But then I was shuddering with pleasure, and the sudden climax washed away all coherent thought. I rode the waves of bliss, each draw on Gavin’s neck seeming to hit a reset button on the orgasm.

Without warning, Gavin released a harsh growl and gripped the fabric of my leggings stretched over my ass, jerking his hands apart. The pants tore down the middle, following the seam. Gavin yanked the crotch of my underwear aside and plunged at least two fingers inside me. Maybe three. Honestly, I couldn’t tell, lost as I was to the pleasure racking my body.

He fucked me with his fingers as I continued to drink from him. I came again and again, or maybe it was one long orgasm. I didn’t care, so long as it didn’t stop.

“Fuck me,” I rasped, breaking the seal on Gavin’s neck just long enough to get the words out.

“You don’t really want that.”

“Fuck me, Gavin,” I demanded.

Gavin’s entire body went tense beneath me, like he was fighting against his own desire to do it, but still, he resisted. “You don’t want that, Sophie,” he said, his voice strained. “It’s the blood. You’re not thinking straight. Remember? You said—”

“Shut up,” I hissed.

I reached one hand between our bodies, feeling the wetness staining the front of his slacks from his own release, but I could also feel his erection, hard and ready for me. I unbuckled his belt and jerked his pants open, freeing that glorious cock. I pushed his hand away from between my legs and shifted forward, sinking onto him.

The pleasure, the fullness from having Gavin inside me while I drank his blood, was incredible. The waves of ecstasy compounded as I rode him. It didn’t take him long to stop resisting. Once again, he gripped my hips, slamming me up and down that gloriously hard length.

The pleasure changed suddenly, reversing. Ecstasy no longer spread out in waves but narrowed to the place where we were joined, shrinking down and growing more intense each time we came together.

I broke away from Gavin’s neck and sucked in a breath. My heartbeat slowed, and time stuttered.

Silver moonlight exploded out of me, and I gasped, completely overwhelmed by the force of the ecstasy radiating out from my core. Gavin gripped my hips and held me flush against him, throwing his head back and groaning out his pleasure. The sigils seared into his skin blazed to blinding brilliance in my otherworldly light.

As the pleasure faded, so did the light, and I collapsed against Gavin, both of us breathing hard and utterly spent.

Gavin slipped a hand under my shirt and skimmed his fingertips up and down along the length of my spine. “I always wondered what it would be like tocommunewith a queen.”

“I’m your first?” I asked as I licked the few smears of blood that remained on his neck. I couldn’t resist. It would have been a crime to waste it.

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” he said lazily.

I pulled back so I could see his face, my brows bunched together. “What do you mean?”

Gavin narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Javier kept you in the dark about a lot of things, didn’t he?”

“He said he would explain everything when I came of age,” I said, my tone slightly defensive. “It’s not his fault that he was gone by then.”

Gavin sighed. “A successfulcommunionbetween a queen and an immortal creates an unbreakable blood bond. When the queen’smortallife ends, so does the immortal’s life.”

I looked at him, horrified. “You just gave up your immortality for me?”

Gavin chuckled and shook his head. “Regularcommunionswill share an immortal’s longevity with their queen. She will live as long as the last remaining member of her harem. And if the queen deigns to share more of her blood with her immortals than is needed for a merecommunion, their gifts will be enhanced, making them the strongest and most powerful of their kind.”

“But—” Again, I shook my head. “You don’t even know me. Why would you bind yourself to me in such a permanent way?”

But before Gavin could respond, his phone rang. He answered, listened for about fifteen seconds, then thanked whoever was on the other end and hung up.

His eyes locked with mine. “Micah is on his way here. He should arrive in a half hour.”

“I—” I opened my mouth, then closed it and shook my head, at a loss for words.

“Take a shower,” Gavin said, standing and setting me on my feet. My legs were more than a little wobbly. “Prepare yourself to see your son.”

He guided me toward the hallway where Thane had taken Bastian and opened a door to a luxurious bedroom. We passed through the room and entered the en suite bathroom.

Once I was in the enormous shower, Gavin headed for the door. “I’ll return in a moment with fresh clothes.”