“Ice! No. Please.” Her body shook. “Don’t stop . . .”

He raised up on all fours and kissed her belly. “Shh. I won’t. Ever. Until you tell me to.”

Then he lowered himself over her, cradling himself between her thighs, grabbing her hips, making his intent clear.

Trailing kisses over the swells of her breasts and her neck, he reached down to toy with the button of her clit again until she drew in a sweet, shuddering breath. Slow, steady, he told himself. Gentle.

Carefully, he took his cock in hand and aligned their bodies, then paused. “I ask only one thing in return: never hold anything back from me.”

She wriggled her hips, driving him completely mad with the feel of her wet flesh caressing his sensitive tip. “I won’t. Please . . .”

“Give me everything.”

“Yes,” she panted as he pushed forward, thrusting deep. “YES!”

Bloody hell. With a word, she nearly undid him, to say nothing of the feel of her tight and slick around him. Sabelle Rion, here under him, crying out for him. A fantasy in the flesh, feeling so good that it hurt. His blood boiled in an instant. Need ramped up, made him sweat, made him dizzy. He craved more of her. Now. Sooner than now. Had to feel her screaming and pulsing and accepting him.

Ice drew back, then thrust forward again. To the hilt. “I’ll take every part of you.”

Body and soul.

He swore that now she had allowed him into her bed, he was never leaving. Ever. Wrapping his arms around her and sinking even deeper only reaffirmed what he knew: she was his.

He pulled back, tried to ease off, but her body clung to him, tightening around him. She looped her arms around his neck and peppered frantic kisses across his shoulder. She was close, and Ice swallowed. Now he’d find out exactly how invested she was in him because he had no doubt that her body was tied to her heart. And his heart was irrevocably tied to hers.

Ice tangled his fingers into her hair, this thumb braced against Sabelle’s jaw. Her face and chest were rosy by candlelight, and her eyes were closed in impending bliss. Unacceptable.

“Look at me,” He had to make certain she knew who was deep inside her, that she could not imagine Lucan or anyone else in his place. Best that she get used to him being right here. Often.

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open, revealing dilated pupils, and she gazed at his face.

His heart jumped. His libido kicked up another notch, and he slammed home in one powerful stroke, nudging the end of her channel. The hitch in her breath spiked triumph through him as much as the increased tightening of her slick walls around him. He wasn’t giving up. If he had to sweat and strain all night, he would earn her pleasure and a place in her heart.

“Don’t look away,” he warned.

Sabelle shook her head, her gaze never wavering. Her acceptance and the exquisite feel of her was killing the remaining bits of his self-control. He had to grab hold of his need and keep it tightly under wraps, couldn’t unleash the full extent of his lust on her. Pushing or frightening her would get him nowhere.

The warning chanting in his brain did no good.

Lowering his hands to her hips, he tilted her toward him and drove into her with a strong, rapid rhythm. The impact changed her face immediately. Her mouth fell open, eyes widening. She tensed and gasped again, clutching him tighter.

“You’re going to come for me.” It wasn’t a question because he wasn’t giving her an option.

“Y-yes.”

Impossible to miss the catch in her voice. It drove him to thrust deeper, clutch her hips and hold her in place so she felt the friction. As he did, he drowned in a sea of darkening blue eyes and thick brown lashes. He didn’t dare blink for fear of missing a moment between them.

Suddenly, her legs tightened around him. She began to whimper. It grew loud, then louder. He held the pace steady, sweat beading all over. Seconds later she clamped down on him with a scream that rattled the windows. Fluttering around him, then squeezing, she released.

Satisfaction doused his veins as she pulsed around him, keening out her pleasure. He continued his pace, dragging against the sensitive spot he’d discovered, prolonging her ecstasy.

She no more than caught her breath before he began to pound that same spot again, still holding her gaze. He knew he should ease away, back off until she recovered. But when she experienced ecstasy, he swore he could see so deep into her soul, and she was beautiful to him all over again. Even more than before. Her kindness had always impressed him, for she’d never treated him as anything but a warrior wizard. Her intelligence amazed him. She was a clever girl able to manipulate Council politics as easily as she helped deal with the centuries-old Doomsday Diary. Her sensuality … That he had always suspected she kept beneath her surface, but basking in it now, he nearly drowned. She was … everything, and he wanted nothing more than to hear her cry out in pleasure for him again.

Closer. Somehow he had to get closer, deeper, take even more of her. Now. He raised her legs over his hips, and they curled around his waist. It still wasn’t enough. He put more force behind each stroke, sank deeper still. The bed shook with every thrust. And still it wasn’t enough. He pressed his face closer to hers, losing himself even more in the blue heaven of her stare. Still not enough. Would it ever be?

“I could do this to you all night,” he murmured. “I want to.”

Her eyes flared again, and she didn’t speak, but she moaned, lower than the last time she neared orgasm. Longer. Joy raced like fire through his veins as she tightened on him again. A little more, then . . .

“Ice!” Sabelle screamed, her nails digging frantically into his shoulders.

The pain spurred him on, and he pistoned into her like a madman. His pleasure spiraled nearly beyond his control, but he held on to it for the sheer thrill of watching the frantic need on her face transform into the most beautiful bliss. And trust. She trusted him to care for her. Nothing was more beautiful.

As her second orgasm ended, gratification and need hit him at once, almost conflicting. Yes, he’d managed to hurtle her into pleasure more than once, and he could only pray that meant he held a deeper place in her heart than Lucan. But twice didn’t satisfy him. Not even close.

Don’t push her anymore, he told himself. Slow. Gentle. Pull back. She’s not ready for more.

He told the voice in his head to fuck off.

Rolling over, he laid on his back, then lifted her off his erection, which ached for more of the soft suction of her body. Then he wrapped his arms around her, tattoo bulging with his biceps, and lifted her up his body, settling her wet, swollen sex over his mouth.

Without hesitation, he began to feast, his gut tightening. The taste of her very essence screamed at him, his instincts flaring anew. My mate. Mine!

“Ice,” she panted. “Wait. I—I can’t. Let me catch a breath.”

He closed his eyes, trying to get a grip. As he trembled and felt a haze of need shut down his brain, he realized that grasping for self-control was a waste of time . . .

“Need more now,” he growled, then devoured her again, sucking the little swollen bud into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue.

She came again, against his lips, with a shout that tapered off into a crackling, hoarse cry. And still he wanted more. Way more.

Maneuvering her down his body with one hand, he lifted his cock with the other and raised up into the tight clench of her body. She closed around him in welcome.

“Yes. Ice. Oh God … Yes!”

His favorite word from her.

Sabelle caught his mood and gyrated down onto his aching shaft, her chest against his. Her gaze locked with his once more.

Almost immediately, she cried out again in a raspy roar, her fingers digging into his arms. Her body held him so tightly, Ice wondered if she’d kill all the blood to his erection, but the strong contractions allowed plenty of time for the rest of the blood in his body to plummet to his cock and make him even harder.

The need to let go and find his own pleasure was strong, but he ground his teeth and tamped it down. As long as Sa-belle had any remaining desire, he wanted it directed it at him. Whatever happened tomorrow, he wanted this to be a night she would never forget. God knew he never would.

Swallowing a curse, he lifted her off him, kissing away her protest with a harsh press of his mouth over hers. He swallowed her cry and urged her back to the bed. Without a bit of prompting on his part, she parted those sweet, golden thighs, and the invitation was nearly too strong. But he wanted—needed—to have her in the most submissive way. If she responded with equal passion and trust when he had her beneath him and open, maybe he’d be satisfied.

Even as he called himself twenty kinds of fool, he rolled her to her stomach and lowered himself over her, spreading her legs again with his feet. Then he gripped her hips.

“Ice? What—”

“Feel me,” he demanded, then pressed deep, relishing this position where she could feel everything and control nothing.

He latched his mouth on the back of her neck, and she cried out. Satisfaction broiled deep inside him when she arched up, giving him a better angle to sink deep inside her. He took ruthless advantage of it.

One unrelenting stroke after another. Ice reached beneath her, and his fingers found her distended button of nerves and swiped his cream-coated fingers across it.

“Ice. Ice!” She could barely find her breath now. “I can’t—”

“You can. I need it.”

In the next moment, she clamped down on him again, her explosion of pleasure mere moments away. And still something drove him.

“You feel me?” he growled.

“Yes!” She looped one of her arms over his, linking their fingers together.

Sabelle wanted to be closer to him, and that fact renewed his frenzy. Squeezing her fingers, Ice blocked out his need to release with her. Instead, he read the cues of her body. Just once more. Then surely he would be satisfied with her response.

His fingers swept across her wet flesh, and he hammered her with rapid strokes, thrilling to the feel of her tensing beneath him, her gasps and moans.

“Who is deep inside you?” he demanded.

“Ice!”

She bucked and screamed beneath him, and he swore he was even deeper inside her than before.

Bloody hell, it wasn’t enough. But his control was fraying, his blood screaming for release. The ache building in his groin was eroding everything but the need to mark her in the most basic way, with his seed.

Withdrawing again, this time to the sounds of her weak protest, Ice rolled her to her back once more and slid between her relaxed thighs. Pushing back inside her swollen sex required patience he didn’t have and nearly shoved him over the edge. She wasn’t done yet, not without him. One more climb to the pinnacle of pleasure . . .

Again, he linked their gazes and hands. The connection was electric and shuddered down his spine. His steady strokes turned urgent, and Sabelle, his sweet princess, rose up to meet him. Her stare locked with his, and he read the growing pleasure, the rising need, then the dawning of surprise. He clenched his jaw. Yes, the explosion was big. Huge. Monumental.

Sweat broke out across his back, his forehead, as he pushed his way inside her ever-tightening body and acceptance glided across her face, as welcome as a cool breeze on a broiling summer day. Perfect. Then she was chanting his name and falling over the edge. And clinging to him with her hands, her lips, her gaze. Ice fell down into her as the need crashed past the last of his resistance, and he soared into a pleasure so intense, so sublime, it shook him to the core. She shook him.

He’d sworn that tonight would change Sabelle and her feelings for him. Instead, being with her had changed him forever. He’d believed he loved her before. Now he knew it was an abiding, enduring devotion. As he’d said when he spoke the Call, there was no other for him but her.

“Princess?”

Sabelle’s drowsy, half-open eyes and her tilted smile focused him. “Hmm?”

She sounded drowsy, dreamy, and Ice couldn’t hold back a smile as joy whipped inside him.

“You should do that more,” she whispered.

“Make love to you? oh, I plan to.”

Biting her lip, she closed her eyes, suddenly shy. Had he ever seen a more beautiful woman? Gorgeous in pleasure, she was stunning in satisfaction. That he had put the look on her face awed him.

“Smile, I meant,” she corrected.

He hadn’t had much to smile about in two hundred years, since Gailene’s death. But now … he widened his smile. For her. Yes, happiness was fleeting, and Sabelle would likely never be his mate. But no one could take this moment from him, and he planned to savor it for the rest of his life.

* * *

Early the next morning, Sabelle stretched, eyes closed, feeling peaceful. And energetic. Brimming, actually. She felt well rested for the first time in days. Despite the wind howling outside, and the still darkness before sunrise, a sense of warmth and protection from the December chill settled over her.

She rolled over, encountered a hard body radiating furnace-like temperatures. Her eyes flew open.