“Open your eyes, Anne. I need to see them.”

She opened them, and Murphy saw everything he’d missed in her. The strong heart. The stubborn will. Tenderness. Passion. Love.

Anne might not have admitted her feelings yet, but he could read the love in her eyes.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked.

She choked out a laugh. “Why did it take you a hundred years to apologize?”

“So we’re both stubborn. We knew this already.” His eyes locked with hers. “What now then?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I want the past to be past.”

Her eyes were lit again, this time in sensual hunger. He reached up and loosened the tie he was wearing, pulling it away from his neck. Her eyes fell to his hands as they worked the silk that concealed his throat.

“There is one more issue we need to discuss.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve been starving yourself. I’m still quite angry about that.”

Her eyes didn’t stray from the fingers at his throat. “You’re the one who laid down the feeding restrictions.”

“And I was the one person you could have come to when you started having trouble.”

“I know.”

“But you didn’t.” He pulled the tie off and let it fall to the ground. Then he started unbuttoning his collar.

Her breath came in soft pants, and she took two steps toward him. He could sense her body readying for him. Her breasts swelled. Her lips flushed. Her fangs were long in her mouth.

“Patrick—”

“You’ve starved yourself instead of drinking from your mate,” he said, parting his shirt at the collar, sitting like an offering before her. “I do not approve of this.”

“It’s not your—”

“It is my place, and only my place. Bite me,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Drink me. Take what you need.”

Take everything.

He sat, braced for her rejection. His tipped his chin up, arrogance warring with supplication. The water in the room drew to his skin as he waited for her response.

He didn’t wait long.

Anne leapt on him like a wild thing, tugging his hair back at the nape, baring his neck to her mouth as she licked and sucked the skin there. He gripped her hips, bracing his legs to keep balance in the chair as she sat astride him. Her legs draped over his, and his hand dug into the flesh of her thighs. Murphy’s back arched when she struck.

And then… bliss.

Life.

His mate drew the blood from his vein, and he felt his amnis enter her, swimming in her blood as he groaned. His head fell back, resting on the edge of the chair. His legs spread farther apart, welcoming her body with his own. He felt her draw back.

“Not yet. Take more,” he said roughly.

“Yes.” She pulled the top of her bathing suit off, and Murphy’s eyes fell to her breasts. Her belly. The delicate blue veins like rivers below her milk-white skin. She leaned forward again, bringing his neck back to her mouth as she bit the other side of his neck.

“I want these off.” He tugged at the bottom of her swimsuit.

She released his neck, his blood red on her lips. “I’m sorry about your suit.”

He gave her a dark laugh. “I’m not.”

She reached down and tore open his fly. Murphy grabbed her hands when he heard the cloth rip, bringing them up to his mouth, nipping her fingers as he rose to his feet, holding her body against his.

“Now now. That wasn’t necessary. Show a little patience, love.”

She smiled and licked her lips. “I’m done being patient.”

“Good. So am I.” He walked her to one of the columns that lined the pool, then he set her down and knelt before her, sliding the rest of her bathing suit off until she stood bare. His hands ran from her waist, down her thighs, teasing the sensitive backs of her knees before he leaned in and nipped at them.

She watched him, her hair a wild tangle surrounding her face and her eyes savage with hunger. Murphy licked up her legs, letting his fangs scrape along her skin, raising dark red lines but not breaking the skin.

He’d forgotten nothing about her body. The freckle on the inside of her thigh. The rosy birthmark behind her left knee. The way her flesh molded to his hands and mouth and teeth. He paused to suck harder at her hip, delighting in the flush of red that welled under his mouth.

“Patrick,” she panted. “I need—”

“Shhh,” he whispered, softly kissing the inside of her thighs, the dark hair at the juncture of her legs, then her belly, her breasts. He kissed up her body as he rose until both hands framed her face. He pressed urgent kisses against her mouth until she opened for him. Then Murphy tasted his blood on her tongue and lost the last shred of control.

He groaned and reached down, yanking his trousers open with one hand as he clutched Anne’s hair with the other.

“I can’t… wait—”

“Then don’t.”

“Take me?”

“Yes.” She sucked in a quick breath as he entered her in a long, slow thrust. Her arms came around his shoulders as he hiked her up against the column, pressing deeper into her body. Murphy lifted Anne with both hands, holding her close.

“Anne,” he groaned, resting his face against her neck, kissing her collarbone and the rise of her breasts. “You feel…”

“Consumed.” Her voice was barely over a whisper. “You consume me.”