Dylan was seeing all of that ugliness now.

He waited for her eyes to lift.

He waited to see pity in her face, dreaded that he might see revulsion.

"Rio," she murmured thickly.

Her head came up slowly and her eyes met his. Her peridot gaze was the color of a night-dark forest now, her pupils large beneath the heavy fall of her lashes. There was no pity there, nothing but dusky, feminine desire.

Rio wanted to throw his head back and shout his relief, but the sight of Dylan's parted lips, her hungry eyes drinking him in so wantonly, robbed him of his voice.

She opened the glass door of the shower. "Get in here," she demanded, her mouth curling into the most incredibly sexy smile. "Get in here...right now."

He grinned and stepped inside, joining her under the warm spray.

"That's better," Dylan purred as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down into a deep, wet kiss.

She felt so good against him, all that slick, hot skin, all those exquisite curves. Rio held her close, burrowing his fingers into her wet hair, feeling the warm beat of her pulse against his wrist where it rested at the side of her neck.

"I want to taste you," she said, already breaking away from his mouth to kiss a slow trail down his throat, to the hollow at its base, then along the line of his shoulder. She sank lower still, playing her tongue over the muscled slabs of his chest, teasing his male nipples into tight little buds. "You taste good, Rio. I could eat you up."

He groaned as she let her mouth travel down his sternum, nipping at him as she went along. Her kiss got less playful as she moved toward his scarred left side.

Rio sucked in his breath. "Don't," he rasped, awkward panic seizing him when he thought of her getting anywhere near those hideous marks. She glanced up at him in question and he wanted to die from shame. "It's all right. You don't have to..."

"Will it hurt you if I touch you there?" she asked gently, her fingers skating so carefully over the ruined skin. "Does that hurt at all, Rio?"

He managed a weak shake of his head.

It didn't hurt. What little he could feel through the damaged nerve endings and scars felt good.

Cristo en cielo, it felt so very good to be touched by her.

"Does this hurt?" she asked, pressing the lightest, most caring kiss to the ugliest part of him. "How does that feel, Rio?"

"Good," he rasped, his throat going thick, and not just from the sheer pleasure of Dylan's mouth on his body. Her tender gift just now - that sweet, accepting kiss - touched a place in him so deep and forgotten he thought it had been long dead. "Dylan...you are...Jesus, but you are the most incredible woman I have ever known. I truly mean that."

She smiled up at him, beaming now. "Well, brace yourself, because I'm only getting started."

Going down on her knees on the tiles before him, Dylan kissed his pelvis and thighs, lapping at the thin rivulets of water that sluiced down from over his shoulders. Each brush of her mouth near his cock made his erection ratchet tighter, harder. When she reached up and took him in her small wet hands, he thought he was going to lose it.

"How does this feel?" she asked as she stroked him from balls to head and back again, the wicked look in her eyes telling him she knew precisely how it must feel.

Good thing, because he was incapable of talk so long as she was lavishing such slow, rhythmic attention on him.

And as if that weren't glorious enough, Dylan's tongue joined the party too. She slid along the length of his shaft, then wrapped her lips around the head of his cock and sucked him deep into her mouth.

Rio let out a hoarse moan, and it was all he could do to hold his balance as she swallowed even more of him. He shuddered as she tongued the underside of his penis, her mouth moving up and down on him, tightening the pressure that was already building at the base of his spine. A fierce orgasm was roaring up on him like a freight train.

Ah, fuck, if he didn't stop her soon he was going to -

With an animal snarl, he lifted Dylan off his throbbing sex. "My turn now," he said, his voice deep and otherworldly.

She gasped as he pushed her back against the tiles and kissed her with the same slow torment she'd dealt to him. He played his mouth along her throat and down between her breasts, where the fluttering drum of her heartbeat danced against his tongue. He kissed her perfect rosy nipples, using only the slightest tips of his fangs to graze her as he moved lower, to the dip of her navel and then the pleasing curve of her hip.

"You taste very good too," he told her thickly, giving her a glimpse of his fully extended fangs. Her eyes widened, but not in fear. He heard her sharp intake of breath as he bent his head and sucked gently at the sweet little vee of red curls between her thighs. "Mmm," he moaned against her creamy flesh. "You taste very, very good."

She cried out at the first press of his mouth on her sex, then melted into a slow, sultry moan as his tongue cleaved into the tender folds of her core. He was merciless, wanting to hear her scream from the pleasure he was giving her. He burrowed deeper between her soft thighs, reveling in the sharp twist of his hair as she grabbed his head and held him to her, trembling as he stoked her toward release.

"Oh, my God," she whispered tightly, her breath panting. "Oh, Rio...yes..."

She said his name again, not just the nickname everyone knew him by, but his true name. The one that sounded so right on her lips. She screamed his name as her orgasm overtook her, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever known.

Rio wanted to hold her, but his need was too great now. His cock was ready to explode, and he wanted to be inside her - needed to be - the same way he needed breath and blood to survive.

He stood up and smoothed the wet hair from her face. "Turn around," he rasped. "Put your hands against the tiles and arch your back, like you were when I first came in here."

With a pleasured smile, she obliged him, planting her palms wide and putting that beautiful backside right in front of him. Rio caressed her flawless skin, letting his fingers trail into the cleft between the round cheeks, and into the slick mouth of her sex. She drew in her breath as he spread her open and played the tip of his cock against the swollen, dark pink folds.

"This is what I wanted to do to you when I saw you in here, Dylan."

"Yes," she whispered, trembling as he stroked her so intimately.

He pushed inside and felt the hot walls of her womb grip his hard flesh. He withdrew, shuddering all the way from the sheer bliss of it. Holy hell, but he wasn't going to last long like this. Nor did he care if he did. He needed to lose himself inside Dylan's warmth, surrender all he had to her, because he knew in his heart that their time together was fleeting.

She would be going back to her world before long, while he remained in his.

Rio wrapped his arms around Dylan's body, holding her as close as he could bring her as his climax started to break over him. He shouted with the sudden blast of his release.

And even after it was over, his arms remained tightly wrapped around the woman he knew he couldn't keep.

Chapter Thirty

Dylan wasn't sure how many hours had passed since Rio took her to his bed. They had toweled each other off then made love again, more slowly the second time, as if to memorize every nuance of the moment and hold it close.

As much as she didn't want to think it, Dylan knew she couldn't stay here with Rio much longer. She had a life in progress back in New York, and not being near her mother at a time when she needed Dylan the most was tearing her up inside.

But God, it felt good to lie in Rio's arms like this.

With her cheek resting against his bare chest, Dylan stroked his soft skin, idly tracing the elegant flourish of one of his dermaglyphs . The markings were just a shade darker than his olive skin tone now, but as she touched them, color began to infuse the intricate patterns, making them blush with a color she was learning indicated waking arousal.

Still another indication of his interest was starting to rouse as well, nudging hard against her belly.

"Keep that up, and you may never get out of this bed," he drawled, his deep voice vibrating against her cheek.

"I'm not sure I want to get out of this bed any time soon," she replied. When she glanced up at him, Rio's eyes were closed, his sensual, wickedly talented mouth curved in a satisfied smile. "I can't remember ever feeling this happy, Rio. It feels like a dream, being with you like this. I know I have to wake up sometime, but I don't want to."

His lids lifted and Dylan basked in the warmth of his dark topaz gaze. "What's happening between us has been...very unexpected, Dylan. Until you walked into that mountain cave, I thought my life was over. I knew it was, because I was prepared to end it myself. That very night, in fact."

"Rio," she whispered, heart twisting at the thought.

"Nikolai left me with a cache of explosives when the Order first discovered the hidden crypt in February. They all returned to Boston, but I stayed behind. I was supposed to seal the cave so no one else could find it. I promised I would, and told Niko I would go home to Spain for a while, once I had carried out my mission." He exhaled a short sigh. "I never intended to leave that mountain. All I had to do was set up the C-4 and detonate it from inside..."

"You were going to trap yourself in there?" Dylan asked, horrified. "My God, Rio. That would have been a long, terrible, lonely way to die."

He shrugged. "I didn't care. I thought it would have to be better than living like I was."

"But you were there for several months before I found the cave. You must have found some hope to keep you from going through with your plans."

His bitter chuckle seemed to scrape in the back of his throat. "I delayed at first because I didn't have the balls to finish it. Then my headaches and blackouts started up again, so bad I thought I was losing my mind."

"Your blackouts - you mean, like what happened to you last night by the river?"

"Yes. They can be pretty bad. I wasn't feeding anymore by then, so starvation only added to the fun. At some point, I lost track of all time."

"Then I came along."

He smiled. "Then you came along." He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, then the pulse point at her wrist. "You have been so very unexpected, Dylan. You bring me a happiness I've never known either."

"Never? Not even...before, with Eva?" Dylan hated asking him to compare them, yet she really needed to know the answer. When Rio was quiet for a moment, her heart began to sink. "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me. I don't mean to make this awkward for you."

He shook his head, brows pinched together. "Eva was sultry and flirtatious. She was a very beautiful woman. Every male who saw her wanted her - Breed and human alike. I was astonished that she noticed me. Even more so when she made it clear that she wanted to be my mate. She pursued me like she did anything else she set her sights on, and my ego knew no bounds. Things cooled between us a bit after I joined the Order. Eva resented sharing me with my calling as a warrior."

Dylan listened, awash in a very unpleasant state of jealousy for what she was hearing, and regret that she had brought this feeling on herself by forcing him to talk about the woman he'd loved before.

"After the disaster of what happened with Eva, I wasn't looking to open myself up to another woman. But you, Dylan..." He picked up a strand of her hair, following the golden-red light in it as the silky wave curled around his finger. "You are pure flame. I touch you and I ignite. I kiss you and I burn to have more. You consume me...like no other woman before you, and, I am certain, like no other ever could again."

She rose up and kissed him, holding his face in her hands. When she drew back, she couldn't keep from blurting out just how much he meant to her. "I love you, Rio. It scares me to death to say it out loud, but I do. I love you."

"Ah, Dios, " he whispered roughly. "Dylan...I have been falling in love with you since the very beginning. How you could love me, the way I am now, I don't know..."

"The way you are now," Dylan said, slowly shaking her head in wonder, "the way you look at me, the way you touch me, how could I not love you? You, Rio. Just as you are now."

She caressed him with all the emotion she felt for him, letting her fingers skate gently down the rugged left side of the handsome face she would never tire of seeing.

She hardly noticed the scars now. Oh, tragically, there was no reversing what he'd been through. The evidence of the hell he'd survived would always be there, on his face and on his body. But when Dylan looked at Rio, she saw his courage, his strength.

She saw his honor, and to her eyes, he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.

"I love you, Eleuterio de la Noche Atanacio. With all my heart."

Something fiercely tender flashed across his features. With a tight sound caught in his throat, he crushed her against him and simply held her there.

"More than anything, I want your happiness," he murmured beside her ear. "I know that your family - your mother's well-being - means the world to you. I know that you need to be with her."

"Yes," Dylan whispered. She drew out of his embrace and met his gaze. "I can't leave her now, Rio. I just...I can't."

He nodded. "I know. I understand that you need to be there for her, Dylan. But there is a selfish part of me that would try to convince you that this is where you belong now. With me, bonded in blood, as my mate."

Oh, she liked the sound of that. She recalled quite vividly how incredible it had been to have Rio feed from her vein. She wanted that again...now, when the love she felt for him was overflowing her heart.