A pair of exasperated blue eyes stared at me out of a mask of matted gray fur. But the hands trying to prize Stinky off gentled. He pried the Duergar away and held him at arm’s length. Stinky gnashed useless fangs at him and spat. “It does have a curious charm,” he murmured.

“Will you please let him go? He thinks you’re trying to hurt me.”

Louis-Cesare’s face lost its amusement. “You do well enough at that yourself,” he said shortly. Stinky was bundled into the bathroom for the second time and Louis-Cesare turned to regard me with crossed arms. I suppose the gesture was an expression of impatience or exasperation, but all my brain could manage to focus on was that towel. It looked to be in immanent peril of falling off entirely, barely clinging to the muscular swell of his hips—smooth-skinned hips glistening with water and flecked with soap suds.

I tried to look away, but the man was perfection, beauty given a face and body. The line of his throat, the sleek muscular sweep of his torso, were pure masculine sensuality. And in the dim light filtering in through the curtains, he almost looked like he’d been oiled. My mouth went dry.

“Dorina!” Louis-Cesare had moved, one of those lightning-fast transitions that vamps use when they can’t be bothered to appear human. He was by the bed staring down at me, and that was definitely exasperation on his face. “Have you heard anything I have said?”

“Not really.”

I suddenly felt the press of the intimate little room, with its lush carpets, gaudy gold-papered walls and rich, dark furniture. A breeze from the open window shifted around my legs, pushing into the sheet covering me. It was a tentative little thing, just a filmy tickle, but I was cold and he stood there still flushed from the heat of his bath. The soap smelled good on him, and the faint musk rising from all that warm skin smelled better. I shivered, hard.

Louis-Cesare’s breathing had roughened as my gaze lingered on his body. “You will not distract me!” His words were a surprise, because that hadn’t even occurred to me. Hadn’t, but should have. The last thing I wanted was to discuss my dreams, especially the last one.

A smile flirted with my lips. I stroked a hand up the interior of one strong thigh, shivering at the whiplash of sensation, the blaze of skin on skin. “You mean like this?”

I found myself on my back, with Louis-Cesare above me, his eyes flashing blue gray lightning. He looked powerful, hard, aroused. Stunning. “I do not believe that this was one of your fits, Dorina. There was no provocation—”

I took advantage of his nearness to run a hand down his chest and along the tight belly, until I hit the terry-cloth barrier just below the curve of his waist. He grabbed my hands before I could tug the towel off, and leaned over me, trapping them on either side of my head. “So what are you planning to do?” I grinned up at him. “Tie me to the bed?” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Louis-Cesare looked like a man who has finally heard a good idea. “Don’t you dare!”

My arms were pushed over my head. I would have protested, but the action brought that perfect mouth close enough to kiss, so I did. He tasted right the way water tastes right—simple, necessary.

Louis-Cesare leaned into the kiss for a moment; then tore away, his eyes blazing with something wild and seductive. The look alone was enough to send a wash of desire through me. It didn’t help that he was close enough for me to reach out and tangle his hair in my fists and pull him close, close enough to kiss again, close enough to make him moan. Just thinking about it made me ache, a sharp knife of want twisting in my stomach. I curled my hands around slats in the headboard to keep from grabbing him.

“I have found nothing else that succeeds with you!” The voice was deep and rough, with only a faint echo of his usual smooth tones. “I make logical arguments, but you do not hear.”

“Don’t,” I warned him in a strangled voice. “I’ve had a hard month. I ache in more places than I can count. The last thing I need is a lecture.”

He hesitated for a moment; then his palms smoothed back down my arms to cup my face. The usually so-controlled features were strangely tender. Those blue eyes met mine, asking, seeking. “What do you need?”

I should have laughed, should have thrown it back in his face as he did once to me. But my gaze had fixed on his mouth, on those impossibly enticing full lips. “Guess.”

The softness of his mouth was a surprise. I leaned into the insistent sweetness of the kiss, loving the way his lips caressed mine, how he managed to infuse the lightest of touches with a longing that made me weak. I let go of the slats, wanting to touch him, but he curved one of his hands over both of mine, curling them tightly around the headboard. For some reason I didn’t protest, possibly because his other hand had found my hip and slowly moved down until it cupped my backside. His mouth had moved along my jaw to my neck as his hand caressed me, as gently as if I were made of glass.

He didn’t ask what was wrong; he must have known I wouldn’t tell him. He simply resumed kissing his way downward, until my heart beat rapidly beneath his lips. He met only sleep-warm skin because the sheet had at some point slipped to puddle around my waist. “Everything about you is provoking,” he breathed. “Your voice saying outrageous things, your body striding up and down, giving me orders, and your taste—”

The thought skittered across my mind that if this was foreplay, sex with Louis-Cesare would probably kill me. I felt the headboard crack under my hands and decided that there were worse ways to go. And then it happened again. Images flooded my brain, richly detailed and absolutely breathtaking.

Dorina, naked on a bed, head dropped back to expose that lovely throat, luscious mouth open in soft moans, sweat trickling between those perfect breasts, glistening on a waist so tiny I could span it with my hands. There is no part of her I haven’t ached to touch: the soft roundness of her cheek, her beautiful throat, her breasts. I am possessed by an angel with ridiculous hair, flashing eyes and a devil’s mouth.

Seeing myself through Louis-Cesare’s eyes, feeling his emotions as well as my own, left me speechless—and extremely confused. He dropped his head farther, to where the sheet was covering my lower body. I was about to ask him what was happening, when he traced my lower stomach with his tongue, then, with no more warning than a gleam in his eyes, almost roughly plunged it into my navel.

It was a shock, delightful, delicious and unanticipated, sending liquid shivers to the pit of my stomach. No one had ever brought me so quickly and deeply into pleasure, but suddenly my whole body convulsed with it. His lips moved slightly downward, finding the flesh below my belly button, and his warm breath against me made me squirm. His eyes had bled to liquid silver. They held a question, but I couldn’t find my voice. I managed to nod, and was rewarded with a smile, heart-stoppingly sweet, as he slowly eased down the sheet.

He stroked the backs of my thighs with his fingertips and I lifted up, letting him ease off my panties. He paused to kiss my lower stomach before baring me completely. His thumbs found the sensitive skin at the backs of my knees, and big, warm hands smoothed up the insides of my thighs in a butterfly touch. They made a more purposeful caress down, in an unspoken appeal. I opened for him.

Louis-Cesare took his time, stroking, kissing and licking a trail upward from my knees. Then his head dipped between my legs and that hot tongue flicked higher. That rough liquid texture explored me, but only briefly, shallowly, teasingly.

The velvets under her are not as soft as her skin. Closing my mouth over the center of her. That racing pulse whispering how fragile she is, how delicate—careful, must be so careful, until she melts with sweetness, like honey on my tongue. He suddenly stopped altogether, and I wondered if he’d noticed that his thoughts were leaking all over the place. No, he couldn’t stop now! The heat of his breath over me was enough to rip a groan from my throat. Pleasure and frustration combined to drive me crazy, and he wasn’t even doing anything.

Louis-Cesare caught my eyes with his. “I want to part you and open you and go deep.” The words whispered their way across my skin as if they had a life of their own. I shivered from his voice alone, and his hands tightened on my thighs. He paused to wet his lips. “I want you to come with my tongue inside you.”

We stared at each other for a heartbeat. Whatever he saw on my face must have reassured him, because he made a sound, deep in his throat, then that shining head moved down again. One hand curved around my hip, lifting me up so he could taste me better. Tongue pressing just so, slipping into the hot slickness of her, drinking deep, hearing her cry out. Her back arching, hips bucking, pressing up against me in a quickening rhythm, her scent maddening me, her taste exploding on my tongue. My blood singing in my ears, racing through my veins faster and faster. Her body is so sweet—

I started feeling shaky. This was exactly what I’d wanted, just what I’d needed, except that I hadn’t dreamed it would feel like this. Too much—it was like looking into somebody’s unedited thoughts and it was just too damn much. Every sense was heightened, leaving me able to feel the tiny ridges on Louis-Cesare’s fingertips as they caressed me, hear the whisper of his hair over my skin, taste the soap on his body.

Dragging my tongue over her, plunging it into her. I can sense the pace she wants; I know the touch she craves. So beautiful, head flung back, body spasming under mine, sweat sheening her thighs, she is slick under my hands, moaning, straining, tousled hair dripping, hands clutching the headboard desperately. Beautiful, so beautiful.

I gasped, fists clenching with the unexpected strength of the sensations flying between us, no longer quite sure where my pleasure ended and Louis-Cesare’s began. Every touch of his hands was a double sensation—I felt it on his skin, in his emotions, as well as in my own. Double vision didn’t come close to describing it—it was double everything. And it was too intense, far too intense. God—I could drown in this, echo after echo, never stopping, until my heart gave out and I literally died of pleasure. But I also couldn’t stop, couldn’t ask him to stop—the very idea was insane. No one could pull back from pleasure like this.