Above all things, I have always valued strength in men. I'm not the woman who wants someone to sit beside her on the couch and share a box of tissues over a weepy movie. I'm the woman who wants to turn off the movie and get rear-ended on the couch so the guy can go home early. I've always equated physical strength with emotional distance.

Perhaps wrongly.

I knew that Milo could ring my bell as well as any guy I had ever been with, but here he was now, comforting me and kissing away my tears. I felt... I felt like a girl. Something I hadn't felt like for a long time. Part of being a vampire was always being strong, not letting those emotions in, and certainly not letting other people see them.

But perhaps a strong woman is also one who can let others see them at their most vulnerable. And a strong man is one who doesn't abandon a woman in those moments, but is there with her to be her rock, with no ulterior motive.

At three hundred and forty-eight years old, I still had a lot to learn, and I was learning a surprising amount from these guys.

"Sorry," I muttered, as I wiped my eyes.

"What the hell are you sorry for?"

"I'm not this person."

Milo smiled. "I think, for the first time, I might be seeing the person you are."

"Oh fuck, I've wandered into a teen romance movie."

Milo laughed. "I guess you're that girl, too. The one who wouldn't touch soppy romance with an eighteen-foot pole. But that doesn't mean you have to deny your humanity."

"I'm not human."

"That's a very good point. But maybe there's more human left in you than you think."

I kissed him, on the lips.

"What was that for?"

"Being a good guy."

"Now who sounds like a teen romance?"

We laughed and kissed again. Our eyes met, and in Milo's sky blue gaze, I saw a depth of feeling I was not sure I had ever seen in a man before. There was more there than a man who wanted me, more even than a man who loved me. This was a man who cared about me, and that was something else again. In my life, even before I was turned, there had never been anyone to look out for me, it had always been me versus the world, and I had gotten used to it being that way. I had gathered other lost souls like Max and Layla to me, so I had others to care for, not wanting them to go through what I had. But now I had Milo, and one look in those eyes told me that here was someone who would not just listen to my woes and kiss away my tears, but someone who would give his life for me without even thinking about it. It was a look that I knew I would see in the eyes of Gage and Kael, too. So much had gone down, we had been on different sides and had every reason not to trust each other, but there are some things you can't fight.

I pushed harder into the kiss, pressing Milo back against the couch. He drew me to him and I went without question, straddling his lap and feeling the comfort of his arms folding around me.

"Milo," I whispered between kisses. I never do shit like that - say people's names - but I suddenly felt a need for reassurance, which he seemed to understand.

"It's okay," he whispered back, and I knew that it was.

I ground my hips against him and felt his brick hard maleness against my core, hot even through my jeans. I'd never known a man like Milo, a man for whom arousal was all or nothing, who went from flaccid disinterest to granite solidity in moments and remained that way with such ease.

Our hands mirrored each other’s as we opened each other’s buttons. Milo pulled my blouse over my head and unclipped my bra as I ran my hands over the rigid contours of his fabulous torso, every inch was honed muscle, hard and unyielding. I dipped my head to run my tongue across his chest as Milo tossed my bra aside. My breasts tumbled free and Milo growled in satisfaction as he filled his hands with boob flesh. While I slicked my tongue across him, I reveled in the feel of his hands on me. He weighed my breasts in his large, strong hands, bounced them and squeezed them, batted them from side to side and squashed them together. He ran questing fingers into the hot little cleft beneath them then tweaked the nipples to hard arousal.

As this delectable treatment continued, I had begun to twist and grind in arousal, working my hot, wet center against the straining lump in his jeans. Now, my hands slid down his sides and along his belt to undo it before starting in on the buttons. Milo lifted up slightly to help me as I gripped the waistbands of his jeans and underwear and yanked both down about his thighs.

His impressive cock sprang free, incredibly thick and hard. I had never really thought about degrees of hardness in men before I met Milo - they were soft, hard or somewhere between. Milo took hardness to another level - he could have gone through walls with that thing. I grabbed it, closing my hand in a firm grip, making Milo gasp at this rough treatment. Clearly he liked it, as he thrust his hips up at me and I beat at his eager length.

I had now straightened up, and this allowed Milo to bury his face in my breasts; lips, tongue and teeth taking over for hands and fingers, tormenting me as he nipped and sucked.

His hands, meanwhile, had found my belt, and it was clear he would not allow my jeans to stand between him and his goal much longer. I was just as eager, but there was no way they were coming off in this position.

I swiveled in my seat, turning away from Milo, his rigid cock now pinned between my back and his belly. Leaning back, I wriggled my hips out of my jeans, then extended my long legs to slide out of them. Dropping them to my side, I twisted back around again and kissed him, then pulled back to look at him.

And saw Milo.

He'd been there all along - of course, he had - but somehow I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. There was a light on his face and a look in his eyes that I...

"Sonja? Are you okay?"

I swallowed past the sudden knot in my throat and nodded. ”The best I've ever been.”

Suddenly desperate to feel him inside me, I wrapped my hand around his cock and guided it between my legs, sighing with pleasure as the swollen head slipped into my slit and I travelled the delicious distance down his shaft, swallowing every inch of him.

I came to rest, grinding myself into him, wanting every last millimeter, feeling his arms about me, holding me tight against him. I looked into his eyes and felt like I'd come home.

I'm a big fan of sex, and I've never denied myself. It can be fun, it can release stress, it can be a damn good workout. But this was more than any of that. This was more than sex. Milo and I were like one.

We began to move together, small movements at first, a heated friction, as if we were afraid of straying too far from each other, needing that closeness.

I pulled him upright against me, my breasts crushed against his chest, my hands locked about his back. His strong arms held me tightly, his hands cupping my ass cheeks, pulling at my hips to work me against him. I clamped my legs to his thighs, wanting to feel every part of him as he moved inside me.

Our lips met and we kissed, rough and raw at first, snapping at each other like animals. I bit along the line of his square jaw, teasing myself with closeness of his jugular, the sweetness of his scent, impressed that he showed not a flicker of fear.

I tugged on his golden hair and dived into his mouth, our tongues meeting in a deep and intense kiss. I felt I was falling into him, all the blackness and bad thoughts, all the ugliness of my existence, swallowed into Milo. He was strong enough to stand it all. He was strong enough to stand me.

I realized that the tears had started again, the intense emotions drawn to the surface. Milo kissed the drops as they fell from my eyes, and pulled me closer still, grinding his powerful hips into me.

"Let it out," he whispered. "Let it all out."

As the darkness swelled within me, I scored his back with my nails, snarling back the intensity of the moment. He met me, matched me, forced me on, and I went with it. Let him fuck away my fears, my sorrows, my self-loathing.

My clit was on fire as it rubbed over and over against the iron bar of his shaft, tormented beyond the point of endurance. I clamped my mouth shut, strained noises fighting their way out from my clenched lips as my Milo took me to heaven, after I had dragged him through hell.

"Ah!" I threw back my head, wrapping my legs about his straining hips and a blinding light seemed to crash through me. This had to be what sunlight felt like - brilliant, beautiful, burning. And then bliss.

For all the sweating, heated intensity of the build, my orgasm was like riding the crest of a wave, so light and airy and wonderful that I felt like laughing.

I kissed Milo firmly on the mouth, thanking him without a word for the orgasm, and for everything else. He licked my lips, stirring his rod inside me.

"You can't still be hard," I laughed.

He shrugged, kissing me again. "If you say not, but I really think I am."

"You're not human."

"Nor are you."

"Yeah, but that's not news. I know vamps who couldn't keep up with you."

He cradled my body in his arms, lifting me up and moving me around to lie flat along the couch with him on top of me. I drew his face down to mine, wanting to kiss him forever.

"You're allowed to come, too, you know?" I whispered.

"I know. But first, I want it to be beautiful."

And it was. He drove his cock into me like a hot knife into warm butter, twisting the shaft so I whimpered with pleasure. His hips were mashed tight against mine and I threw my legs about him once more. I could feel the pulse of his cock and it vibrated rhythmically inside me like the heartbeat I didn't have. Our lips met more tenderly, pecking gently at one another. I slid my hands down his back, feeling the strength, coiled and tense in that beautiful body. I wanted him to unleash it, but instead he kissed me again, softly on the mouth, and began to undulate his hips in a slow, rippling motion. I sighed as waves of prickling sensation danced out from my hot core, radiating that heat to my every extremity.

"Milo, that's so good," I gasped.

"Excellent."

I slapped my hands down on the hard unyielding rounds of his ass cheeks. He had such control of his amazing body, like a well-honed machine, he could use it to pummel me into submission or to stroke me to heaven.

With each retreat, he came just a little further out of me before forging back in to the hilt, making me moan as his hardness seemed to penetrate me to the guts. Without meaning to, I found my body mimicking his movements, curving and flexing like an eternal wave. Our bodies moved in sinuous harmony, Milo forever driving that long, strong cock in and out of my wet tunnel.

With delicate skill, he played my body, keeping me forever wavering on the crest of fulfillment, a lighted fuse waiting for an explosion that seemed as if it would never come. As my delicious frustration increased, I bit at him, at his face, his neck, his shoulders, the ripped muscles of his chest. I dragged my nails across his back and dug them into the powerful cheeks of his ass. I kicked at the couch and then at him, drumming my heels against his relentlessly pistoning hips.

I walloped his ass cheeks as hard as I thought he could stand, and then a little harder for good measure, punishing him for giving me so much pleasure yet still denying me the ultimate ecstasy. For every painful indignity I lavished upon his strong body, I watched him gasp and groan in pleasure, loving the bite of pain that gives sex its edge. Milo was one of those sadly few men who actually smile during sex, who look as if they're enjoying themselves, and, right now, he had a grin plastered from ear to ear that seemed to broaden each time he buried his aching shaft into me. He was loving this long, slow fuck as much as I was, relishing the pain of frustration as much as me.

But nothing can last for ever - not even Milo. I saw the increasing strain in his happy face and he drove his cock home with more urgency. I clawed at him in response.

"Come on, Milo, take me home."

He gritted his teeth and began to move faster, though continuing with long, deep strokes so his cock was sawing vigorously in and out of my ever-tightening channel. Soon, his hips were cracking against mine, his cock straining with full-blooded hardness as it skewered me over and over.

“Yes?" he demanded with a growl.

"Yes, baby, yes."

I needed to come more than I had ever needed anything, I needed him to let me come and I needed him to come with me.

"Oh!" With a bone-jarring thrust, Milo nailed me to the couch, triggering my own long-deferred orgasm, and pumping his seed into me in hot spurts as he grunted out my name.

“God, yes.” I drew him down on top of me as the fireworks in my body continued to go off.

I tasted his raw masculinity on the air and dragged his muscular body tight against mine as we came down from the hight. And yet, what I mostly felt was a shared moment of quiet.

We kissed gently and tenderly, and I let him cradle me to him like a lover. I loved him for what he had done to me, for how he had made me feel, and for the beautiful wreck he had made of my body. I loved him for his handsome face, his stunning physique and his incredible cock. But most of all, I loved him for how he had made me talk, and let me cry, and been there for both…