I woke slowly, feeling warm and content, but somehow restless. That’s when I realized I was sprawled across a shirtless Lucius in his bed. The feel of his hard body beneath mine was both wonderful and terrifying. My heartbeat sped away when I smoothed my palm over his ridged torso.

Damn, he was beautiful.

A fire still burned bright in the grate across the room, but it felt late.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, voice rumbling against my chest pressed to his side.

I lifted up to look down at him. He reached out and combed his fingers through my curtain of hair that had slid forward across his chest.

“Please don’t be afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“I can hear your heartbeat.” His blue eyes burned brighter in the semi-dark. “It’s racing like mad.”

“That’s not because I’m afraid,” I said with confidence, letting my gaze sweep down the strong column of his neck where his pulse beat hard at the base, down over his broad pectorals then to his perfectly sculpted abdomen where a smattering of dark hair trailed a line below his naval and disappeared beyond the waistband of his loose black workout pants. I swallowed hard, realizing he’d changed sometime during the night, and it revealed the extent of his own desire quite clearly.

When I lifted my gaze back to his, his chest rose and fell more quickly, yet he did nothing but watch me.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“About two in the morning.”

“I’m not sleepy,” I admitted dumbly, having no other way to tell him what I wanted.

He remained passive and still, yet a sizzling current charged the air. It must be a Morgon thing, for it swept over me in a wave, raising gooseflesh on my skin. But before we could move forward, I needed to set something straight.

“Last night, I never,” I shook my head with force, “I never agreed to that announcement my father gave.”

“I’d thought you loved him, that you’d lied. But something occurred to me after I left. You hadn’t responded to his touch at all. And I know how you respond when you want someone.”

I smiled, faltering when my gaze once again drank in the stunning beauty of his bare torso.

“So I came back, and I saw—” His teeth ground together. “I would’ve killed him. I still want to. I want to break his bones into splinters. I want to find him right now and finish it.”

His biceps and abdomen bunched. Still sitting next to him, I reached out and lay a hand on his chest.

“When I saw him on top of you, I thought I would go insane if I didn’t feel his breath leaving his body. Only the thought of you left alone kept me from the brink.”

He looked at me. He wore no mask now. None. Emotion, raw and intense, rippled off him. He was up in a flash, kneeling in front of me. I jumped out of my skin.

“Sorry.” He closed his eyes and licked his lips, towering above me even on his knees, his wings parting open. He gripped his thighs as if restraining himself from touching me. If I thought my heart was pounding hard before, I was wrong. When he finally met my gaze, I sucked in a breath at the raw vulnerability there.

“Jessen, if you don’t know it by now, my heart is already yours.” He clutched a hand to his chest. “I realize we’ve known each other for a short time, but—” his hand curled into a fist over his sternum—“I’m burning alive for you. I can’t hold back any longer. Will you—” he took a deep, jagged breath. “Will you bind your heart to mine? Will you be mine through life’s flame and beyond?”

I’d never heard those words before, and yet somehow they spoke to my heart as if I’d been waiting for them all my life. Waiting for him. The lump in my throat, a swelling of such utter joy, kept me from speaking. The myriad of emotions tightening the lines of his face—fear, anticipation, hope, need—were a crippling mixture of unguarded beauty. He wanted me. Forever. And I wanted him. So desperately. How did this happen? How did I fall in love with a Morgon man I hardly knew? A spark of electric heat pierced my body, pushing me to claim a life that was always meant to be mine. Pushing me to take this man as my own.

“Woman, if you don’t answer me soon, I may die right here in this bed.”

I laughed, a tear slipping, rising onto my knees. “Yes.” I pressed my palms to his bare chest. Then more softly, “Always.”

“And I will be yours.” He released a shuddering breath, his dragon eyes sparking with blue-fire. He caressed my cheek with his knuckles. “Always.”

I waited for him to kiss me, but he didn’t. His eyes roamed to my other cheek, a frown marring his model-perfect face. His hand came up near the swollen bruise, but he didn’t touch. His eyes fell to the small cut on my lip. His body tensed as if he might toss me aside to seek out and murder Aron anyway. Not that I gave a damn about the bastard’s life, but I didn’t want him intruding on this special moment of mine. I wanted Lucius all to myself, not lost in murderous thoughts.

“Lucius, I told you I will be yours. I want you in every way.” I cleared my throat, plucking up the nerve to say what I wanted more than anything. “I want you to—” Oh, God. How do people say this stuff? Heat filled my cheeks.

His devilish yet tender smile warmed me further. “I want you, too.” He edged closer on his knees, enveloping me in strength and hard muscle and heat. I swallowed, finding it extremely difficult to breathe with him this close and half naked.

He dipped his mouth to my neck and laved a trail of kisses down the side of my neck to my collarbone then across the upper slopes of my breasts, heightening my desire. He cupped the side of my neck, wrapping his long fingers around my nape, some spearing up around the base of my skull. He grazed his lips up my jaw but still didn’t kiss me.

“If you don’t kiss me soon, I think I might be the one who dies right here in this bed,” I confessed in a breathy rush.

He trailed a finger over my bare shoulder, exploring with a soft sweep just above my breasts, his gaze following his hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I am.”

His intense focus shifted to meet my eyes. “What I mean is, are you ready to seal yourself to me…with soulfire?”

Again, there was only one answer. “Yes.” And my heart and body were in complete agreement with where this was going.

“Thank the stars,” he rumbled low and deep.

His hands drifted to the knot of fabric at my shoulder where he’d tied it last night. Slowly, he undid the knot and let the fabric fall, sliding the dress down to my waist. I hadn’t worn a bra with this dress as I wasn’t large-breasted, and it fit snugly with an inlaid bustier in the bodice of the gown. Somehow, I wasn’t even remotely modest being observed by his heated gaze. On the contrary, it made me brave…and eager. Ready. I pushed the dress down my waist and over my hips. With a quick shift on the bed, I slipped it down off my legs and tossed it to the floor, then returned to my position kneeling in front of him.

He shook his head, his pretty mouth ticking up on one side. “Unbelievable.”

“Touch me, Lucius.”

He needed no more encouragement. He spanned his large hands around my waist and pulled me flush against him, his mouth hot on my skin. He licked and bit a trail from below my ear down to the curve where my neck met shoulder. I moaned, gripping his biceps to keep steady. A growl rumbled from his chest as he swept lower.

I closed my eyes as he nipped and licked farther down over the small curve of my breast then opened his mouth over my tight nipple. My hands clenched on his biceps as he loved me there with his wickedly talented tongue.

“Lucius,” I whispered in desperation, arching my back to get closer. To say his hot mouth teasing the taut nub was heavenly would be the most insane understatement ever.

I dug my claws into his biceps, which only made him hold me harder. He crossed unhurriedly to my other breast, and I melted, liquefying under the attentions of his perfect mouth, wanting more with each gasping breath. His teeth grazed my tight peak, shocking a whimper out of me. Heat coiled in lower places. He kissed back up my neck, steering around my lips, then without warning, I was on my back with him over me.

“When I painted you,”—his words poured like thick honey as he hovered above me, keeping his body off of mine— “I imagined this moment. When I could touch you.” He lowered, dipping his head to trail his lips along my collarbone, his pelvis pressed to mine, a heavy thigh between my legs. “When you would want me to touch you.” A graze of teeth just under my jaw. My breathing accelerated. “I never thought it would happen.”

My brain hazed when he spread my legs wider with his own. “In my imagination,” he scaled down my body, licking a line between my breasts as he went, voice like velvet. “I was always in control.” He swept down my stomach, pressed a kiss to my naval, then hovered above my panty-line, his hot gaze shifting up to mine. “I never thought I would be such a slave to your beauty. To you.” I sucked in a breath when he held my gaze and edged lower, his hot breath seeping through the thin layer of lace. “But I am.” He wrapped a large hand around my inner thigh, his thumb pressed right up against the edge of my panties. I couldn’t even breathe. “I am yours.” Then he opened his mouth over my slit, wetting my already soaking-wet panties with his glorious tongue. He paused. I whimpered. “Command me anything, and it will be done.”

Oh, God. Don’t stop. That was my first command. I wanted to scream it, but I couldn’t form words, my mouth gone dry. Distractedly, I realized I had fisted my hands in his sheets, clenching to the point of pain as I watched him and he watched me, all while he licked and sucked me through the barely-there fabric. It was a new kind of torture I couldn’t imagine in my wildest, wettest dreams.

Unable to keep still, I rocked my pelvis up on a short moan. His dragon eyes flared brighter in the dark, the predator watching me with feral intent as he lapped and sucked sweetly.

“More,” I begged.

He stilled.

“Please, Lucius.”

With a devilish grin, he eased the lace to the side and glided his fingers through my folds, finding me more than slick and ready. He rumbled a growl of pleasure, the sound vibrating the bed before he slid a long finger inside me.

“Lucius,” I whispered.

His gaze snapped from my sex, where he stroked with divine and agonizing slowness, back up to me, then flicked his tongue out and spread my slit. I cried out and grabbed a fistful of his hair, clutching him harder to me, hot desire making me more brazen. I opened my legs wider for him. But he refused to go faster. Just grinned like the demon he was. He stroked and petted until I lost control, writhing like his wild wanton. Breathless, sliding my hips back and forth, a primal need drove me on. My body coiled tighter and tighter. Just before I peaked, he slid a second finger inside me and firmed his lips over my swollen nub.

“Oh, God!”

A violent shudder rocked me to my toes. I moaned loud and long as my sex clenched around his fingers and he pumped them deeper, his mouth delivering agonizing pleasure. When I finally came down, my body relaxing into sated stillness, except for the excessive panting, he leaned back on his heels and slipped my panties down my legs. All calm and controlled. While I was already completely undone.

“I lied to you last night.”

Confused but feeling entirely too much like a well-pleasured goddess to be angry, I asked, “About what?”

He tossed the panties over his shoulder but kept my ankle in his hand, wrapping his fingers completely around it.

“Some Morgons do want to eat humans.”

He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the inside arch of my foot. I gasped, not knowing that could possibly be an erogenous zone. But apparently, it was. He slid his gaze down the length of my raised leg, stopping at my sex before skimming up my torso and over my breasts and neck to my face.

“Because I—” he licked his bottom lip— “I want to eat every inch of you.”

Oh, my God. The things he said. I was lost, drowning in desire and need. Even after I’d just come harder than I ever had before.

I couldn’t do or say a thing as he shifted off the bed and removed his pants, then crawled up the bed and over me, spreading my legs as he came closer. The fire at his back created a dark silhouette of my Morgon man. His gaze seared me with its heat and his intentions. Gifted with superior sight, he saw my body as clear as if we were sitting in sunshine. When I couldn’t bare his intensity a second more, he lowered his weight onto me, his great black wings spread wide, a protective canopy above us. I wanted him, needed him inside me, even though my heart raced with both excitement and trepidation. “Kiss me.”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

He spread my thighs farther apart with his knee, settling his weight lower, bracing his upper body on his forearms.

He nudged his hard length an inch inside me. Slick and ready, my body stretched for him. Another inch. Pain replaced the pleasure. Sharp and stinging. “Wait,” I breathed in a panicked whisper, my hands flattening on his chest. This wasn’t going to work. “You’re too big—”

He stopped. “Shhh. Look at me.”

I did. Trapped in blue flame, my pulse pounded.

“I know you’re a virgin, love. Don’t be afraid.” His lips finally—finally—lowered to mine. “We were made for each other.”

Heart racing, I remembered this was Lucius, the man who nearly murdered another for daring to hurt me. He was mine, and I was his. I had to trust him. I did trust him. He waited, lips hovering. The fear melted away under his loving gaze. Finally, I nodded, whispering, “Yes.”

He sealed his lips to mine, urging them apart, then consumed me. A sizzling burn melted down my throat, pouring into my chest, to my limbs and to lower, deeper places. A sensual euphoria gripped my whole body, spreading molten pleasure like lava down a hill. I moaned deep in my throat. Soulfire burned its way through me, bleeding into my veins, pounding into my heart.

I whimpered. Ecstasy soared through my body.

Lucius pushed all the way in with a deep thrust, breaking my barrier. The sharp pain was engulfed by soulfire, melting away the hard edge of pain with melting sensuality. He filled me, stilling with agonizing restraint, waiting for my body to stretch for him. I arched my back, basking in the ecstasy of receiving Lucius inside me. Another wave of soulfire lapped through my veins, easing the discomfort, urging me to move. I rolled my hips in a slow, languorous motion.

He uttered a curse under his breath. A shudder trembled through him, then his reins slipped. He devoured me with mouth and tongue, sliding in and out with increasing speed, stroking me deep. I scraped my nails down his back. The pain lingered, but pleasure soon swallowed it all. A primitive growl vibrated from his chest to mine.

“Fuck, Jessen. I can’t hold back.”

He was holding back? Hell. But I wanted him all. Right here and now.

“Then don’t,” I whispered, lifting up and biting the shell of his ear.

A primitive sound rolled from his chest and up his throat. When he peered down, I opened my mouth in a soundless gasp as I stared into the eyes of his dragon, his pupils long slits, dilated and swamping most of the blue. Slipping his hand behind one of my knees, he bent it high, opening me wider. He penetrated so deep, marking me in a place no one could reach, a place no one else ever would. But him.

I gloried in the burn, pleasure and pain, melting me to my toes as he held me captive in his beastly gaze. A moan escaped my lips when he nipped along my jaw to my neck. I tried rocking my hips to meet his thrusts, unable to match his pounding rhythm. Too hard, too fast, he overwhelmed me. Deeper. I was wild and wonderfully broken. I plunged my hands into his hair and pulled his mouth back to mine. I kissed him, loving him with my mouth, lips, and tongue.

Another melting swell of soulfire pushed me over the edge. I clenched around him, screaming his name, a pulsing orgasm ripping through me. Three more deep thrusts. Lucius tightened into a rigid wall of Morgon man. His wings whipped out to full breadth, spanning the entire bed. Only one part of him moved, spending, pulsing hard inside of me.

With his chest crushing mine, our hearts synchronized, beating in exact rhythm with each other. Lucius nibbled on my swollen lips, keeping himself sheathed deep inside as if he would never leave.

I felt sacred. Precious. Protected. Safe.

I felt loved.

“Lucius…our hearts. I can feel… I don’t know how to explain it.”

He smiled, and I melted.

“Yes, love.” A gentle caress of lips on my unbruised cheek in that deep, velvety baritone. “We are heartbound. I am yours.” Now the other cheek, more tenderly. “And you are mine.” Now my lips. “Forever.”