“I’m smelling sage, lots of it,” she whispered.

He made a sound like a grunt and grabbed her around the waist. He rose to his feet and lifted her to kneel on the bed. This put her breasts, in a most fortuitous happenstance, right at mouth level. She giggled. He scooped each breast out of her bra to rest in large mounds on the underwires. She drew back just out of reach of his mouth.

He looked up at her, uncertain, but she shook her head. “I didn’t say you could do that.” But her look dared him and begged him at the same time.

He put his hands on her back and never lost eye-contact. His brown eyes were black in the twilight. He pushed on her back, forcing her toward him, his lips parted, his tongue drifting over his bottom lip.

Oh, God.

She resisted. She put her hands on his shoulders. She stared at him and pushed back, but he was stronger and kept pulling her toward him. Her nipples grew peaked, giving the lie to her resistance.

His tongue was so close. The well of her body tightened. She cried out, gave way. He pulled her in tight and took her left breast in his mouth, as much as he could. His movements were rapid and harsh, just what she wanted, as he sucked, pulled, licked, and worked her into a frenzy.

In this position, his thick cock found the inside of her left thigh. She pressed her legs together so that his cock could stroke the tight space between. He was way too low to penetrate, but the feel of his mouth on her breast brought deep moans from her throat.

Antony, she sent, straight to his mind. I need more. Now. Yes, her telepathy had improved.

She had meant for him to penetrate her hard and fast because she was so ready for him.

Instead he released her breast and, in a quick movement, grabbed her both high and low, behind her shoulders and across her bottom, then laid her out once more on the bed. He dragged her hips to the end so that her legs hung off the side, then he sank to his knees on the floor.

She leaned up, intending to protest, but he pushed her back. “You’ve had your way,” he said, holding her chest down with one hand while the other ripped her lace panties off. “Now I’m going to do what I want to do.”

She might have protested but then he put his mouth against her lower lips and French-kissed her.

Oh. Dear. God.

He was a big man, and so was his tongue. He glided over her and she cried out. He kissed her labia then poked and prodded every fold of her with the tip of his tongue until she was gasping and panting.

“Hold on,” he whispered.

“Hold on for what?” She looked down at him and he looked up. He smiled but it was a wicked smile, full of purpose and design and, oh, God, his fangs emerged.

He bent low once more. Nestling his face against her lower lips, he drew back then struck.

Oh, shit, he’d used a fang. Just one. She felt a warmth right there. The pleasure started, a tingling at first, then like rivulets of electricity and pleasure mingled. Potions. That’s right. His fangs could release chemicals. She whimpered and her eyes rolled back in her head.

He slid a finger deep inside, then two.

Her upper body felt frozen as the sensation glided over her. She flung her legs wide as though trying to escape it, which of course only made things worse, or better, since he groaned and his groan clutched something deep in her chest.

Tangerine, he whispered through her mind.

He stroked her with his fingers. He laid his tongue flat against her and just rolled over her, the barest pulse of movement, but with the potion working it felt as if a dozen tongues were flicking over all that sensitive flesh. His fingers moved faster and then she cried out because it was like nothing she had ever felt before. If this was ascension, oh, God, give her more and more and more.

The orgasm struck, a bolt of lightning that traveled through her in a pulse of pleasure. She was bucking off the bed, but he kept her pinned now with an arm across her hips as she rode the orgasm. He kept moving his tongue, helping her along, sustaining the roll of ecstasy. Only as she stopped straining against his arm, only as her body settled down, did he pause, his fingers quiet, his tongue not touching her.

Even so, little jolts of orgasm struck her over and over.

Finally, when she lay quiet on the bed, he asked, “Ready for another?”

“Another what?” Her heart skipped a few beats. “There’s more?”

Without asking for permission or giving her a chance to catch her breath, he thrust his fingers into her again and again, hard and fast. He laid his tongue against her once more, pressed into her, then rippled over her flesh. Another orgasm chased the last one, streaking through her until she was screaming and screaming. A full minute passed before her hips grew quiet. She couldn’t stop the panting, though, and her heart raced.

His deep throaty laugh blew between her thighs. She heard the smugness, the delight, the thrill, and she knew he wasn’t done.

Oh, dear God.

He worked her three more times.

Three more times.

Three more outrageous screams at the ceiling, more orgasms that were no doubt blinding her for life. The pleasure was so intense that tears streaked from her eyes and rolled into her hair.

She lay panting, again, a hand pressed to her forehead. “I don’t think I can take much more.”

“Parisa,” he said, his voice almost singsong.

Her hand fell away and she lifted her head and met his gaze. Such teasing, laughing eyes, so happy, so very wicked.

He rose up from his kneeling position as though moving in slow motion. He pushed his hair back with his hands and laced his hands behind his neck.

Her mind had turned to mush but her gaze had sharpened. He knew exactly what he was doing as his pecs and arms swelled and his abdomen tightened. Male beauty personified.

She took her time looking. Despite all the orgasms he’d given her, hunger drove her all over again. As she took in the wonderful size of him, the beauty of his crown, the veins bulging and filling what needed to be filled, the heavy sac, she heard a growl and realized that her throat had formed the sound, a predatory and extremely possessive sound—a vampire sound.

He lowered his arm slowly to hold his sac in one hand and show her one long stroke of his cock with the other.

“You want to finish this, vampire?” he asked.

She met his gaze and for a moment time stopped. Never in her life had she felt more of a sense of belonging than she did at this moment. Vampire. She rolled the word around in her mind and something clicked into place. Maybe there was a reason why she’d felt so separated from those around her. Maybe she’d never really belonged on Mortal Earth.

But she belonged here, in Antony’s bed. Of that one thing, she was certain. She belonged in this warrior’s bed.

She opened her arms and he glided between her legs as he stretched out on top of her. She was wet but he was big, and it took a few strong, wonderful pushes to make his way inside. As he did, she felt full—as though he wasn’t just connecting sexually but working his way into her heart as well … and she let him, whatever that might mean for the next few hours, days, or years.

He filled her and for some reason she felt whole. Yes, that’s how she felt in this moment with Antony’s body on top of hers, the weight of him pressing into her flesh, her muscles, her bones, she felt whole, as though the healing had begun. After everything she’d gone through, what a surprise that sex with him would make her feel like this.

He looked into her eyes then kissed her, and she tasted all that she was on his lips. He began to move, to thrust, to draw back and push in. She slung an arm around his neck and kissed him back. She drove her tongue into his mouth and he groaned.

This wouldn’t take long. She was already tightening around him, and the potion he’d put into her was still acting like an aphrodisiac to all her sensitive lower flesh. She writhed beneath him, seeking contact in a dozen different places at once, which made all his groans deepen. She bucked beneath the pressure of each thrust until she was meeting him, slamming into him, dragging her internal muscles over the impossible length and girth of him.

He sped up. She gripped his back, sank her nails.

“Parisa, Parisa,” he whispered between groans.

She could hear her voice, almost a high keening sound. The pleasure was intense and building, swelling, rising. She felt the orgasm coming, an enormous wave; when it descended it crashed over her, pushing Antony up as she thrust her hips into him.

He gave a shout, moved impossibly fast within her, pumping hard and with another shout spent himself. The jerks of his thick cock brought yet another climax, pushing her again to the heights. His eyes were wild as he met her gaze.

Antony breathed through her mind as it had every night for three months. A smile took his lips.

I’m here, he whispered and her tears began to fall once more as she sank into the mattress.

He collapsed on her, which forced a sigh out of her throat. She held him close, her arms wrapped around his neck and all his warrior hair. His breathing was labored. So was hers. She closed her eyes and just let herself rest and breathe with the minutes that began to pass one after the other.

Maybe she didn’t know a lot about what her life should be, but yes, she belonged here, at least for now.

After what seemed like an eternity, her eyes opened. She looked up at the beautiful dark wood coffer beams that formed a three-dimensional chessboard on the ceiling.

As her gaze grew more focused, she saw that words, in what looked like Italian, were burned in a beautiful flowing script along each beam, crossed and crisscrossed, one line running into the next. She followed each line and realized that at one point, the lines began to repeat, probably three times in all from one end of the long room to the next.

“Antony,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, her throat raw from making so much noise.

“Yes,” he mumbled against her neck.

“What is that writing on the coffer beams?”

He turned his head slightly and looked at her. He put his fingers to her lips and a heavy, deep sigh left his body. “A poem my wife wrote.”

“You were married?” Of course he would have been married. He’d lived for centuries.