“Actually, you did.” His hands tightened, squeezing the flesh on my hips. “You asked, and I’m telling you no.”

Wet hair fell over my shoulders and breasts as I tipped my chin down and grasped his wrists. “Do you want me to just stand here?” The anger and the want of him was a dangerous, heady mix. “You should hand me a towel then. I wouldn’t want my nakedness and your inability to avert your gaze to be seen as another forced attempt at seduction.”

Nyktos’s laugh was smoke and fire, coasting over my stomach, and my earlier taunting haunted me now because it was like nothing would remain of me but ember and ash.

I pressed my fingers into his skin. “Let go—”

“You were right. I did look at you longer than I should have while you slept in this bath, thinking about that damn offer you made me when there are far more important things to be consumed with while I looked at your breasts. Those fucking nipples.” His lashes swept down. “Your pussy. And I did sit here and think about how it tasted. How it felt around my cock. The little jewel there and how a single touch makes you even wetter than anything I could’ve ever imagined.”

Air stalled in my lungs, and a dizzying heat swamped my senses.

“But I’m thinking about that when I’m not even looking at it,” he said, and he was looking at it now. His lips parted, revealing the sharp tips of his fangs. “Thinking about it so fucking much that I’m dreaming about you on my cock, riding me.”

I jerked as his lips brushed against the skin above my navel and his hands slid back, fingers pressing into the cheeks of my ass.

“I kept telling myself you didn’t know I was there as you touched yourself. That was the only thing that stopped me from getting between your legs and fucking you until neither of us could walk.”

My legs went weak, and I would’ve fallen if he hadn’t been holding onto me.

“And I sat here, looking at you and all your loveliness—wanting you so fucking badly.” His voice was the silk whisper of midnight as he lifted his head, bringing his mouth to the skin below my navel. “Trying to remind myself of all the reasons—and they are vast—why I cannot acknowledge what you do to me. Why I cannot afford for you to be anything more than a distraction.”

My heart stuttered, and I started to pull back.

His fingers splayed across my ass, stopping me. “But instead, all I seem to be able to think about is how I actually look forward to you doing the exact opposite of what I’ve asked. Or how much I enjoy your teasing and your boldness. I think about how much that fucking mouth of yours amuses me.” The edge of his fang skated over my skin, sending a shiver coiling around my spine. “I fixate on how you felt under me. Soft. Warm. How I felt inside you when you came.”

A series of tingles, much like when he’d heated the water, swept over me in waves. He guided me so my knees were on the floor of the tub. His hands left my ass. One caught the strands of my hair as he rose, tugging my head back as my thighs pressed against the side of the tub. The sudden change in positions sent my pulse racing as he towered over me. The way he had my hair caused my back to arch and my breasts to jut out and brush against his thighs.

My gaze dropped, just for a second, and that was all it took to see the hard, thick ridge of what I’d felt pressed against my back in the courtyard.

My heart tripped slightly—a realization that he had likely been on the edge, and I’d goaded him right over it. And every single reckless part of my being delighted in it. Wanted it. Needed it. I looked up at him, and the lust in the brutal set of his features—the baring of his fangs—was potent and all-consuming. My hands landed on the cool ledge of the tub as I steadied myself.

“Is that brave enough for you?” Nyktos demanded. “Real enough?”

There were many things I could say or even do, but the impulsive part of my nature had joined with the recklessness. That part of me was in control. “Are you thinking about it now?” I asked, my voice throaty and thick. My skin flushed with arousal. “Or are you thinking about how it felt for your cock to be in my mouth? Is that what you want now?”

“Fuck,” he groaned, his eyes slamming shut. “What do you think, liessa?”

Liessa.

Gods, that one word had so much power, and right now, it was an astonishing aphrodisiac. “Show me, then.”

His eyes flew open. They were pure, glowing silver.

My fingers pressed into the porcelain of the tub. “Show me that’s what you want. Or are you back to being nothing more than talk?”

Nyktos didn’t move. His chest didn’t rise or fall with a breath. Not for several seconds.

Then he did.

He reached down, grabbing the flap of his leathers. The tear of material and the popping of buttons sent a wicked thrill through me. He tore his pants open and wrapped his hand around the base of his rigid cock. A small bead of liquid had already formed on the tip.

My lips parted on a heady exhale as I lifted my eyes to his. “Prove it.”

The sound that came from him was raw and primitive and nothing mortal. The hand in my hair tightened further and then he proved that was exactly what he wanted.

Nyktos tugged me to him, but it was I who took him into my mouth. He kept pulling me closer, and I kept taking him, as far as I could—until my lips reached his hand. He pulled back slowly, but I only let him get so far, clasping his hips much like he had mine. His head fell back as he groaned.

This wasn’t a seduction. There were no teasing licks or tastes. No easing into it. I sucked hard and deep, moving my head and my mouth in rhythm with his hand. His ragged breaths and groans filled the chamber. The earthy taste of his skin and how he thrust into my mouth heightened my arousal.

His hips began to lose any sense of rhythm. When I felt him stiffen, he didn’t pull away as he’d tried to the time before. He held me to him, my name ground out between clenched teeth as he emptied himself.

I stayed with him as the spasms eased. His muscles were slow to loosen, as was his grip. Then I pulled back, and I…I did what I had done the first time. I leaned in to kiss one of the drops inked on his inner hip.

His hand fell away from me, and I sank a little into the tub, my breathing shallow. Seconds passed, and I began to lift my head, bracing myself for—well, whatever came next.

Nyktos came over the side of the tub, forcing me back. Water sloshed over his leathers. My eyes went wide. “What are you—?” My words ended in a sharp inhale as he grabbed my arms and lifted me.

Cool air swirled over my skin as he turned us, sitting me down on the ledge of the tub. His hands left me again, and then he went down on his knees, the water rising to his thighs.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

A lock of hair fell across his face as his hands landed on my knees. “I’m assuming your offer wasn’t a one-sided deal, was it?”

“No, but you’re getting your clothing soaked—”

“Really don’t care.” His palms skated up, pressing my thighs apart, open and wide—to him. “You told me to prove it. My cock in your mouth wasn’t the only thing I was thinking about.”

“Nyktos.” I gasped as his shoulders replaced his hands.

“Tasting you was one of them,” he told me.

And he proved that, too.

His mouth was on me, his tongue delving deep. His lips closed over the bundle of nerves. My hips jerked off the tub, but he folded his arm around them, forcing me back.

He…devoured me. Licking. Tasting. Sucking. Feasting. For someone with little to no experience, he sure knew what to do.

Or maybe it was simply that he couldn’t do it wrong.

That I was just that aroused by him because it was his mouth on me, his tongue inside me.

Either way, he was magnificent. We were. My head fell back as I gave in to him. His finger replaced his tongue, first just one and then another, thrusting deep as he sucked on that throbbing piece of flesh. My head pitched forward, eyes wide and fixed on his bent head, on the strands of hair splayed across my thighs. Tension tightened and curled as I rode his fingers, his mouth—