He drew back. “You’re nervous.”

She nodded, small, quick jerks of her chin. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Well, neither have I.”

She shook her head and odd tears pooled in her eyes. “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about love. I’ve never done real love before, committed love. Of course thebreh-hedden has me freaked out as well, but still … love.”

He drew in a deep breath. “Me neither, but I’m willing to learn how to do it right. I want to love you, and learn to love you, battle with you when we need to work things out, and yeah, use some ropes on the bed, for as long as we have together. Just so you know, it could be a long time, as in an eternity.”

“Now you’re really freaking me out.”

He searched her eyes for a moment. “We can do this, Elise.”

Then he kissed her and Elise melted into his arms, no holding back, no letting her fears rise above her desire to be with him, really be with him. He deepened the kiss and drove his tongue inside, searching her out as he had from the first.

Her heart swelled with affection, with desire and yes, with love. She slung her arm around his neck and held him close. His arms became a beautiful vise that nearly squeezed the breath from her, but it felt so good.

Let’s do this thing,he sent.

She pulled back and cradled his face in her hands.Yes,she sent, growing more and more at ease with telepathy.Let’s fuck the hell out of this thing.

He laughed and scooped her up in his arms. He turned her toward the bed and he must have thought the thought because she watched the covers move as if by magic, peeling back to finally sink to the floor at the foot of the bed.

She didn’t know what exactly was going to happen. She knew the mechanics but she also knew that thebreh-hedden went way beyond physical bonding. Preternatural power would be involved.

But as he laid her out on his bed, on the dark blue silk sheet, nearly the color of his eyes, she let it all go and focused only on him, only on him.

Chapter Ten

Gideon looked into her eyes and saw that she was with him, really with him. Her straight black hair was once more fanned over the dark blue pillowcase and her brown eyes glittered in the dim light of the room. A need swelled in his chest and his breathing tightened. The sensation felt familiar. He sometimes felt this way before battle, a heavy, very male-laden state.

Some part of his brain started to shut down in a strange way. The rational part. His breathing grew rough and labored and faint grunts left his throat.

“Gideon, what is it?”

“Spread your legs.”

Her dark eyes flared, flames leapt, and when she spread for him, more of his brain shut down.

In its place was a very specific need that was more than just sexual. He needed her to know that he was her man, now and always.

He climbed between her legs and planted his knees. He settled his hands on either side of her shoulders. He leaned closed to her neck and sniffed, dragging her scent into his nose, more female this time, less strawberry. He licked and felt her shudder.

Then he dipped low and he bit her shoulder, hard. Not too hard, but hard.

She cried out. “Gideon. What the hell?”

He drew back and once more looked into her eyes. He lowered his chin and out of his throat and mouth a deep growl emerged, something he’d never heard himself utter before.

He watched her neck arch then her back. “Oh, God, that sound. It’s different. What are you doing to me?”

He shifted to her opposite shoulder. He sniffed again. He licked her skin. He bit again, hard.

A long “Ooooh” came out of her mouth and her scent rolled now, a heavy strawberry-woman cloud that flooded him and took his mind deeper into an ancient primordial world.

He looked down at her breasts and he pawed them, rubbing over peaked nipples with one hand as he balanced himself on the bed with the other.

These are mine, he sent.

Gideon. Shit. Gideon.

He moved a little lower so that he could put his mouth above the left breast. He struck with his fangs and released the potion. She cried out and he took as much of her nipple and breast in his mouth as he could and he sucked … hard. He looked up at her and saw the wild look in her eye.

She panted.Fire, she sent, the word a primal cry in his mind.

He left that position and moved to her other breast and once more he sank his fangs in and released the potion. Her back arched off the bed. He grabbed the same breast and suckled again, hard, firm, sweeping his tongue over and around the nipple and sucking again.Mine.

“Yes. Yes.” She panted and when he looked up at her, he saw tears in her eyes.

He shifted lower and sank his fangs just above her belly button. She was tender there and he knew it. He released the potion then tongued her navel until she was gasping and rising up off the bed.

He put a hand between her breasts and forced her down. He needed to keep her there, flat on her back. He didn’t know the why of it, but she wasn’t to move. This was where he needed her.

He moved lower and took as much of her clitoris in his mouth as he could and he sucked, which brought her up off the bed again, but using the same hand he pushed her back down and held her there while her body undulated under him. He’d latched on good, though, and he worked her with his mouth until her pants became cries and then screams as he brought her and brought her and brought her.

“The potions,” she shouted. “Oh, God.”

He released her and resumed the dominant position, over her and between her legs. She lay slack but her face was twisted as if with pain.

“More,” she whispered. “I ache everywhere. It’s moving low. So low.”

He was fully erect and he took her hand and put it to his cock. Her eyes flared wide again as she turned slightly to meet his gaze.

Yours, he sent.

Mine. She surrounded him with her hand and felt his entire length. He arched his back and closed his eyes. His breathing was harsh. She thumbed the tip and smoothed the wetness over the crown of him. His hips pumped into her hand again and again.

Give me what is mine,she sent.

A dam broke in his chest. He moved with lightning speed and breached her opening, pushing inside with hard grunts. Her hands were wild on his body, touching him, digging her nails into the muscles of his shoulders and arms, then sweeping her hands over his sensitive wing-locks.

She dug her nails once more into his biceps. Maybe she broke skin; he didn’t care. This was what he needed, his cock driving into her, pulling back, driving again, over and over, her body liquid, loose, wild, as she met him thrust for thrust, her hands now shifting low and sliding between so that he felt her fingers on his shaft.

He moved back and looked down at her hands that touched her and touched him. He moved faster until a new instinct broke over him and his fangs emerged.

“Yes,” she shouted at him, but the sound seemed both near yet far away at the same time.

She tilted her head to expose her neck. He lunged for her throat and with the skill of two centuries, tapped her vein and started sucking as his hips thrust and her body stilled so that he could take from her what he needed without tearing her apart.

He pulled hard at her throat. His body was slightly contorted so that he pushed into her at an angle. She whimpered now. He lifted his left arm and with his fingers pushed at her lips and stroked her gums.

That’s all it took. Her fangs emerged and just as he had lunged for her, she grabbed his wrist, sank in her fangs and sucked him down.

I’m going to take your mind. What were these words he used? Damn, he was in a Neanderthal space and couldn’t move out of it. But then again, Elise didn’t seem to be objecting … at all.

Do it, she sent.

Gideon thrust hard with his hips, sucked long and deep with his mouth, then pushed his way into her mind, invading and taking possession of what was his.

Gideon. Oh, God. Gideon. Your mind in my mind. I’m going to come. She lost it and the beast of his soul was pleased. She grunted over his wrist and spasmed around his cock and he held his ground and kept a steady rhythm. He spun her orgasm out as far as he could, savoring every throaty cry that bounced off the beams of the ceiling and the stone of the walls.

She panted now, softly, but her legs worked over his, sliding and writhing. His woman needed more and he would give her more.

He dove deep within her mind, spreading out, seeking. He found the memories she had of her time with him at the Blood and Bite. Images cascaded over his mind until deep, approving grunts erupted out of his throat.

Gideon, I love you in here. You have me, you have me.

Her life was a banquet upon which to feed, to search, to savor, but when he saw one of her previous boyfriends, his current, dominating self grew anxious and angry.

She seemed to understand because she herded him, pushing his mind back to his time with her at the Blood and Bite.

Elise understood the dilemma and shoved her mind against Gideon’s to keep him from going too deep and seeing things that would only enrage him. From the moment he’d told her to spread her legs, she knew she was seeing a Second Earth phenomenon that related to powerful warriors and the ritual of thebreh-hedden. She hadn’t exactly been prepared for it but she trusted him, trusted his essential nature, not to act outside the bounds of what was right and wrong and damn, this was hot, so hot.

His blood down her throat was an elixir that kept her body at the boiling point, even though he’d brought her twice. Of course, the fact that the potions were still active and thrilling meant there was more to come.

If this was ascended life, give her more, a lot more.

Now move into my mind, he sent,and when you do, just be ready.

Ready for what,she asked, still sipping his blood, still savoring the thrust of his cock deep inside.

Anything. Even his voice in her head sounded lower and more guttural than usual, more beast than man, or would that be vampire?

But for just a moment, she stalled out, wondering if what they were about to do, taking thebreh-hedden to a limit not normally meant for Militia Warriors and novice ascenders, was really the wisest course. For this moment, she was under that bed, keeping her pain in tight, fearful of being hurt again by someone incapable of love, not by design but by circumstance.