“Very well, then.”

He stepped out of his shoes, kicked them away. Then he unhooked one button, then the next, each revealing another inch of his flat and solid abdomen. When the shirt was open, he slid it off his shoulders, and his eyes darkened to the color of a deep forest.

“Next?” he asked.

My heart was thudding in my ears as I watched him watch me, but I managed a word. “Belt.”

“As you wish.” He unhooked it, slid it through the loops with a snap of sound, looped the black leather around his hand in a manner that was equally arousing. It was a hint of experiences we hadn’t shared. But if his knowing gaze was any indication, that wouldn’t be the case forever.

“You look intrigued, Sentinel.”

“How could I not be?”

“Indeed.”

“Pants.”

His eyebrow arched. “You’re fully clothed. That would leave me utterly naked.”

“And in your office. Where I plan to seduce you well and thoroughly. I gave you an order, Sullivan.”

His body flushed with desire, eyes hooded with anticipation as he unbuttoned, unzipped, and let the pants fall to the floor. Beneath, he wore boxer briefs, the rigid line of his arousal obvious beneath them.

This time, I wet my lips.

He walked toward me. “I believe it’s time to claim what’s mine.” He reached me and, before I could object, lifted me into the air and crossed the room. He sat me atop the conference table, stood between my knees, and captured my mouth with a brutal kiss.

His hands slid down my body, cupping my breasts, inciting the fire in my core. His hands found the dress’s zipper, and it fell away, revealing the red bustier. He took only a moment to appreciate it before ripping it away. His eyes flashed silver before he found them with teeth and tongue until my head dropped back, the pulse in my ears like a timpani drum.

He pulled the rest of the fabric away, stripping me of sense and leaving me breathless and naked. And when we faced each other, naked and vulnerable, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me deeply.

“Lie back,” he said, and guided my head back to the tabletop, the polished wood cool beneath feverish and heated skin.

He slid down my body, using hands and lips and teeth to drive me to the brink.

When his fangs grazed the inside of my thigh, my head shot up. But the sight of him between my thighs, eyes silver and fangs bared, silvered my eyes.

Timing is everything, he said silently.

When he bit, fangs piercing tender skin, it was like gold rushed through my veins—hot and metallic and precious. Pleasure overtook me, blinded me, had me crying out his name.

And then he stood again, and his hand was above my heart, tracing a path to my abdomen. “You are so beautiful.”

I opened my eyes, looked up at him, blond and muscled, his eyes silvered, his mouth swollen. “You are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Will ever see, probably.”

“Correct,” he said, and joined our bodies with a powerful thrust that arched my back. “As you’re mine, and mine alone.”

“Ethan,” I said, and he anchored our hips together. Thrust again, and again, until he’d blocked out all sensations other than the union of our bodies, the arch of his body over mine.

I opened my eyes. “Call me,” I said, and his eyes went dark.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me.”

I didn’t. But if I was destined to be a vampire, I was entitled to know what other vampires knew. To feel what other vampires felt, and not because of violation or threat. Because, as Lindsey had discussed, of trust, and love, and connection.

I lifted a hand to his face, smiled as wickedly as I could. “I’m not proving anything. I’m taking what I’m owed.”

His eyes flashed with desire.

“I want that between us, Ethan.”

He nodded. “Very well, then. Close your eyes, Sentinel.”

At first, he only said my name. Merit, the word a soft embrace. He was, I knew, acclimating me to the sensation, preparing me for what was next.

And it was something entirely new . . . and entirely different.

He said my name again. Merit. But this time, it wasn’t just sound, but a calling. It was as if his voice were a light in the darkness, the bright world that waited at the end of a passageway. There would be no loneliness for me. No more isolation. Because he had created me, this Master of vampires, and made me something wonderful and magical and immortal.

I felt my lips part, felt sound escape them. He answered with a driving thrust that echoed through me like the thrum of a bowstring.

He called my name each time he drove into me, so that every part of my body seemed in synchronicity with his.

“I love you,” I said breathlessly, my body taut with anticipation. “God, I love you. I love you.”

I love you, he said to me, without sound, but no less meaningful. Merit, he said again, calling my body home, sending me over the edge. Pleasure sparked through me like a live wire. I lost my breath on a gasp, my body bowing like the crest of a wave, the entire universe and its history in my mind.

And Ethan in my heart.

“I don’t suppose,” I said after some long minutes had passed, when he lay beside me on the conference table, breathing in tatters, “that you’d like to tell me about that nickname you had for me.”

Ethan chuckled. “And ruin the mood? No, Sentinel. I don’t believe I do.”

He rose, covered my body with his. “And I’ve ways of making you forget the very question.”