“Lilian,” Night murmured and she shook that sorrow away, aware that he could sense it.

She didn’t want this moment to be tinged with sadness over something that had never happened. He hadn’t been hers when he had received this wound she traced with her lips, but the thought it might have taken him from her still weighed heavily on her heart. She loved this vampire. She loved him with every drop of blood in her body. With all her heart and her soul.

Lilian gazed at his throat, an urge rushing through her, one that stole control and had her lightly biting down on his flesh. He groaned hotly and bucked against her, his fingertips pressing into her scalp as his other hand flew to her lower back to pin her to him.

“Gods, Lilian. Don’t.” He pulled her away from his throat and she stared down at him, wanting to know why he had stopped her and why he sounded so strained. Crimson eyes stared back at her and his fangs flashed between his lips as he uttered, “I’ll want to bite you.”

The way he lowered his gaze from hers told her all she needed to know. He wanted to bite her and he thought she would stop him. He didn’t know her as well as she had thought after all.

Lilian gathered her dark hair, pulling it away from her face and her throat, revealing it to him. She used a simple spell to produce a pin and twisted her hair around it and fastened it in place. Night stared at her throat the whole time, gazing at it like a man starved, the heat in his eyes blistering and making her shiver.

She lightly traced her fingers down it to tease him, keeping his eyes locked on it, and then dropped her hands to his chest. He didn’t stop her as she began unbuttoning his shirt, revealing his honed body inch by delicious inch. His gaze remained rooted on her neck.

Until she opened his shirt and stroked her palms over the hard slabs of his pectorals and down the defined ropes of his stomach. He drew in a sharp breath, the action causing his muscles to flex, and she wanted to purr at the sight of him. Pale skin. Firm muscles. His build was slight—athletic—but it pushed all the right buttons in her. She didn’t like overly large men or grossly muscular ones. She liked them exactly like Night.

Lilian dropped her head and kissed a trail down his chest, savouring him this time, exploring every inch of him as she worked her way downwards. Night’s hands slipped from her and she glanced up at him, looking up the length of his gorgeous body to his face as he draped his arms across the mattress above his head.

Surrendering control to her.

She shivered and heated, let out a small moan as she dipped her head and kissed lower still. He sucked in another breath as she circled the sensual dip of his navel with her tongue and she looked down, a groan escaping her as the blunt crown of his cock poked out from the waist of his trousers.

Lilian had them open in a handful of seconds, a hunger to know the taste of him at the helm. She moaned in time with him as she stroked her fingers down the rigid length, admiring it and deciding where to start. It kicked against her hand and she wrapped her fingers around it and lowered her head, took him into her mouth and rubbed her thighs together as heat pooled there, her desire soaring higher. She fluttered her tongue around the head and Night arched, his hips coming up off the mattress as he groaned.

He liked that.

She set to work, torturing him with soft licks and harder flicks of her tongue, sucking him and stroking him, whipping him into a frenzy. When his groans deepened and he reached for her, she pulled back, the need to push him over the edge with her mouth transforming into a need to feel him inside her. She wanted to feel him coming inside her.

Lilian pulled her black dress off and tossed it aside, and Night stared at her, hunger blazing in his eyes as he took in her naked curves.

“Where’s your damned underwear?” he growled.

She looked down at herself. “I didn’t bother putting it on after my shower. The dress Elissa gave me was long enough to go without it.”

His eyes widened, a flicker of disappointment in them. “You showered here… in this room?”

She nodded and it dawned on her.

“You were sleeping.” She dropped to all fours and crawled up his body, giving him her best sultry look, one that worked like a charm on him because his eyes darkened and his anger became desire. “Next time, we’ll shower together.”

“Next time,” he echoed, his voice sounding distant as he gazed at her breasts.

She was about to roll her eyes when he captured her left breast in his hand, drew her up to him, and wrapped his lips around her nipple. She moaned instead, her eyes falling shut as he teased her, having his revenge. His free hand skimmed over her backside and she shivered as he teased her damp folds.

“I want to taste you too,” he husked against her breast.

“Next time,” Lilian parroted, too lost in the wicked feel of his fingers teasing her flesh to want to move from her current position.

Night lowered his hand and caught her inner thigh, pulling her legs further apart so she was forced to sink lower over his body. He groaned as he gripped his shaft and she followed him as he stroked it through her folds.

She eased back as he reached her entrance, taking him into her, and he lifted his head from her breast. She captured his lips as she sank onto him and set a slow pace, kissing him as she rode him, a different sort of heat building inside her as he held her to him. She had never made love before.

Was this what it felt like?

Every inch of her felt full and warm, and she lost awareness of where she ended and he began. It was as if they had blended together as they moved in perfect symphony, not even a trace of a dark emotion in her as Night filled her with light. With love. It was all she could feel as he kissed her, as he rocked inside her with slow, long strokes that had her soaring higher.

And higher.

“Lilian,” Night breathed against her lips and kissed her, his fangs brushing her lower one, and she knew what he wanted.