Page 13 of Darkhan

Just one. Just mine.

The thought made her throat close and Harmony stretched her arms around him as best she could. Even though he was leaning down, he was just ridiculously tall. “Zeno.”

“Hmm?”

She managed to slip her fingers into his hair and let her eyes close, the scandalous truth escaping her. “Can we go back to your penthouse? I don’t think I want a fancy dinner. We’ve done so much talking … I want to do something else.”

Chapter Six

How Zeno managed not to lose control of himself at the park while they waited for Roland to retrieve them was beyond him. His own adrenaline had been up even without Harmony’s suggestive request. The idea that she was going to let him touch her, to be her first? It made him want to roar with pride.

They talked quietly in the car, mostly about how her return home had gone worse than expected. He kissed her hand when the salty scent of her unshed tears hit the air. There wasn’t much he could do to reverse the wounds her mother’s words and choices had inflicted. He had to hope he could find ways to help those wounds heal.

Zeno bade Roland good night once they reached the parking garage, helped Harmony from the car, and ushered her again into the metal box that would take them up to his penthouse. As soon as the elevator doors closed and the machine began to rise, Zeno pulled Harmony up to him with an arm low around her waist.

She smiled, her cheeks a bright pink. “Do you mind that I’m still…?”

He smirked. “A virgin?”

Harmony nodded.

Zeno brushed his fingers through her dusty blonde hair, letting them trail down the back of her neck where the dress left her exposed, and rumbled, “No, Little Dove.” He dropped both hands down low, hooked her thighs, and hauled her up as he backed her into the wall until her legs were positioned around his hips. A soft gasp left her, but he didn’t wait for her to speak. “To be chosen as the man who helps you through your first experience is an honor.” He slid his hands up beneath her skirt, until his fingers sank into the flesh of her ass.

Harmony latched onto his shoulders.

He leaned closer, torturing himself with the building scent of her arousal, and moved his lips to her ear. “Are you certain this is what you want? To give your body to me tonight?”

“Yes,” Harmony breathed as the elevator came to a stop. The faint jostling caused their bodies to rock together, grinding his unavoidable erection against her center, which in turn drew a sharp, delicious gasp from her lips.

Zeno stepped from the wall, snapping a hand back to her knee to encourage her not to release him, and strode to his main door. He held her to him with the hand still on her ass, her arms having curled around his neck, and got them inside the penthouse in seconds. Then, for just a singular moment, he hesitated.

He wanted her scent everywhere. He wanted to show her every pleasure. But it was her first time, it had to be right. Threading the hand not holding her up into her soft hair, Zeno tilted her head back and slanted his lips over hers. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, pulled her hair tighter, and let a low growl of approval vibrate through him when she shoved her fingers into his own hair. Her nails scraped over the back of his neck and his scalp teasingly.

He sucked her tongue into his mouth and ground against her once more before forcing himself to break the kiss. The scent of her arousal had intensified, overwhelming anything else and nearly driving him mad. He could easily have pushed her against the nearest wall and shredded both their clothes, but that wasn’t the experience he wanted to give her. So he held himself together long enough to carry Harmony up the stairs, into the main bedroom, where he tipped them both forward onto the large mattress.

She gasped his name at the impact but did not let go, instead pulling him closer for another kiss. “More, please,” she said against his lips.

He chuckled, adjusting enough not to crush her with his weight, and indulged her in a long, wet kiss that had their bodies rolling together until he was dangerously close to embarrassing himself. He wasn’t even sure he’d mind, if it was what she wanted. But he needed a more thorough taste of her, so he broke from her sweet, swollen lips and licked his way down her flushed and too-tempting throat. He kept his fangs to himself, but he made sure to leave other marks that would linger on her beautiful, pale skin.

Harmony was tugging awkwardly at his shirt by the time he was low enough to sweep his tongue over the top swell of her breasts.

He lifted his head only enough to find her glazed-over eyes. “Did you need something, Little Dove?”

“Too many clothes,” she said with surprising urgency. “We’re wearing too many clothes.”

He smiled. It would mean retreating from her delicious body for a minute, but he couldn’t deny her when the end goal was so mutually satisfying. “So we are.” He angled his head to lick a stripe up her neck, nibbled at her chin, and murmured, “Do not get up from this bed. I’ll strip you myself.”

Her flush intensified and her chest heaved, and she unlatched her ankles from the small of his back. “Okay.”

Zeno released her properly and pushed to his feet, took an extra second to extract and silence his cell phone, and proceeded to shed his clothing. The shirt was tossed toward the garbage bin, already ruined from having shifted enough to release his wings, but the rest was kicked aside. He assumed from her lack of experience that he was the first naked man Harmony was seeing, at least in person, and he interpreted the way her blue eyes widened and raked over his body as confirmation.

If he had any luck at all, he would remain the only man she ever saw naked.

Harmony pushed up to her elbows as he stepped toward her. “Um. Wow…”

Zeno lowered to a crouch and set to work removing her new boots and socks, chuckling as he did. “You aren’t going to ask if it’ll fit, are you?”

“Would that really be an unreasonable question?” The words came so quickly he guessed he’d hit the proverbial nail on the head. She let out a self-conscious laugh. “I know it’s cliché. It’s just … you’re … and it’s not like I’ve ever, you know, had anything up there before.”

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