“Holy shit, that was intense,” Gareth said as he grabbed my shoulder to keep his footing.

“Told ya,” Tiara said, pulling the sleeve of her gorgeous Byron Lars dress back down over her wrist. “My blood’s not for weenies.”

“Make sure you call Satan a weenie,” I said with a laugh. “He loves it when Astrid does it. Not.”

“I’m sure I’ll have a few choice words for my Uncle Fucker,” she replied with a grin.

“What did you just call him?” I asked as my grin grew unbelievably wider.

“Uncle Fucker,” she said. “Of course I won’t really call the King of the Underworld that. I don’t have a death wish, but ya gotta admit it’s funny.”

“She is so Astrid’s sister,” I marveled. Their potty mouths were scarily similar.

Gareth chuckled and walked around the small room to get used to the new surge of power he’d just ingested. “How long will this last?”

“A week or two,” Tiara said. “Ya gonna to shift now? I’d love to watch.”

“Shortly,” he confirmed. “Venus and I need a few minutes alone to make a plan. Martha and Jane, you will stand guard at the door. Claudia and Tiara, it’s best if we behave as if we don’t know each other well. I don’t expect Vlad back until the actual show, but I could be very wrong.”

“Claudia won’t leave my sight,” Tiara said, giving Claudia a stern look that said she would brook no defiance on the matter. “And we’ve only got eighteen minutes before we’re due backstage. I’d suggest ya make the most of it.”

She winked and grinned broadly as she ushered the other gals from the room. If I could have blushed I would have, but my need for the insanely gorgeous Vampyre outweighed any embarrassment I felt for being outed.

The door closed firmly behind our crew and Gareth turned to me with a look that made my knees weak.

“Strip. I can make eighteen minutes work,” he ordered, yanking at his clothes.

My dress flew over my head and I removed my weapons from my garters in a hot second. It wouldn’t do to accidentally remove one of my favorite parts of him with a dagger. Of course it would grow back, but we only had eighteen minutes.

“This will take the edge off,” he said as he cupped my breasts in his large hands and gently pinched at my hardened nipples.

“Really?” I asked on a gasp. I greedily ran my hands over his naked chest, loving the feel of the light sprinkling of dark hair that veed down to the area I adored.

“Probably not,” he muttered as his lips replaced his hands and my knees buckled with desire.

My body felt hot, the need within me roared with an urgency I’d never experienced. My gums ached and my fangs slid out.

“I am so in love with you,” he muttered almost unintelligibly as he worshiped my body.

I tried to repeat his sentiment, but my words came out like a garbled moan.

“No biting,” Gareth insisted, frantically. His fangs had dropped too and he scrubbed his hands over his face in distress. “I will not bite you. You will not bite me. I will not bite you. You will not bite me.”

“Are you talking to me or yourself?” I asked as I took the very hard evidence of his desire into my hands and stroked.

“Me… no, you. Shit, me and you, and me. Can’t think with your hands on my dick,” he said, tangling his fingers in my hair and slanting his mouth over mine.

I expected his kiss to be violent. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was gentle and loving and brought tears to my eyes. My entire body tingled and I suddenly felt shy and exposed. Gareth was right. Sex was a release. Making love was entirely different. I’d only really made love one other time in my life and it had been with him.

Picking me up and moving to the couch in the dressing room with Vampyre speed, he finally laid me down. His eyes roamed over every inch of my naked body like a predator sizing up his prey and I shuddered with delight. I’d never felt so beautiful or wanted. This man who drove me crazy also made me feel like more of a woman than I’d ever felt.

“I want you,” I whispered, holding my arms out to him. My tears fell as my emotions overtook me. “Knowing you’re truly mine makes this feel like the first time.”

“The first of many,” he promised. He eyes were hooded with lust, but his love for me shone through—clear and heartbreakingly honest.

I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him. We had such a beautiful future ahead of us, if we could break the curse. Pushing my fear away I focused on the living reality in front of me. Living moment to moment was all we had now and I was going to treasure what I could get.

Gareth was gorgeous in his naked glory and I wanted him so badly it hurt—my breasts ached and a coil of need curled low in my belly. I wanted to mate with him—wanted to be completely his and needed him to be completely mine, but that would have to wait.

“Are you okay?” he asked as his large body blanketed my own making me feel safe and cherished. “Why are you crying?”

Lowering his mouth to mine, his tongue tickled the seam of my lips and I opened willingly to him. His taste was addictive and his body on top of mine felt so very right.

“It’s a happy cry,” I promised, tracing his full lips and high cheekbones with my finger and marveling that we’d finally found each other.

He ran his open mouth along my jaw and nibbled on my earlobe sending little shocks of pleasure through my body. He was careful not to pierce the skin, but God I wanted him to.

“You’re my perfection. I’ve waited my entire life for you,” he whispered huskily.

His voice went all through me, sending jolts of the purest pleasure I’d known right to my core. Wrapping my arms around him and holding on for dear life, I never wanted to let go. I pushed the ugly thoughts of him dying to the back of my mind and focused on the here and now.

We were together. It didn’t matter that it was in a dressing room in Oklahoma or that Martha and Jane were right outside the door. All that was important was that we were in each other’s arms and we belonged to each other. The pressure in my chest and the needles dancing beneath my skin verged on pain. I buried my face in his neck and tried to control my rioting emotions.

Love was far more complicated than lust.

“Tell me you’re okay, baby. Tell me that you want this as much as I do.” He took my face in his hands and searched my eyes.

The utter simplicity of the moment was more difficult to deal with than if we’d been all over each other and completely out of control. It was real and raw and all consuming. It was frighteningly perfect. I would fight to the death to have this again and again.

“I think I might love you too much,” I said, running my hands over his beautiful face to memorize what it felt like to touch him.

“No such thing,” he replied with a chuckle.

Gareth shifted his weight to his elbows, but still covered me completely. His lips followed the path of my tears from my eyes to my lips then to my neck. I felt too small to hold everything I was feeling for the man. My insides couldn’t contain this much love and need.

“Gareth, I…” Words escaped me, but words couldn’t begin to convey how I felt. Wrapping my legs around his strong body I arched into him and tried to tell him with my body what words were simply too inadequate to communicate.

“I want to go slow,” he said with a pained expression, trying to hold back. “But we’re under a little time crunch here.”

“Slow is for weenies,” I replied with a giggle, writhing under him like a wanton woman. “No foreplay this time,” I gasped out, feeling his huge erection against my stomach. “Next time slow—this time, now.”

I cried out as his body joined with mine, uncaring if the entire auditorium could hear. His control was insane. The slow pace was more erotic and soul baring than the first time we’d made love. Our eyes locked and our bodies moved in a rhythm as if they recognized each other—as if we were made for this perfect, uninhibited dance. We became one entity—sexually and spiritually. It was every kind of right. Two bodies with one glorious non-beating heart.

“Need to be closer,” he said hoarsely as he increased the speed of our lovemaking.

I was in for the ride of my life as my body willingly met every deep thrust with joy. My eyes closed involuntarily as tingles shot through me and went straight to the tips of my fingers and toes. I clenched his thick and beautiful length within me and mini orgasms rocked me speechless.

“Open. Open your eyes,” he insisted. “Need to see you—need you to see me.”

His eyes were clouded with lust. The sound he made deep in his chest made me clamp my legs harder around him to try to stave off the huge orgasm that was building inside me at a rapid pace.

“So good,” I muttered, trying to focus on him through my tears of joy. I felt every inch of him with every inch of me. Sight wasn’t necessary. The magic we were making was branded into me for eternity. I was unsure where he began and I ended.

“Want to bite you,” he ground out. “Want it so bad—not going to do it.”

“Soon,” I promised, needing it as desperately as he did. My fangs literally burned, but I wanted him forever. I would respect his request to wait. I didn’t want to… but I would.

The air around us sizzled with heat and the base desire to mate burned within both of us. As our bodies merged in passion, we surged as close as two people could without crawling inside of each other. Gareth shifted his weight and ran one hand possessively over my breasts and hip. His body slid in and out of mine and we became a wild frenzy of sensual movement.

His mouth closed over mine and I sucked at his lips as he grew larger within me. We were done with slow and gentle. We were into the ferocious and deliciously violent part. I was sure I was losing brain cells as forming thought was difficult, but this would be a fine way to go.

His otherworldly beauty and powerful magic surrounding us sent me into liquid meltdown. Unable to hold even a fraction of myself back, I writhed beneath him giving as good as I was getting. Our eyes were locked on each other’s and I felt more naked than I’d felt in my life—vulnerable and unable to hide. However, I didn’t want to hide anymore. I wanted to live in full color with the man who made me feel.

“So fucking gorgeous. Love you so much,” he growled as he plunged into my body with a recklessness he could no longer control.

My insides danced with abandon and contracted around his girth making all my most sensitive parts pulse frantically. I gave to him as freely as he gave to me and it was more perfect than anything I’d ever imagined.

“God, Venus,” he growled. “You’re mine. Mine. Need you so bad.”

And then he bit me. It was quick, but it was very real.

I screamed as the massive orgasm rolled through me. Colors ripped across my vision and I watched his eyes go unfocused as an explosion of pleasure tore across his beautifully masculine features. We came together and we came hard. My ears were ringing and I floated down from the most intense sexual experience I’d ever had.

“Fuck,” he muttered as his body still moved inside me. “I shouldn’t have fucking done that. I lost control.”

He had and it took an act of God for me not to bite him back. We were only halfway mated without my reciprocal bite. Dangerous, but okay.

The aftershocks of my orgasm rocked my body as Gareth’s lips captured mine in a kiss that promised me the world. His masculine grunt of satisfaction as my body continued to contract in mini orgasms made me smile.

“Um… you didn’t follow your own rules,” I whispered.

“I’m an ass. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I’m not sorry,” I whispered and touched the tender spot on my neck with awe. “However, I’d like to point out that I did follow the rules. That means I’m the winner.”

“No, I’m the winner in this relationship—always. You’re the one getting the bum deal. I’ll never come close to deserving you. I’m a Master fucking Vampyre and I’m like a pubescent teenage boy in your arms,” he said.

“I love you,” I mumbled against his mouth. The words were not enough, but they were all I had.

“You’re my everything,” he whispered, peppering little kisses all over my face and neck. “I want to take you away and make love to you for hundreds of years. You make me a better man.”

Nodding and trying not to cry as reality rushed back in, I held him tight.

“It will be okay, Venus,” he promised.

“It will?”

“It has to be,” he insisted, cradling me to him and smoothing my wild hair from my face. “I’ve never had more to live for.”

And neither had I. As much as I wanted to pretend the dressing room was a remote island in paradise, it wasn’t. We had a mission, and if we failed, the island would be no more.

I didn’t like to lose.

And I had no intention of losing.

I couldn’t live without him.