“And what did you think about while you watched me, Cassie?”
His voice was deep dark chocolate coating all of the desires she’d kept carefully hidden for the past five nights. Now was the time for truth.
“I thought about making love with you.” She held her breath. Only desperation would drive her to say those words. What if he didn’t feel the same way? After all, he’d had five nights to make his move if he was interested. What if—
His soft laughter wrapped her in warmth. “Good. I wouldn’t have made a seventh night.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Do something? She turned on her side to face him, careful not to focus on his face for too long.
He reached out to touch her then, just a slide of his fingers along her jaw. But that simple touch amplified her needs, sent them crawling along her nerve endings, awakened her in ways she’d never imagined. Something exciting and new opened its eyes for the first time and blinked in the bright light of her anticipation.
“You kept your eyes closed. No matter what you thought you wanted, Cassie, you weren’t ready to see me yet.” He leaned closer. “The real me. Acceptance comes from in here.” He tapped one finger over her heart.
That tap felt like the boom of a kettledrum and her heart leaped in response. “Are we finished with the deep stuff yet?” Her breaths were coming faster. When had she grown into an impatient bitch? About six nights ago.
His smile was a flash of white in the darkness. Without answering, he pushed himself to his knees and leaned over her. “Sit up.”
Now that she’d exhausted her supply of bravado for the night, she simply obeyed. Raising her arms, she allowed him to slip her nightgown over her head while she focused on his throat and the pulse that beat there.
Cassie looked up to find him staring at her, and she swore she could see his eyes gleaming behind the dark lenses.
“You’re beautiful. I thought that from the first moment I saw you.” He lowered his head to kiss a path starting at the sensitive skin beneath her ear and continuing down her neck.
Cassie closed her eyes and murmured her pleasure.
She felt him pause at the hollow of her throat, his lips all heat and pressure. Cassie swallowed hard and knew he’d feel it. “From the first moment? I don’t think so. Your eyes were black and you were flashing fangs.”
He didn’t answer for a moment as he slid his tongue along her collarbone, then kissed the swell of her breast. “I compartmentalize my emotions well. My rage was completely separate from my appreciation of you.”
She was finding it hard to concentrate. To ground herself, she smoothed her fingers over his broad shoulders and along his biceps. His muscles tensed beneath her touch.
This time the sensations came. His scent—clean, male, and filled with memories of the night. His skin, smooth and warm. His taste? She’d find out.
But as she leaned in to kiss him, he put his hands on her shoulders and took her down to the bed with him. Then he rolled her onto her back and straddled her hips. “There. That’s better.”
Cassie forgot not to look. She opened her eyes and glared up at him. “Excuse me? Where’s the equal access? You can reach everything. I can only reach . . . some things.” She took a deep breath and dropped her gaze.
“Ah, but they’re the important things.”
He tangled his fingers in her hair and leaned down to cover her mouth with his. Cassie explored the taste of him fully as the long drugging kiss threatened to spiral out of control. She closed her eyes again as she traced each fang with the tip of her tongue. So different from her, but so right for him.
He finally broke the kiss in favor of focusing his attention on her breasts. And as he circled her nipple with the tip of his tongue and then covered it with his lips, she encouraged him with breathy moans.
The heat of his mouth, the way he flicked each nipple with his tongue before nipping gently, and the pleasure/pain as he drew on it made her gasp.
Pleasure drove her. Cassie arched her back as he licked a path over her stomach. Then she spread her legs when he moved lower to trail the tip of his tongue up her inner thigh.
But when he slid his hands under her bottom, lifted her to meet his mouth, and then used that same tongue tip to tease the sensitive nub that was control central for what seemed to be every nerve ending in her body, she took a dive into the same place she’d visited the first time they’d kissed.
“Please, please, please.” Her breaths came in tortured gasps as she pleaded with him. Please hold me so close that you absorb every cell in my body. Please fill me so the emotions won’t hurt so much. Please let me touch you. Cassie didn’t think she meant his body with that last “please.” But then she wasn’t doing much thinking at all right now.
Raw emotions and sensations that threatened to wash her away shook her until she gripped the bottom sheet as an anchor. She whimpered as he slipped his tongue in and out, in and out.
Cassie clenched her muscles around the indescribable pleasure—trying to slow it down, hang on to it. Finally her emotions overflowed the dam she hadn’t done much to shore up.
Need, want so intense that it hurt, and an unnamed emotion that tugged and tugged at her heart until she expected it to explode from her chest battered her. With a growl she didn’t even recognize as coming from her, she raised herself enough to tangle her fingers in his hair and yank.
He didn’t fight her. She sensed that his eyes would be black behind his glasses, and she would’ve sworn his hands shook as he grasped her arms and flopped onto his back, dragging her on top of him.
Cassie wasn’t sure who the vampire was here, because she wanted to eat him alive, drain him of every drop of whatever magic he was feeding her. She whimpered as she rose to straddle him the same way he had her. Strands of thoughts mixed with the sensations and emotions, driving her into a feverish frenzy to . . .
She knew if she didn’t put her mouth, her hands, on his body, there’d be nothing but an empty husk of a woman left when this was over. The heat of her hunger would burn her to gray ash and then the ash would blow away on the wind of her frustrated need.
Cassie memorized every line, every curve of him as she slid her fingers over his smooth sleek body. Her fingers trembled as she spent quality time running one fingernail lightly over the hard length of his erection. Before she knew it, her mouth had replaced her hands.
She’d never get enough of him. She glided her tongue over his cock—all velvety soft skin and hard male need—and slipped her lips over the head. As she mimicked the rhythm of love, she soaked up his deep groans.
It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough. Her feelings fought the tangle of physical sensations, trying to tell her something, something important.
But all coherent thought fled on the surge of what had to be her own Second One, and it was shouting, “Now, now, now.”
It must’ve been loud enough for Ethan to hear because he put his hands on her hips and effortlessly lifted her onto his erection.
Slow. She wanted to make it last. Forever. But her body didn’t agree. Cassie felt the head of his cock pressing, pressing and . . . She. Couldn’t. Stand. It.
She lowered herself slowly, with exquisite care, with deep breaths each time she felt him spread her apart and push in a little farther. Slowly, focusing on the moment, the sensation, the feeling.
Then he moved. With a hard thrust, he drove into her and she lost it.
She met his thrust with her own, joining them completely, and nothing she’d ever experienced felt like the sensation of him completely filling her—pressing, pressing.