lifts. Amber eyes pin me to the mattress—no, not amber. They glow. Low, molten gold, in a thin ring of color around blown-wide pupils.
I'm dead and in some sort of weird, sexual deviant heaven, obviously, because people don't have eyes that color in real life.
"Say it again, Vivienne," he murmurs, and my already sex-addled brain goes blank.
Say what?
Did I say something?
I'm pretty sure I did not, in fact, say something.
And his voice. God, his voice. Deep and rough and so full of need the core of me throbs. Fuck.
My thighs tighten around his waist.
"Um," I mumble, wondering if all sex dreams are this confusing and intense.
"Fuck," he mutters, like I've said something incredibly arousing—even though I'm positive a stuttered um does not qualify. Then his mouth slants over mine, his tongue shoving past my lips to claim every last inch of my mouth.
I'd never been a huge fan of kissing. Too wet, too noisy, too… well, gross.
Apparently it wasn't a me problem after all. My ex-boyfriend just really sucked at it.
But then the stranger draws back. Only a little, but enough to make me whimper from the loss, my fingers sliding through his hair before gripping hard and trying to shove his face back into mine.
He doesn't let me.
"Say it again," he commands, apparently still stuck on whatever it was I said when I didn't.
"Knox—"
His name comes out without any conscious thought on my part, obviously, because I haven't even named this sexy figment of my imagination yet. Huh. Knox? Not really my style of name. I'm more into nerd-hot. Guys I imagine wearing glasses and suits, with names like Adrian or something.
Strange.
"Beg me for it, Vivienne." The man's fond of ordering me around. No wonder he has a name like Knox instead of, I don't know, Sebastian.
"Please," I whimper, and I swear there's someone else moving my mouth. Someone else giving in. Someone else—
Oh.
Pain.
Bliss.
It hurts.
Fuck. I want more.
I scream, I think, because my neck arches and the back of my throat tears with the force of it, because the madman between my legs has bitten hard on my neck. So hard his previous bite seems cute.
I'm positive, absolutely positive, he's had to have drawn blood, and confused because I never had any lean toward sadomasochism in my life, but my body explodes under the pain and oh my God and fuck, holy shit, oh my baby Jesus in a manger, this is why people went insane over Fifty Shades.
Then, like I wasn't already going insane with pleasure, his hips surge forward and something thick and hard spears right through me, slamming in with purpose, and—
I black out.