Lips quirking, she closed her own hands over his wrists. “Don’t worry, sugar.” A tease in her voice, though her pupils had expanded to turn her eyes into pools of darkness into which he could fall forever. “I might never have been able to stand to touch anyone enough to get naked with them, but that doesn’t mean I’m an innocent.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, lost and shaken and enslaved.

“If you try to convince me you’re a virgin”—narrowed eyes—“I’m going to get out my crossbow.”

26

Stroking his thumbs over her cheekbones, he shook his head. “It’s you.”

Her hands tightened on his wrists, and then she slid one hand back around to cup his nape and draw down his head. His own hands fell to her waist. She was the one who kissed him, explored him, coaxed him.

He’d been seduced many times in his long lifetime. In every instance, he’d known exactly what was happening, had allowed the seduction as part of a game in which both parties had been well satisfied. This . . . he had no control of it, was her instrument to do with as she pleased. Trembling, he sank into the kiss, into the feel of her hand stroking over his nape, her mouth playing with his.

Lips parting from his on a soft, wet sound, she met his gaze, smiled a wicked little smile, and kissed him again, his long and lean and beautiful lover. He tugged her so close there wasn’t a breath between them, the feel of her body pressing against his turning the kiss molten. Ash gasped at the hard evidence of his hunger, her free hand sliding under the edge of his T-shirt to touch the skin of his waist.

He groaned, wanted to beg for more.

“I could get used to having you do exactly what I want.” Her lashes lifted, her lips moving against his, the air between them scalding.

He found his footing in her gentle tease. “Have pity, cher. I am only a man and you are . . . you.” A nauseating thought hit him out of nowhere, almost cut him off at the knees. “Am I the only one? Is that why—”

“I’ve met others I can’t read,” she said before he could complete the question. “A small percentage of the population.” Each word punctuated by a kiss, as if she liked the taste of him.

He liked being tasted, being enjoyed, seduced in a way he hadn’t known he could be seduced.

“I even kissed some of them—out of curiosity and because everyone needs to be touched. Even me.” Another kiss, a nibble of his lower lip. “But when you grow up conscious of every touch, it’s difficult to treat sex as a simple physical release.”

The possessiveness at the heart of his nature heard the declaration hidden in her words, grabbed at it with avaricious hands. But then she was kissing him again, and his thoughts splintered. Shifting his hold to wrap one hand around the back of her neck, his other hand across her lower back, he gave in to the passion that had always been red-hot embers between them.

Her breathing was choppy, his heartbeat ragged by the time she kissed her way along his jaw and down his throat. He fisted his hand in her hair as she licked out at him, made a small noise in the back of her throat, and did it again. His body jerked, his hips wanting to grind his rigid cock against her. Squeezing his nape, she repeated her action, then blew on the spot. Tremors rocked his frame. He tugged up her head, their mouths meeting in a nakedness of need that locked its talons around his heart and pulled.

“Let’s go slow,” Ash whispered when they came up for air. “I want to do every naughty, dirty thing I’ve never done.” The wicked little smile was back. “Somehow, I think you know a few sins you can teach me.”

His cock felt as if it would shatter, but he was used to frustration. Being with any other woman after meeting her would’ve been a betrayal, no matter that they’d been adversaries at the time. A man knew when he’d found his woman. “I’ve been waiting years to play teacher with you.”

Husky feminine laughter, her fingers possessive on him.

He gave her the kiss she demanded, stroking his hand down to cup her ass at the same time. Moaning into the kiss, she rubbed up against him. Not being stupid, he kept his grip where it was, squeezing and shaping the taut flesh he wanted to bite. He also wanted to bite down on the vein in her neck, in the crook of her elbow, on her wrist, on her thigh, for a far different reason: he hungered to drink from his lover as she sighed in orgasm.

Not every vampire could give pleasure with his bite, but Janvier had been able to do so since the day he first woke as a near-immortal. “I want to make you come,” he said against her wet, kiss-swollen mouth. “I want to thrust my fingers inside you”—chest heaving, mouths tangling—“pump hard and deep, your musk decadent in the air and your breasts bared so I can grip and mold them like I’m doing your ass.”

“God”—she bit down on his lower lip—“I love the way you talk.”

Trading her kiss for kiss, he lost his words, shivered when she ran her teeth over his neck. An instant later, he took a chance and, dipping his head, scraped his own down her skin. Her hand clenched on his nape. “Janvier.”

“Naked and sweaty, sugar. Remember?” That was when he’d told her he’d feed from her, and the reminder was as much for him as for her. His fangs ached, his cock was stone, every cell in his body starving for a taste of the woman in his arms. Feeding from a human donor had never automatically been a sexual thing for him—with her, it could be nothing else.