Dearest Ivie

And that got her even hotter.

But then he was cursing and putting her back from him. “Damn it. I promised myself I wouldn’t—”

“Do I look like I’m complaining over here?”

Silas smiled, but then went on a pace. Which lasted all of about four steps away to the sofa. With his back to her, his hands disappeared in front of his hips and she could guess what he was rearranging.

She closed her eyes and swayed at the thought of touching him.

“This isn’t a booty call.”

Ivie opened her lids and discovered he’d turned back around. “You know, I’m impressed an aristocrat knows that saying. Very vernacular.”

His expression grew serious. “I don’t understand.”

“Vernacular? Like, common talk.”

“Not that.” He came back over to her. “I don’t understand how I can miss someone I just met.”

She reached up and touched his face, tracing her fingertips over his jaw, his chin…his jugular. She had to consciously stop herself from thinking about what his vein would be like. If she immolated now, she would never know the reality of tasting him again.

“It’s called infatuation,” she joked. “Also known as the chemical attraction created by the Scribe Virgin to ensure propagation of the species.”

As a shadow passed over his face, she felt badly. “I’m sorry. Were you trying to be romantic and I just ruined it? I’m bad at romance, Silas. It’s another thing you might as well know about me up front.”

He was quiet for so long, she started to wonder if she had ruined things before they’d begun. But then he shook his head. “I love your honesty. And I feel like I owe some back to you.”

Now, her heart beat hard, but not from sexual anticipation. “Is this where you tell me you’re actually mated—”

“Not at all. I swear on the soul of my dearly departed mahmen, may she rest in peace unto the Fade, that I am totally single and seeing no one except you. But can I kiss you again? Because that is the only thing I want to concentrate on right now.”

She laughed. “Yes. Please.”

They ended up on the couch. She had no idea how they got there.

One minute, Ivie was standing against him, the next she was on her back and Silas’s weight was pushing her into the cushions. And then, when she parted her thighs, he accepted the invitation, settling himself between them, the hard ridge of his arousal stroking at her core through their clothes.

Rolling her hips, she arched into his body, and the groan he let out registered as a caress that went down into her abdomen.

When he pulled back, he was panting, his eyes at once glazed and hyper-focused. “Ivie…”

There was a question in the way he said her name, and her first thought, because he was an aristocrat, was that he was asking The Big One.

“I’m not a virgin.” She brushed his hair back, the strands thick and cool between her fingers. “I don’t know whether it matters to you, but either way, that’s what’s up and I am not ashamed of it.”

His smile was wry. “Well, neither am I. A virgin, that is. I hope that doesn’t make you think less of me.”

“Not at all.” She laughed. “After three centuries, you’d have to be a eunuch.”

“I haven’t been celibate. But I don’t have a rotating door to my bedroom.”

“If you look down that hall”—she nodded to the left—“you’ll notice that I don’t have one of those as part of my decor, either.”

“Something else we have in common. What else can there be?”

“I’m pretty sure you want to have sex as badly as I do right now.”

He closed his eyes. “Female, you are…”

“Too up front, right?”

“No. Never that. I…it’s what I like best about you—and let me tell you, that’s saying something. Because there is a lot I like about you.”

His eyes did another of that roam thing they tended to do, as if he wanted to memorize her features—which suggested he, too, might have been snow-globing their time together, just like her.

“I thought I loved him,” she blurted. “Just so you know.”

“The male you were with?”

She nodded. “There was only the one, and I really thought we were going to be together forever. But it was just—you know, two young people, crashing into each other, trying to figure life out. I was with him for a year and I have no regrets. He’s a male of worth, just not for me longer term. He lives down in South Carolina now, and if he comes to town to visit family, I will see him and wish him well. But there’s not…you know, there’s not anything there.”

Silas brushed her lips with his own. “So you’re telling me I don’t have to worry about any competition?”

“I’m afraid to answer that.”

“Why?”

“Guess.”

To stop the conversation, she slipped a hand behind his neck and brought him back to her, their mouths re-fusing, that fire breaking free of all constraints even though there were so many reasons to be more…well, reasonable.

She had never had a one-night stand before. But as a fully independent adult, she was not going to be bound by social expectations in the still-conservative vampire community. After all, she couldn’t get pregnant, because she wasn’t in her needing. And he certainly didn’t know her parents—so unless she chose to introduce him to them, no one would ever know. Sure, he’d met Rubes that first night, but if Ivie didn’t blab, her cousin wouldn’t be the wiser.

This was private.

“I want to see all of you,” he said. “Please…just let me…”

He didn’t have to ask twice. As he moved back, she was the one who took her loose shirt up and over her head, her plain cotton bra nothing special—because she hadn’t really thought this through to lingerie.

Not that she had much of the silk-and-lacey.

Silas’s eyes clung to her breasts. And then he was dipping down and running his lips over her collarbone. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m still covered,” she moaned.

“But it doesn’t matter what you look like.” He lifted his head and stared at her. “The details of size and shape don’t matter to me. The fact that it is you…that is what makes it beautiful to me.”

Time slowed and then stopped altogether.

Shaking her head, she whispered, “Why do you always say the right thing.”

He mumbled something she didn’t quite catch.

“What?” she gasped as he kissed down to her sternum.

“Nothing.”

And then she forgot all about talking because his lips were traveling over the thin cotton of her bra, brushing over her tight nipple, sucking her in through the fabric.

“Oh, God…Silas.”

Chapter Four

The clasp was in the front.

Sure, Ivie had missed the Victoria’s Secret boat, but she’d been smart without knowing it: As Silas’s hands went to that closure, she was glad she’d made it easy for them—because all it took was a click and twist…and then his eyes were on her breasts.

“Beautiful…”

Gentle fingertips drifted over her skin like summer air and she arched her back to meet them. In response, he cursed and dropped his head, putting his mouth on her without any barriers, his tongue teasing and licking at her nipple as one of his arms went around the small of her back. God, she loved the strength of him and the feel of him, his scent and the promise of more making her—

The sound of her phone ringing on the coffee table brought his head up.

“Don’t stop,” she groaned. “Oh, God…please.”

Silas’s attention was instantly refocused and she speared her hands into his hair, rubbing her core against where he lay between her legs. In the back of her mind, she knew this was it, they were going to have sex, and it was going to be phenomenal, and yes, it was a little early—

But hell no, she didn’t frickin’ care.

As if he could read her mind, he lifted himself up and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her yoga pants. “Are you sure?”