Golden hair falling around his face, he half smiled at me, victory in his expression. He caught my wrists in his hands, raised them above my head, and pressed them to the wood behind us.
“You are caught, Sentinel.” His voice was rough.
I looked up at him through my own half-hooded eyes. “I wasn’t trying to escape, Sullivan.”
Even in lust, we were challengers, our bodies the score-cards in our personal battle against each other.
He kissed me, lips playing at mine, heat and friction and bare skin between us. And then he moved forward another inch and pressed his body against me, one thigh between mine, his marked arousal between us.
He loosed my hands, and I wrapped my arms around him, curling my fingers into the skin at his back. His hands moved to my face, fingers at my jaw as he weakened me with kisses, with the teasing nips of his teeth, with his fangs and the possibilities they presented.
Without warning, Ethan dropped to his knees, his hands sliding as he moved, and then his long fingers were around my breasts. My eyes fell shut, my body arcing forward into his hands.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, and then his mouth at my stomach, pressing kisses to my navel, his hands at my breasts, his fingers busy building a fierce and furious need.
I groaned at the sensation—lovely and inciting and completely unsatisfying all at the same time. I took a haggard breath and felt as if my skin were on fire.
Ethan chuckled. “You seem to be enjoying yourself, Sentinel.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes. “No ‘Sentinel.’ No ‘Sullivan.’ Ethan and—” I paused, not sure if I was willing to take that step, to offer up my first name, to give him that right.
He smiled softly. “And Merit,” he decided for me, that crisp tone gone. He sounded not like a Master among vampires, but a god among men. He pressed his cheek to my stomach.
“I am undone,” he said softly.
I melted, my heart stuttering its rhythm. My hands found his hair, and I stroked the golden silk locks until he pulled one hand away and pressed his lips to the palm of my hand.
And then he was on his feet again. “Bed,” he murmured harshly and, with a hand around my wrist, guided me toward it. When we reached it, he switched our positions and lowered me down. I watched, eyes wide, as he moved above me, crawling along the length of my body. And then the weight of his rangy form was on mine and his lips and teeth were at my mouth, and his kiss turned frantic, lips and tongues and teeth and hands pushing, pulling, biting, nipping, trying furiously to get closer.
He braced an elbow against the bed and used his other hand to torture me, fingertips slipping across my ribs, the teasing nearly bringing me off the mattress, and then across the flat of my stomach and the tops of my thighs.
And then his fingers reached the core of my body, and I arched upward, even the slightest touch like licking flames across my skin.
“Ethan.”
He chuckled earthily. “I’ve only just begun, Merit,” he warned, and then he began in earnest.
Some minutes or hours or days later, when I lay boneless and well satisfied, Ethan raised his gaze to mine again. His eyes were silver, his fangs descended.
“There is no going back,” he said. “Not after this.”
But I’d already made the decision to go forward. I had no interest in going back.
“I want you,” I told him, leaning up to press a kiss to his jawline.
That was proof enough for him. He moved forward again, and when our bodies were aligned, he pressed forward . . . and pushed the air from my lungs.
I arched my back, my hand reaching out for the headboard behind me, savoring the fire in my belly, the warmth of his body, the scent of his cologne, stronger now that we were together.
In every possible way.
My lashes fell again.
One arm on the bed to support his weight, he cupped his other hand at my face.
“Merit,” he breathed across my lips. He’d said there was no going back, but he was asking me again without words: Was I sure? Was I ready? For the act, the deed, and everything else that would follow it? The changes that would result?
I answered in the same way he asked—with my body. I arched my hips upward, pressed my nails into his skin, pulling him tighter against me. “Ethan.”
He growled, then dropped his forehead to mine and began to move his hips, filling my body, bucking his own against mine. He moved perilously slowly at first, his lips at mine, the movement a taunt, a tease, a promise of what could be.
A promise of things to come.
“Ethan,” I said, nipping back at his lips.
“Yes, Merit?” There was amusement in his voice.
“I will only entertain teasing for so long.”
He chuckled throatily. “Someone told me once that patience is a virtue.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Someone wasn’t in a hurry at the time.”
He moved forward with such force that I actually gasped, my eyes flashing open, as if my body were shocked by the primal feel of it. “Someone should learn not to rush,” he said, lips at my ear, then nipped at my neck.
“Ethan,” I said, my lids already fluttering. He took that as an order, and began to move fiercely, his lips peppering mine with kisses as he worked his hips against mine. My body burned from the inside, smoldered as he fanned the flames higher.
“I want your teeth on me,” he hoarsely whispered. “Now.”
The parts of my body that hadn’t already been on fire instantaneously ignited.
Hips still bucking, he lowered his head, putting his neck within fangs’ reach. I slid my hands into his hair and pressed a kiss to the skin above his jugular, feeling his pulse beneath my lips.
My fangs elongated again.
“Now,” he said, and without a second thought, I leaned up, and I bit. I tasted fire and wine and Ethan, his life’s essence, his life’s force. The drink of all drinks.
The hunger of all vampires.
His blood.
My throat moved in time with his ferocious thrusting. Above me, he groaned, the sound thick and guttural, as if he was giving voice to ecstasy.
Goose bumps lifted on my arms, magic seeping into the air as we took our pleasure.
And then his body arched, and he put a hand at my jaw so he could look into my eyes. So he could watch the expression on my face. “Merit,” he said.