Vivian watched Rhys freeze like a startled hare in the woods. She didn’t know what reaction she’d expected to her brazen request, but it hadn’t been this look of fear. Not after he’d blithely admitted that he would wed her under other circumstances.

Rhys cleared his throat. “Ah, what exactly do you mean?”

“What I mean is that despite your kind words about finding a husband who I will get on well with, I do not think that can happen anymore.” She held up a hand before he could spout off another round of heartfelt apologies. “Between holding me alone with you in this cave and revealing the secrets of the existence of vampires, I know I must be compromised beyond all hope.”

His features contorted with guilt. “I am—”

“Don’t you dare apologize.” Vivian cut him off. “I am grateful to you for sparing me from the parson’s mousetrap. Especially after tasting freedom from societal mores and expectations. Whether I become a vampire, or am permitted to live out my days as a spinster, either is preferable to marriage. Aside from one thing.”

He steepled his fingers below his chin. “And that is?”

“If I may be candid, I must say that I very much enjoyed your kiss, as well as the feel of your embrace.” Her cheeks heated as she uttered the confession. “I want more. I want you to show me all the pleasures a man and woman can share together.”

Rhys’s eyes glowed molten copper, his desire blatant and palpable as he licked his lips. “I do not think that is wise,” he said raggedly.

“Why not?” She moved toward him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “I am already compromised, staying with you unchaperoned. Why not enjoy the very things that will be assumed anyway?”

“Your uncle—”

“If he did not want this to happen, then he should have paid the ransom immediately.” Another spear of hurt pierced her heart that Uncle Aldric had indeed placed his pride above her safety, but she forced it down. “He deserves to be taught a lesson.”

Rhys shook his head. “That is not a reason for us to...”

“Of course not,” she said with an agreeable smile. “I only mention that because it remains a fact. Besides, you threatened to cut off my finger. I’d much prefer to lose my maidenhead than a digit.”

His frown deepened. “I wasn’t serious about your finger.”

“I know you weren’t.” She shook her head dismissively, wanting to get back to important matters. Matters between him and her. “Never mind about uncle. I know you desire me, and I feel the same. Just because I wish to live as a spinster does not mean I wish to remain a virgin.”

“You cannot know whether you’ll be permitted to live as a spinster.” Rhys’s hands slid to her waist, but then he snatched them back as if he’d been burned. “You do not know what your fate will be.”

“I know that no one has ever given me a choice with regards to my fate.” The old anger coiled in her gut and she spoke more sharply than she intended. “For once I want to make a choice. And I want that choice to be which man I lie with. My choice is you.”

Boldly, Vivian leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. For a moment, he remained stiff and unyielding, aside from a nearly imperceptible quiver in his muscles. Then, his arms locked around her body and he pulled her roughly against him. His mouth moved with hers hungrily, a low growl reverberating in his throat. Vivian slid her hands down his back, reveling in the feel of his firm muscles. Electric shivers rippled through her body as his tongue slid across the seam on her lips and she opened her mouth to yield to his exploration.

Time seemed to vanish as they kissed and stroked each other, hands and bodies surging to become closer. Desire flared from her belly down, converging between her thighs in a fiery pulse. Rhys pulled her into his lap, and she gasped at the feel of his hardness pressing against her throbbing core.

His lips trailed down her jaw and across her neck. Frissons of pleasure resonated from her flesh. The sensations he wrought were most divine.

No wonder ladies were supposed to remain chaperoned whenever they were alone with a man, Vivian thought dizzily as her fingers plunged into Rhys’s silken hair. She’d been told that men possessed an animalistic nature and could not be trusted not to act upon their base instincts if granted the opportunity, but she’d never imagined that women also succumbed to the same primal needs.

If she didn’t feel Rhys’s bare skin against hers soon, she felt she’d go mad.

Suddenly, he drew back with a ragged gasp. His fangs glistened in the firelight. “It’s been too long since I’ve last fed. I’m afraid that if we continue, I may not be able to refrain from...”

“It’s all right.” She recalled the tantalizing pleasure of his bite. “I want you to drink from me tonight. You’ve provided me nourishment these past several nights. Why not let me do the same?”

That hungry growl rumbled in his throat once more and he licked his fangs. “Why must you tempt me so?”

She threaded her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “Because I wish to please you, as you’ve pleased me.”

His fangs grazed her throat, making her shiver. “Not yet. Not until I’ve pleased you. This is your first time, and I want to make it... beautiful for you. Then...” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Then I will taste you.”

Vivian’s heart pounded beneath her ribs. He was going to do it after all. He was going to make love to her. Sudden nervousness imbued her. Not about the act and the potential pain she’d heard about, but that she would be disappointing to him.

Her face heated again. “Do you wish me to disrobe?”

Rhys laughed, a low and sensuous sound. “I would very much appreciate the pleasure of undressing you. But all in good time.” He grasped her hands and rose to his feet, pulling her with him. “Come here.”

He led her towards his cot and paused to place another log on the fire. Once she was seated, he knelt on the floor and slid his hands up her skirts, caressing her calves and shins. Vivian gasped at the new sensation, never guessing that her legs, even though the thin fabric of stockings, would be so sensitive.

Rhys favored her with a wicked grin as he shifted her skirts up higher. “Would you like me to continue?”

“Please.” The word came out in a gasp.

That sinful smile broadened as his fingers danced above the tops of her stockings, stroking her thighs in whispering touches that made her tremble. As his fingertips neared the juncture between her thighs, her center began to tingle with anticipation. Yet he did not touch her there, and Vivian had to bite her lip to hold back a whimper of disappointment when he instead ceased his teasing caresses and sank back on his heels.

“Christ, you have the finest pair of legs I’ve ever touched,” Rhys said.

Vivian warred between triumph that for once she’d been declared the best, and envy at the other women who’d been in his bed. All her thoughts swept away like the tide when he sat next to her on the cot and pulled her into his arms once more.

“I want to hold you again,” he whispered against her ear and sank them down on the thin pallet together.

The bed was narrow, so they had to stay pressed close together. Vivian did not mind. It seemed she could not get enough of this achingly close contact with him. His hands moved up from her back to her hair, and he began to loosen her braid. Her scalp tingled with pleasure that she’d never felt when her companion had performed this simple task.

“I want to see your magnificent hair spread across my pillow,” Rhys whispered.

Joyous disbelief filled her at his words. All the times her father and other men had praised the appeal of blondes had always stung. But Rhys called her brown hair magnificent. Yet another reason why she wanted him to be the one to take her maidenhood.

Though as she studied the sculpted planes of his cheekbones, his rakish long hair, copper eyes, and sensuous lips, Vivian couldn’t deny that the fact that he was devastatingly handsome also played a factor in her decision. Recalling her stolen glimpses of his bare chest, Vivian longed to feel his solid flesh beneath her fingers. She reached for the buttons of his shirt and unfastened the top one. When he did not object, she moved to the next.

When she’d undone all the buttons, Rhys shifted and shrugged out of his shirt, at last treating her with the view she anticipated.

“May I touch you?” she asked softly.

His knuckles brushed her cheek. “Only if I may return the favor.”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed, then splayed her hands against his bare chest, noticing how his nipples hardened immediately. When her thumb brushed across the dark nub, he sucked in a breath. “Does that feel agreeable?”

He nodded, and she continued exploring his sculpted form, feeling his heart pounding beneath her palm. Just like hers was beating fast. She delved down to his flat stomach, enjoying the feel of his heated flesh. But when she moved lower, to the fastenings on his trousers, he stopped her.

“Not yet.” He moved her hand aside. “Now I think it is time to help you out of your gown.”

This dress, one of the garments Rhys had stolen, opened in the front. Something she’d been grateful for this afternoon when she’d been able to put it on herself without asking for help. Now, as his fingers worked each button free, revealing her bodice inch by inch, Vivian trembled with anticipation.

Rhys paused and regarded her with a concerned look. “Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “Please continue.”

He unfastened the remaining buttons and worked the dress over her head, and tossed it across the cave onto her cot. She lay beside him in only her chemise and stockings, yet he did not give her time to dwell on her diminished garb.

Rhys cupped her heavy breasts through the fabric of her chemise and she gasped at the heat of his palms. His thumbs grazed her nipples, turning them into swollen, sensitive peaks.

He slid the top of her chemise down, baring her to his hungry gaze.

She’d thought that breasts only served to fill out a gown and feed infants, but she’d been wrong. Oh, so wrong.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, then lowered his head and covered her mounded flesh with kisses. His fingers continued to stroke the sides of her breasts as his tongue circled her areola before flicking over her nipples, sending jolts of electric pleasure coursing through her entire body.

His mouth and fingers worked their way lower as he tugged her chemise down her waist and down her hips. For a moment, everything she was taught cried out that she should be ashamed to be unclothed before a man, but then, as she looked up at Rhys’s adoring gaze and felt his gentle touch, she realized that nothing was more natural than this.

“Perfection,” he muttered, and lay down beside her, pulling her into his arms. For a long while, he just held her. The feel of his arms around her and the warmth of his bare flesh against hers filled a void within her, an ache she’d endured since time immemorable.

Vivian trailed her fingers along his back, reveling in the texture of his masculine flesh. She tilted her chin up and he answered the unspoken plea by claiming her lips with his. They kissed for a blissful eternity, tasting and exploring each other.

Rhys’s hands caressed her hips and teased her thighs above the tops of her stockings. She shivered at the sensations he wrought and shifted her hips closer. When her center grazed his hardness, a pulse of heat flared through her core. Rhys groaned at the contact.

“Did that hurt?” She didn’t want to cause him any discomfort.

“No,” Rhys hissed through his teeth, yet his expression did indeed look pained. “Let me show you what it felt like.”

His fingers shifted up from the top of her stocking and delved between her thighs. Vivian gasped at the contact. She’d never imagined that men would touch women there with their hands. She thought they only wanted to touch them with their parts. It was as if he’d lit a sort of fire there, making a strange ache coalesce in her most secret place. She’d pleasured herself this way before, but him doing so felt completely different. The pad of his thumb circled the nub at the top and she cried out.

He gave her words back to her. “Did that hurt?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe it.” She reached up and stroked his cheek. “I only know that I do not want you to stop.”

Rhys’s smile was sin incarnate. “Then I will continue until you ask me to.”

His fingers wrought magic, pulses of ecstasy that intensified with every stroke. Vivian pulled him to her, kissing him to silence her cries. The sensations built and spiraled through her being and then shot through her like bolts of lightning.

Rhys pulled her tighter against him with his free arm and continued his ministrations until she gripped his shoulder, shuddering from the magnitude of his touch. “No more.”

Immediately, he withdrew his hand and licked his fingers. The sight of the carnal gesture made her blush.

“I would like to taste you there,” he said. “To bring you to climax with my mouth.”

She quivered in his arms, imagining the feel of his tongue on her sensitive flesh. “I do not think I could bear that.”

“Perhaps tomorrow.” He grinned wickedly. “Right now, I would very much like to make love to you.”

Her eyes widened, remembering the purpose of what they were doing. He would be inside her. Would it give her the same pleasure?

Rhys loosened his grip on her shoulders. “If you do not wish me to, I will not.”

“I do,” she said, pulling him closer. “I am only a little frightened. I am told that there is pain the first time.”

He closed his eyes, silent for a moment before meeting her gaze. “Yes. I would do everything possible to lessen it. But we don’t have to—”

“Yes,” Vivian said. She reached down and cupped the hard ridge in his bulging trousers. “I want more of you. I want all of you.”

Rhys’s eyes glowed copper fire as he unlaced the fastenings and slid his trousers down his hips, releasing his swollen length. Vivian sucked in a breath at the sight, so different than what was depicted in paintings. Long and thick, with a drop of moisture beaded on its ruddy tip, she could only stare at it in awe.

Then he covered her body with his, infusing her with the heat she’d already begun to crave on her skin. She felt the tip of him press against her tender core. He withdrew, then slowly pressed into her further. So far, it did not hurt. In fact, she rather enjoyed the sensation of him sliding across her wet flesh.

When he came to a point where there was resistance and a slight bit of discomfort, paused. “Do you still wish for me to drink from you?”

She blinked at his whispered question, then understood, remembering the pleasure of his bite. He wanted to distract her from her pain. “Yes.”

His fangs pierced her neck at the same time he thrust inside her. Vivian still felt a second of pain, but it was drowned with the hypnotic bliss of his bite. The pleasure throbbed as he drank, pleasure that didn’t last long enough. After a few swallows, he lifted his head from her neck and licked the blood from his lips. The sight should have been horrifying, yet instead, she felt a deep satisfaction that she was able to provide something he craved.

He remained still within her, his heart pounding so hard she could feel it.

“Is this all it is?” Vivian asked, somewhat disappointed. All those poems and bawdy songs were about a few moments?

Rhys chuckled, though it sounded strange. “No. I only wish for you to become accustomed to me, so I do not hurt you further.”

“Oh.” The sensation of having him inside her was indeed overwhelming. Yet beneath the slight ache, there was something else. Instinctively, she shifted her hips and gasped at the twinge of pleasure.

Vivian moved again, and this time Rhys moved with her until their hips rocked together in a hypnotic rhythm. She clung to him, reveling in the heat and strength of his embrace. The arcs of pleasure strengthened and reverberated like a melody.

Rhys kissed her neck and whispered, “You feel like heaven.”

She trembled in his arms, awash with the sense of poignant closeness. As her pleasure built, she arched her hips as the pleasure built higher and higher, cascading into a crescendo of earth-shattering sensations. Her lips formed his name as she shuddered beneath him.

Rhys held her tighter, stroking her hair as he kissed her and murmured endearments. Then he let out a primal growl of satisfaction before his mouth locked over her neck. The rhythmic pulses of his drinking echoed the tempo of her climax. She cried out, not sure she could bear any more of this exquisite ecstasy.

He drank a little more than he had during his first bite, and when he withdrew his fangs, she had to refrain from trying to pull his head back to her neck. The realization of the danger of such a desire sobered her. She didn’t want him to take all her blood.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Blood trickled from his lower lip, but it wasn’t hers. She saw a gash.

“Yes. Are you?” she reached up and cupped his chin. “You bit your lip.”

“That was intentional. I used my blood to heal your puncture wounds.” Slowly, he slipped out of her body and rolled on his side, pulling her with him. “Are you certain I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m certain.” She nuzzled her cheek against his chest and stroked his back. “You were so gentle, and the experience was so...” she trailed off with a sigh. “Now I understand the meaning behind some of my favorite poems and songs.”

Rhys arched a brow. “What sorts of songs has a gently-born maiden such as yourself heard about lovemaking?”

Vivian sang in French. “When moonlight comes, my lover arrives. Our bodies become one as we engage in the oldest dance. In his embrace, I become incandescent. My petals open to receive his honey. Without his love I shall wilt.”

He chuckled. “Madame Renarde taught you that song, I presume?”

“Not exactly.” She regarded him with a coy smile. “I overheard her singing it when she worked on her embroidery or strolled through the garden. I didn’t understand the words until after two years of her French lessons.” She swallowed and added softly, “And it wasn’t until tonight before I truly comprehended their meaning.”

A look of mingled melancholy and longing suffused his handsome face. “Did I truly make you feel that way? Incandescent?”

Heat flooded her face. “I know, I sound like an utter greenhead. You must have done this with many women, and I’m sure everyone feels that way after...”

“No.” Rhys kissed her firmly as if to emphasize the word. “Such passion is a rare gift.” Another kiss, sweet and lingering. “And I’ve never experienced passion like I have with you this night.”

Vivian’s heart clenched at his haunting tone and soulful eyes. Could he possibly mean that? She’d been warned that most men, especially worldly rakes would say anything to convince a woman to yield her body, and there could be no one more worldly than a vampire who’d lived for well over a century.

Yet she’d been the one doing the persuading, and he hadn’t spoken of passion until after he’d already had what he wanted. Her breath tightened. Did he feel the same way she did about him? But what did she feel for him?

Love. The word struck her like a blow to the ribs. She’d fallen in love with him.

That was the real reason she’d given herself to him.

“Are you all right?” Rhys broke through her thunderous realization.

“I’m wonderful.” She smiled and boldly kissed him. There was no way she dared confess the depths to which he’d stolen into her heart. “I ah, need to use the chamber pot.” The words had been intended as a reason to extricate herself from the warmth of his embrace before she blathered like an infatuated twit.

“Oh.” He pulled them both into a sitting position and she put a hand over her eyes as a wave of dizziness engulfed her head. Rhys frowned. “Dear God, I took too much from you. I am so sorry.”

“No, I am all right.” To prove the point, she swung her legs over the bunk and got to her feet, swaying for a moment on weakened legs.

Rhys grasped her shoulders to steady her and did not release her until he walked her to the chamber pot. “I’ll fetch water for your bath and you must eat and drink something to combat the blood loss.” His tone brooked no argument. With a kiss on the forehead, he released her. “I will return soon.”

Vivian attended to her business as soon as he left. The place between her thighs was sore, but at least there was no blood as she’d been warned was a possibility. She must have broken her maidenhead one of the times she’d had a rough ride on horseback. Madame Renarde told her that often happened and advised her to prick her finger on her wedding night and let the blood drip on the sheets instead.

Well, there would be no wedding night for her.

Yet she didn’t regret it in the slightest.

The chilly air of the cave made her remember that she was clad in nothing but her stockings and garters. There were no more clean night shirts left, so Vivian brazenly helped herself to one of Rhys’s shirts. The garment hung down past her knees. She wished she had a pair of slippers as walked on the cold stone floor to the little larder. Filling a mug with cold water from the jug, she moaned in pleasure as the cool liquid slid down her parched throat.

Rhys returned, hefting the massive cauldron of water as she was wiping the crumbs from her lips. His eyes raked down her form, clad in his shirt.

“You look quite fetching in that. Enough to stir my hunger anew,” he said as he set the cauldron on the grate above the fire and added more wood. “I’ve brought you fresh water from the river this time. I didn’t want the saltwater to sting.”

As the water heated, Vivian ate. Despite having a scone earlier, she found that she was ravenous and quickly devoured a crust of bread, a chunk of cheese and some salt beef. By the time Rhys filled the tub, her dizziness had abated.

“Would you prefer that I leave you in privacy to bathe?”

She shook her head. “You’ve seen all of me.” That, and she took primal pleasure in the way his eyes followed her as she undressed.

He tried to busy himself with other things while she bathed, but he kept stealing heated glances. His attention brought a sense of power.

Just after she washed and rinsed her hair, he cursed suddenly. “I am the greatest of fools.”

“What?” she spluttered as her heart froze in her chest. Did he suddenly regret what they’d done?

But then he laughed and grabbed her cot, sliding it from its place at the wall and moved it against his. “We could have been much more comfortable earlier, had I a single thought in my head.”

“Oh.” Relief curled her lips upward. “Perhaps next time.”

“Vivian?” His face suddenly went somber. “Would you sleep with me? Dawn approaches and I would like to hold you longer.”

The thought filled her with a joy she could never imagine. “Yes.”

Quickly, she dried off as best as she could and donned Rhys’s shirt once more. He removed his own, along with his boots and trousers, clad only in his smalls. As she slipped beneath the blankets, she wondered if he wished to take her again. Part of her wanted to allow him while the ache between her thighs protested.

But Rhys only pulled her against his chest and rested his chin on top of her head. “Heaven,” he murmured.

As her body relaxed against his warmth, she could only agree. If only it could last forever.