Did I imagine he sounded… a little self-conscious?

“A lot of thinking about you.” Another kiss. “What I would do to you.” Another. “What you might sound like.” Another—and his fingers again stroked the yearning at the apex of my thighs. “I have all kinds of experiments to conduct.”

He pulled away from me abruptly, his mouth moving down my body. He kissed my breast, my stomach, the crest of my hip. And then he gracefully stepped backwards off the bed, kneeled before it, and turned me so that my legs hung over the edge—as he positioned himself between them.

I propped myself up on my elbows, watching. My arousal and my fear warred with each other. I found myself stiffening, suddenly very aware of how exposed I was. I was naked. My blades were across the room. And Raihn—a predator, with a bite much sharper than mine—had me spread before him, helpless.

He opened my thighs a little more, as if he wanted to observe more of me. The sight of him there, kneeling between my legs, made something primal within me flutter with desire.

His gaze dragged back up to mine, reluctantly, as if he had to force himself to look away.

“Let me taste you.”

I let out an almost-laugh. “You already have.”

“And even then, I was thinking about this.”

His hand roamed up my stomach. Mine met it without me telling it to. His thumb swept over the back of my hand—reminding me, I knew, that even though his teeth were so close to the most vulnerable parts of me, I was still in control.

“Yes,” I whispered.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him as those perfect lips curled, or as his head bowed before me.

But at the stroke of his tongue, I threw my head back.

From the first touch, it was demanding, giving. I thought he might tease me just because he knew how much I wanted him. Instead, even the first stroke was firm and definitive, caressing the length of my slit, ending with a pause at my clit that had my hips bucking.

His hands tightened around my thighs, pulling me closer to his face. He let out a groan that vibrated through the most sensitive parts of me.

“Better. Better than your blood.”

Better, I agreed, blindly. Better than anything. Better than everything.

I had no snarky retort to this. No sharp comeback. Only the blind, delirious desire that he never stop doing this, ever.

I opened my thighs wider, just as his lips met me again.

His tongue was thorough, deliberate. Soft where I needed it. Hard where I needed it. My body bowed against him, with each stroke the tension of my past unraveling in favor of wanton ecstasy.

I had imagined what this might be like, the night he drank from me. But he was right. This was better. His mouth moved against me with the same urgency, the same reverence. My hands clutched fistfuls of the bedspread, every muscle growing taut in anticipation of the next kiss, the next stroke. His hands were so tight around the pale flesh of my thighs that surely his fingernails were leaving marks. Good. I wanted him to.

My breath was rapid and serrated. The final vestiges of my self-control kept me from making a sound save for a few whimpering moans. But soon, my hips rolled against him in time with his tongue.

When he lingered at my most sensitive nerves, brushing his teeth against me, the shock of pleasure was so intense that his name ripped from my throat.

Oh Goddess. Oh Mother. I was on the precipice, ready to fall, and everything shattered except for—

He stopped.

I let out a frustrated gasp. I lifted my head to see him peering at me. My chest was heaving, bare breasts rising and falling.

“Say that again,” he rasped, “when you come for me.”

This time, when he lowered his lips to me again, he slid two fingers inside of me—giving me everything, everything, everything, with one long, forceful stroke of his tongue.

The new combination of sensations was too much.

Pleasure consumed me. My back arched violently against the bed.

And I gave him exactly what he wanted. I moaned his name again, again, again.

I was panting when the world came into focus again. The first thing I heard was Raihn chuckling, his lips against the sensitive flesh on my inner thigh.

“Fucking incredible.”

Fucking incredible, I agreed.

But not as incredible as it would feel to have all of him inside me. To reduce him to the whimpering mess that he just made of me.

I sat up. My entire body felt soft and loose, the last of my tension erased beneath his tongue. Before Raihn could move, I threw my legs off the bed and pushed him flat to the floor.

“Oof,” he grunted, as I crawled over him. “I go through all the trouble of bringing you to the bed, too.”

But he wasn’t complaining. Already, his hands roamed over me, tracing the curve of my thighs as they spread over his hips, up my waist, lingering at my breasts. The deeper desire for him tightened in my core, more intense than ever now that my nervousness no longer tempered it.

I lowered myself against him and drew in a deep inhale, without even meaning to. His scent hit me like a lungful of cigar smoke, and the taste of his skin—the taste of the sky—left me dizzy.

Raihn’s fingers gently tangled in my hair as I trailed down, following that widening path of soft dark hair, to the waistband of his trousers. His leathers were thick, and cut close to his body, but his length still strained admirably against it. It looked a bit painful.

He stopped breathing as I worked at the buttons and laces. Hell, I did, too. And when that fabric fell open and his cock was at last liberated, I let it out at once.

I didn’t know it was possible to find such a thing so stunning, like a work of art. It was as big and powerful as the rest of him—actually, the size of it made me faintly nervous. And yet, it was also so elegant, every shade of flesh exquisitely complementary, the head peeking from a graceful sweep of tan skin.

When my fingers wrapped around it—Mother, his skin was so soft compared to the unyielding hardness of his desire—it twitched, the bead of moisture at its tip swelling.

I watched it, transfixed, then lowered my head and licked that moisture away.

Raihn let out a ragged exhale, fingers tangling in my hair.

I lifted my eyes. He had propped himself up on his elbows, watching me with his lips parted, pupils dilated. He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

Maybe it was in the way he looked at me right now that made me understand exactly how much he wanted me. I had him.

After a moment, his mouth twisted into a rueful smirk. He knew exactly what I was doing. Because everything with us was a game of power and vulnerability, give and take.

My mouth curled, too.

“Should I make you beg?” I brushed my lips over him again.

He made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a chuckle. “And when I’ve been so generous with you, too. You already had me on my knees.” Then the smile faded, his eyes sharp as my tongue swept over him once more. “I need to be inside you. I’m sick of waiting.”

I was, too.

I sat up, swung over him. Positioned myself so that his rigid length lay right against my core, right between my thighs. At the first touch of his silken skin to my wet folds, we both drew in gasps.

His hands gripped my hips, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I would beg,” he murmured. “For you, I would. You have fucking destroyed me, Oraya. Do you know that?”

His whisper was hoarse and raw. Too raw to be anything but the truth. And my own truth swelled in my throat, too much for words.

I would beg for him, too. Break for him. Cut myself open like an animal for dissection. He held me open that way, not just my body but my soul, too.

I would let him think that this was nothing but pleasure. Nothing but a rebellious daughter’s revenge against her father or a final carnal indulgence before near-certain death. I would let him think that we were just fucking.