“Have you ...” He gave a little lift of the eyebrows. One thing hadn’t changed over the centuries. Men still had problems with some words. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
She would have said more, but that was all the informa tion he seemed to need. He had given her the chance to back away from this encounter, but now he was back in control. One hand reached around her waist, untying the tapes of her petticoats. She kicked them free.
She lay half on top of him, captured by his strong arm. His mouth quested down her neck, his hands circling her breasts. His teeth dragged against their peaks, teasing through the thin fabric of her shift. She felt them harden, aching and tight. He suckled through the cloth, sending a stab of pleasure right down to her belly. She gasped, her back arching, pushing her farther into his embrace.
As they moved, Constance slid her hands down the ridges of his stomach, around his hips, over the cresting arch of his backside. Her mouth found his flesh, tasting, savoring, but keeping her fangs from seeking the sweetness below the skin. Her teeth ached, but the discomfort only made her more eager. She tentatively ran her fingers over the hair that curled low on him, and the hard, long, thick evidence of his pleasure. It was unexpectedly smooth, in places soft.
As she fondled it, a sound came from him, half rumble, half moan. She filed that information away, and slipped off her shift.
A soft gasp came from Mac, and his hands were on her breasts. Then his mouth. Then his fingers reached between her legs, finding the hot, wet secrets there. Instinctively, her knees drew up, parting to give him access. A restless pressure built in her stomach as he stroked her, finding places no one but she had ever touched. Pleasure coiled through her, pooling like oil in her belly, in the hard nubs of her nipples. She began to feel like she might burst, all her desire leaking from her, sweet and sticky.
A convulsive stab of wanting wracked her. And again. He kept up the questing, teasing, pushing, caressing until the stabs became a single, uncontrollable gasp of pleasure that ground her pelvis beneath his hand. Her vision blurred and meaningless, the candlelight melted into a single sunburst as waves of heat seared her.
She came out of it panting like she’d run a race. “Holy Mother,” she murmured.
“That’s just the beginning,” he murmured in her ear. The demon was in his eyes, sparking scarlet. She was starting to like that demon.
He poised himself above her, the muscles in his chest and arms bunching under his weight. “I’ll try not to hurt you.”
Her mouth went utterly dry. “I’m a vampire. I’m not easy to hurt.”
He lowered himself to one elbow, using his free hand to move her leg, move himself until he was poised at her hot, wet entrance. Slowly, slowly he pushed his tip inside. The sensation seemed to flow, full and delicious, all the way to her throat.
It was too much. She reared to strike, to taste him, but the urge to bite was swept aside by a completely new and wondrous sensation. There was no way she was going to distract him now. But it was so hard to not bite, so hard, so hard____
... Oh, and yes, he was. He slid out and slid back in, farther this time, stretching and filling her more than felt possible. She moved to ease him in, instinct telling her when and where to push. The sensation blazed all conscious thought to ash. She pushed again, finding his rhythm.
A longer thrust pierced her, took the maidenhead that had been frozen in time along with the rest of her. She let out a rough cry but kept pushing, yearning, doing everything to engulf him inside her.
Her heart, long still, shuddered out a beat, and then another. Keeping time with his thrusts. It was a brief, temporary tryst with life, driven by extremes of emotion. He was bringing her back to life.
She hurtled toward the next crest. She tried to hold herself back, but the momentum was too huge, too urgent.
She clung to Mac, digging her fingers into his back. His skin was burning hot, shining in the candlelight. His scent rocked her senses, the sound of his lungs, his driving pulse loud in the Castle’s silence. It was too much.
He thrust again and her body clenched around him. He let out a sound that said as much as he had conquered her, she had conquered him. The power of it staggered her. At that moment, she ruled this massive demon-beast.
She felt a scream rising inside her, tickling between her aching breasts, then low in her throat. When Mac gave a last heave, the thrust drove her into the soft bed, hot, hot life spilling inside her. He shuddered, his face a mask of lust, the dark smell of him swamping her. She lost control, pleasure brutally slaking a thirst buried for the whole of her long, dry existence.
At last, the scream ripped out of her, a sound of raw triumph.
By the time Mac slept off the sex-induced-haze, he was ready to begin again. Apparently if he wasn’t stuffing his face, his body moved on to Plan B with equal drive.
Constance was curled against him, her cheek pressed against his chest. It was odd, because she was so still. No stirring. No breathing. No way to tell if she was awake or not. One hand was hooked around his waist, holding him as tightly as he was holding her.
It felt good to have her there. It had been far too long since he’d woken up with a woman. The night had given him even more pleasure than he’d expected. Snow White had hidden depths.
He looked down without moving his head. The view gave him a slice of her face: one brow, the bridge of her nose, a scoop of dark lashes. Constance was right where she ought to be, where he could keep her safe.
He’d lost his humanity, but he’d gotten laid. There had to be some cosmic meaning there. Or not. He didn’t feel like picking holes in the first good thing that had happened to him in a long, long time.
Constance lifted her head, her gaze tentative. “Hello.”
He grinned. She looked sleepy and tousled and terribly cute. “Hello.”
She folded her arms on his chest, resting her chin on the prop they made. Her bare arms were slender, but he could see the muscles in them. She’d worked hard when she’d been a human woman.
They looked at each other for a long moment. He could see all the usual post-lovemaking questions written on her face, and for some reason it made him happy. If she cared enough for all the usual womanly fretting, that made what they’d shared real. “You belong to me now,” he said, figuring that covered all the important points.
“I do?”
The way she said it, both relieved and resigned, made him stop and think. She came from a time of slaves and servants. “I don’t mean that I literally own you.”
She looked perplexed.
Caveman was messing with his words again, making them come out like he was some knuckle dragger fresh from the How to Discover Fire seminar. He tried again. “I mean anything you want, anytime you’re in trouble, I’m here.” He wound a finger into her hair. It ran over his skin like dark, heavy silk. She was the sort of beauty anyone would be happy to have on his arm. The sort that would stop a room cold.
Her gaze searched his features. “You’ll rescue Sylvius?”
“I keep my promises.”
“Good.” The word was heavy with more nuances than he could guess at. Maybe she wasn’t used to people keeping their word.
“Once that’s over with, you really should come see my world sometime,” he said. “You’d have fun.”
She hesitated, objections, then uncertainty, filling her eyes. “I’m sure that would be nice.”
“I’d make sure you had a good time.”
The look she gave him was pure female. Her thigh shifted against his, severely distracting him. “It couldn’t have been better than what we just did. I never imagined ...”
He put his finger on her lips. “There’s more ahead.”
She blinked at that. “What I meant to say is that you were kinder than I deserved. I did try to bite you before.”
