His hand explored beneath the covers, stroking her waist and hip in a long, possessive sweep. “I seem to be recovering my strength.”
“You’re just thinking about my bike.”
“No.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m wondering how a man courts a woman in these times. Are there still balls?”
“Nightclubs and coffee shops. A lot less formal.”
“What do you like to do?” His smile was wicked, bad boy present and accounted for. “You have such a poor opinion of my aristocratic kind that I ought to show you how a gentleman born can make a woman happy.”
Ashe felt herself smiling in response. She’d all but forgotten this back-and-forth with a man. “Skiing. Mountain climbing. Horseback riding.”
“Riding?”
“I like a good stallion,” she said. “A good, frisky one.”
“Really?”
She moved under the bedsheet. He drew his breath in suddenly, touching her face, sliding his hand down over her breast. Angling over her, he left a long, lingering kiss on her lips. “You’re so beautiful. If a trifle impatient.”
She felt the softness of his hair, the harsh brush of his stubble. The contrast of textures was exciting. Then his mouth was on her breasts, her stomach, then nipping the soft flesh of her thighs. He was just this side of masterful. That was what she needed. She didn’t feel like proving herself tonight. For once, she wanted someone to simply want her—nothing complicated, no thinking required.
His mouth was on her, tasting her, sending a sweet-and-sour need through her belly. She felt her heels dig into the sheets as the tension grew, desire sharp as the finest steel. Cursing under her breath, she felt the waves of sensation pounding through her as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, then backed away, then brought her there again, only to steal her finish once more. She flung her head back, arching her neck, eyes squeezed shut in delicious frustration.
“Goddess, I’m not immortal; let me go before I break!”
“Are you asking nicely?” he teased, closing his lips around the peak of her breast at the same time his fingers slipped inside her.
And that did it. With a wild gasp, she opened her eyes, the pool of lamplight by the bedside dissolving into a golden aura as tears of release spilled down her cheeks. She came under his hand long and hard.
She was still burning with pleasure when he slipped his hard length inside, easing in with a few leisurely strokes. His chest muscles did an interesting dance as he shifted his weight onto his arms, doing a slow, slow push-up to bring his lips down to hers. Ashe could see a vein in his arm pulse as he hovered there, intimately inside her, yet holding himself apart. Her nipples just brushed his skin, trembling against him as she breathed. She began to pant, her inner muscles spasming, clenching around him.
He groaned, giving in to the urge to thrust. She felt the slide through her whole body, a friction that overflowed her senses. She rose to meet it, slick with anticipation. His next thrust was harder, barely banked power.
“Again,” she breathed, reaching up to grab the bars of the headboard. “You don’t need to hold back.”
He let his mouth trail over her neck, down between her breasts, and then the rhythm took them both—slowly at first, Reynard lingering over the motion, then more and yet more greedily, driving into her without mercy. She came first, the sound of his name on her lips bringing him to climax in a shuddering rush.
Afterward, they lay entwined, reluctant to separate. Finally, sweat drying in the chill air, Ashe began to shiver. Reynard made the first move, retrieving the covers to pull over them. Ashe curled into his chest, basking in the lassitude after lovemaking.
It had been perfect. Epic.
There was no reason for this to ever end. She had him. Life was good.
“My love,” Reynard said, running one finger down her cheek.
“What?” Ashe curled deeper into his side.
“You have very, very cold feet.”
She swatted him with her pillow.
Turn the page for an excerpt from Sharon Ashwood’s next Dark Forgotten novel, ICED Coming soon from Signet Eclipse
Talia might be dead, but she still had a bad case of the creeps.
The scent of blood swamped her brain, swallowing sight and sound. She hesitated where she stood, her vampire senses screaming that something was wrong. That much blood was far too much of a good thing. The elevator doors whooshed shut behind her, stirring a gust of recycled air. Stirring up that maddening, tantalizing, revolting smell.
Talia blinked the hallway back into focus. This was her floor of the condo building, and home and Michelle were at the end of the hall. She fished her door keys out of her purse and started walking, the glossy pink bag from Howard’s banging against her leg as she walked.
Now her stomach hurt and her jaws ached to bite, but more from panic than hunger. That much blood meant someone was hurt. There were a lot of elderly people in the building. Many lived alone. One of them might have slipped and fallen, or maybe cut themselves in the kitchen. Or maybe someone had broken in. . . .
Talia quickened her stride, following the scent. She pulled her phone out of her shoulder bag, the rhinestones on its bright blue case winking in the dim overhead light. She flipped it open, ready to dial Emergency as soon as she figured out who was in trouble. She was no superhero, but she could force open a door and control her hunger long enough for basic first aid. If there were bad guys, oh, well. She’d had a light dinner.
She passed units 1508, 1510, and 1512, her high-heeled ankle boots silent on the soft green carpet. She paused at each door—1514, 1516—listening for clues. A television muttered here and there. No sounds of a predator attacking its prey.
Unit 1520, 1522. The smell was coming from 1524, at the end of the hall. Oh. Oh!
Unit 1524 was her place. Michelle!
She grasped the cool metal of the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. The door swung open, and the smell of death rushed into the hall like surf, drowning Talia all over again.
Instinct froze her where she stood, listening. There was no heartbeat, but that didn’t mean much. Lots of things, herself included, didn’t have a pulse. Reaching out her left hand, she pushed the door all the way open. The entry looked straight through to the living room, where a big picture window let in the glow of city lights. It was plenty of light for a vampire to see by.
“Michelle?” she said softly. There’s no one here. She must have left.
Talia couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe anything else. She set down her purse and shopping bag and slid her phone into her pocket. Get a grip. But her hands shook so hard, she had to make fists to stop them.
She left the door open behind her as she tiptoed inside. She’d lived there for two months, but suddenly the place felt alien. Lamps, tables, the so- ugly-it-was-cute pink china poodle with the bobble head . . . They might as well have been rock formations on another planet. Nothing felt right.
Her boot bumped against something. Talia sprang backward, her dead heart giving a thump of fright. She stared, organizing the shape into meaning. A suitcase. One of those with the pull-out handle and wheels. Big and bright red.
It was Michelle’s.
“Michelle?” Talia meant to shout this time, but it came out a whisper. “What the hell, girl?”
She groped on the wall for the light switch, suddenly needing the comfort of brightness. The twin lamps that framed the couch bloomed with warm light.
Oh, God.
Her stomach heaved. Now she could see all that red, red blood. Scarlet sprayed in arcs across the wall, splattering the furniture like a painter gone all Jackson Pollock on the decor. Talia shuddered as the carpet squished with wetness.