“Need. You. Now!” Olivia tore her hand from his grasp and planted it in his hair, her fingers curling around the strands all the way to his scalp, then using her grip to position him as she slanted her mouth across his own.

Instantly, her flavor burst across his tongue. Not minty like toothpaste. Not heavy like coffee. Not sweet with something she’d eaten. Just…Olivia, mysterious and irresistible.

On a groan, he dove into her mouth. From the moment their lips met, his goal became to taste, plunder, master. With fevered kisses, he took her mouth with unrelenting passion. Need roared inside him.

Olivia wrapped her legs around him, her nails digging into his shoulders, as she arched into the kiss. If he had ever lain with a more responsive woman, he did not recall it. Or maybe he had, and he’d simply forgotten every other woman. Olivia obliterated them with her white-hot responses and the little catches at the back of her throat.

He held her face, his thumbs brushing her cheeks, and kept her still for his mouth’s pleasure. He was starved for her, yet every taste did naught to assuage his hunger. He took the kiss deeper, overwhelmed by sensation. She clung tighter.

Her nipples stabbed into his chest. Blast it, he could scarcely take a good breath. Olivia seemed no better, her chest heaving, cheeks flushed, her ragged inhalations shouting that she was racing to the brink as quickly as he.

And they’d done little more than kiss.

His gaze touched the skeins of her dark hair framing a haunting face, those eyes so like Morganna’s, but without the calculation and guile. He yearned to feel her, to take her.

“Tell me what you need.”

Desire leapt in her vivid eyes as she placed his hand on the swell of her breast. Her nipples stood up, begging for his caress. He complied, grazing the sensitive tip. She keened, a sound of longing and frustration.

Marrok shifted to drop a kiss into the silky valley between her breasts. By hell’s fire, her scent was strong here. Inhaling it deep made him harder.

He tongued the soft skin of her cleavage and tasted the spice of her desire. It mixed with her innocence and female strength to beguile him. One taste would never be enough. Nor would a million.

With a deep breath, Marrok switched to the untended nipple. It leapt to attention against his tongue, and a fresh burst of her spice spilled into his mouth. Never had he experienced a woman before with such sensory depth, but he was bloody ravenous over her softness and the desire he swore he could taste on her skin.

He dusted open-mouthed kisses to the underside of her breasts, where her heavenly smell loomed strong. As it filled his head, he could hardly think of aught but getting deep inside her.

Yet he could not pry his lips from her long enough to mount her. Soon. But first he wanted her slick heat under his fingers. Touching her pouting flesh, caressing her swelling clit, bringing her to the brink…Aye.

Trailing his fingers down her stomach and into her wet curls, the taste of her sex exploded across his memory.

Bring her to peak now!

In the part of his brain still capable of rational thought, Marrok knew he must arouse her only. Allowing her release would expend too much of her energy while she sat at death’s door. The pleasure might cost her her life. But she must be well prepared, since Olivia had taken him deep but once. As hard as he felt now, he could inadvertently hurt her. He wanted to bask in her pleasure, but he must not wring it from her without sharing in the climax.

He slid his fingers through her hot, narrow channel. Already her flesh tried to suck him deeper. Zounds, how could he possibly outlast her lure?

“Marrok, please. Don’t…don’t stop. Oh my God!” she cried as he dragged his thumb across her nub of nerves. “I need you.”

Her body tensed, her legs splayed wide. Marrok dared not arouse her more. He yearned to. Desperately. Violently. They were mated, and he should have the privilege of watching her come repeatedly, to see her face flush with pleasure and hear her scream his name.

First, he must seal this bond by giving her all the vitality he could expend from his body into hers. Somehow.

Marrok was not a man given to prayer, but at this moment, he would have gladly gotten on his knees for some Hail Marys.

Please God, do not let her die.

Marrok shoved the thought out of his mind as he pushed another finger inside her, and she arched off the mattress, whimpering, wet, clutching his shoulders. She grabbed his head and held him still for a kiss that bewitched him—just as she did.

She loosed a tremulous gasp, then stiffened. Her sex rippled around his fingers. He pulled free of her scalding passage and rolled back on top of her. Instantly, she wrapped her legs around his hips and scattered wild kisses across his sensitive throat that made him shiver.

“I need you inside me.”

He shuddered as she wriggled beneath him, shoved a hand between them, aligned the sensitive head of his cock to her opening and…

“Please…”

How the bloody hell was a man to say no to that?

Impossible, Marrok thought as he slammed into her, down, down, the tight squeeze of her sex boggling his mind and adding a new layer of torment to the pleasure.

She cried out and dug her fingernails into his back. He was glad for the signs of her desire and possession. As she arched to him and bit at the sensitive skin between his neck and shoulder, he thrilled that she wanted to mark him as hers.

Under him, she writhed, impaling herself on his stiff length with every thrust. Deep. Deeper. So perfect. He savored the clasp of her body and the little moans he wrenched from her.

Marrok withdrew inch by torturous inch. Then he filled her again. As he glided over her sensitive spot, Olivia’s breath caught. When he pushed in once more and felt the mouth of her womb, she gasped and gripped him tighter.

He became lost in her, a prisoner to the rush of electric pleasure that arced up his shaft, straight into his gut. He hardened even more, though he had not thought such possible.

Gritting his teeth, he repeated the process, a slow thrill ride of mind-boggling pleasure that began to unravel him. Another thrust, and the sensations stacked on top of each other, staggering him. He began to sweat, tremble, letting the need build and build. But Olivia fluttered against his cock.

“Not yet, love,” he growled. “Hold on.”

“No,” she panted. “I need—”

“Together. We both need it.”

What he needed was more of her. Lacing his fingers through hers, he held her to the mattress for slow thrusts and drugging kisses. Under him, she stiffened, arched. The pulses of her channel pushed him to the brink. Desire loomed, coiling lower and tighter inside him. In centuries, he had not been this close to achieving climax! He must reach it.

Or…else.

Shoving aside the consequences of failure, Marrok slid inside Olivia again. Slowly. His breath came hard. So bloody close…but that meant nothing.

Damn it, this wasn’t simply his pleasure at stake; it was Olivia’s life. His forever.

Fate and magic had forced him into a terrible position. He channeled his fury into determination. It mingled with desire as Marrok glided into her with long, possessive thrusts, driving them both close to the edge.

“Look at me,” he demanded, thickly.

Olivia opened heavy lids, looking slumberous and pleasure-drenched. Her violet gaze crashed into him. The connection of their bond surged.

“Want more…” She pressed her lips to his.

He wanted to give her everything, while he made her his. Need ate at the chains restraining his pleasure. Desire gathered and solidified. Her face glowed with yearning and joy. He felt her in a way he’d never experienced a woman, deeper than he’d ever imagined sex could be. It sank into his chest, penetrated his soul.

“Mine!” he growled, then captured her mouth.

With another thrust into her, she clutched him with her sheath, her arms, her kiss. Ecstasy ripped past centuries of desolation.

His world exploded. Everything inside him lit up, burning. Consuming. Gratification roared through him as if it would never end, as if it would shatter him into a million pieces.

Olivia sank her teeth into his shoulder. He groaned as ecstasy shook him. Robbed of breath and control, Marrok poured his seed into her.

Seemingly endless, the climax left him boneless and spent. He slumped against Olivia, his heart rate slowing from the wild rush. He’d given her every bit of vigor he could scrape together, every touch his screaming muscles could give. And he had surrendered a part of himself he’d never given another.

Had it been enough to help her?

CHAPTER SEVEN

HIS CHEST TIGHTENED with fear as he opened his eyes. Beneath him, Olivia’s face glowed with vitality in the moonlight. Relief flooded in. The world had been lifted off his back.

She looked amazingly alert and well, though flushed and slightly confused. As if the hours of life-threatening illness had never occurred. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to separate from her.

Bloody odd sentiment. He had entered into and kept the bond merely to break his curse.

But even as he thought the words, Marrok knew he lied.

The woman beneath him made him feel vital again. Though he’d been alive for centuries, he’d been dead inside. She changed everything.

“Marrok?” she ventured.

“Aye.”

Since running afoul of Morganna, Marrok had bedded hundreds, perhaps thousands of women. As often as he’d focused on achieving satisfaction, Morganna’s curse had withheld orgasm every time. Until tonight. Why? Tonight, he had focused solely on Olivia and every sensation of being with her. Had that made the difference? What had released his black heart, as Morganna had accused him of having, so he might achieve satisfaction?

The bond. Mentally, he felt it now. Thicker and twice as dense as before. While he held her, it continued to grow. Such an odd sensation to feel the connection. Yet it was undeniable.

Had mere magic tied them together or was it something more?

He knew she had made her dream of an art studio a reality and that she longed to meet her father. But he sensed a much deeper woman beneath, unlike Morganna, who had cared only for beauty and power. Olivia’s soul seemed purer. He thirsted to learn more.

But would it be wise?

She was likely the key to his curse. He must focus on that and not be distracted by murky emotions for a le Fay.

“How fare you?” he asked.

“What is going on?” She tensed. Her stare demanded answers. “How did we get…here?”

“You were so ill, I feared you would die.”

“So you had sex with me? Damn, my head hurts. Wait!” She tensed. “Did you drug me?”

She struggled against him as shock and horror dawned inside her.

For years, even her own mother had refused to touch the “otherworldly” girl. Most men had jumped on that bandwagon. Yet Marrok had been determined enough to rape her?

“Drug?” He sounded puzzled.

“Oh God, somehow you slipped me something so you could—”

“Think you I tricked you into taking some substance to ensure your surrender to me?” Marrok held her down, not budging.

“Why else would I be naked with a man I barely know? I’m so calling the police.” She tried again to escape his hold.

“I wanted you, wench, but never so much that I would use trickery. That is the work of knaves and scoundrels. When we came to this bed, you were very willing.”

“Because you had me drugged by then.”

“I gave you neither food nor drink.”

“But you gave me that bracelet. Somehow that thing wiped out my inhibitions.” She glanced at her wrist. “It’s gone!”

“Before we first shared this bed, you came to me. ‘You see this desire I can’t deny’?” he quoted her.

“I said that when I tried to trick you to escape.” At least that had been the biggest reason. The other…no denying the guy was sexy and affected her in a way she could barely comprehend. “You were foaming at the mouth about having sex with Morganna to break your curse. Oh God, is that why you drugged me? I really am stuck in a freak show!”

“I did not drug you and I know now that you are not her, but ’twas a simple mistake. You have her eyes and her birthmark. Our joining had naught to do with Morganna and everything to do with you.”

Somehow, he made that sound romantic. The forlorn little girl inside her wanted to take him at face value. His stare lingered. He looked so damn sincere—and she’d be an idiot to fall for it. “Whatever. You’re done with me now.”

“Nay.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Not by half.”

Sweet, like melted chocolate and caramel on her favorite ice cream. If his desire was remotely real…wow! Sign her up for more. But it couldn’t be real. Which begged the question: why had he made love to her?

“Let me go.” She squirmed against the intimate press of their bodies, and they separated. Olivia gasped. “You didn’t use a condom? This just keeps getting worse. I swear, if I get a disease…Or pregnant. Crap!”