She hadn’t, but Mircea didn’t feel the need to point that out. Or anything else, for that matter. Not when the gown parted, revealing, as he’d suspected, that she wore nothing underneath.
He paused a moment, transfixed by the smooth, olive-skinned body, the full breasts, the dark nipples, the small waist.
And the long, shapely legs that parted to allow him room between them.
Mircea knelt beside the chaise, his lips finding the taut flesh of her inner thigh. And moving up in a slow, dragging caress. She was like honey warmed in the sun, he thought dizzily: sweet, fragrant, and, finally, liquid.
She arched up at his every movement, flagrantly passionate, directing him with her body and the soft sounds she made where she wanted him to go. Mircea followed the hints, gave her what she wanted, but it was so goddamned hard. Hard to go slow, hard to wait for the gradual buildup of passion when he was already there, hard to enjoy part of her and not have all of her.
He didn’t want to go slow. He wanted to make love in the sunshine, as he hadn’t in so long. He wanted to feel alive again, just for a little while. He wanted to find out if such a thing was even possible.
He wanted . . . he wanted.
He growled and moved closer, hands gripping her hips, his body sprawling half over the chaise in his eagerness. He heard her laugh above him, and then felt his head being pulled up to meet a pair of amused dark eyes. “Enjoy it,” she murmured. “Next time is on my terms.”
He didn’t understand what she meant by that, but for some reason, it sent a shiver down his spine.
But the “enjoy it” part he understood perfectly.
“Are you coming?” The voice was jarring, and unwanted enough that Mircea snarled as he spun toward the door.
Jerome jumped back, blinking. And then stayed where he’d landed, hidden partly behind the door, with just his head protruding around the jamb. His usually big gray eyes were huge.
Mircea put a shaking hand up to massage the bridge of his nose, but jerked it away when that hurt, too. He stood there, panting, for a moment, in pain. And frustrated enough to have punched through the damned wall.
He wasn’t sure what he believed about the Divine anymore, after all that had happened to him, but he knew there was a God.
Because He hated him.
“I—it’s just—it’s starting,” Jerome squeaked. And then scampered away, like a frightened rabbit.
Mircea stood staring at the door for a long moment. And at nothing else. He finally sighed and finished dressing, pausing to run a comb through his hair briefly before following after the smaller vampire out the door.
He tried to call up the scene again as he navigated down the narrow, twisting stairs: blue, blue sky, soft breeze, drifting curtains letting through glimpses of dazzling sunlight.
Although not as dazzling as the sight spread out below him.
Dark hair spilled out around her, a sort of reverse halo. Sunlight glistened off skin that looked like it had been oiled, soft and supple and begging to be touched. She stretched invitingly underneath him, the ripple of lean muscle under golden skin made liquid by sunlight.
The sight was almost painful.
But she wasn’t ready, wasn’t even close, and Mircea had never hurt a woman. He didn’t intend to start now. So he stayed in position, shaking, breathing hard, eyes searching the small area fruitlessly.
Until a pot of some sweet-smelling lotion appeared as if my magic beside his hand.
He didn’t know where it had come from; didn’t care. He accepted it gratefully, using his teeth to pull out the cork. He spilled it out quickly with shaking hands, smoothing it over his quivering shaft.
“Hurry,” his client ordered. And Mircea’s brain, which was clearly attempting to ruin his life, threw up a comment wondering what had ever happened to slow.
He ruthlessly suppressed it, but her lips twitched anyway.
He responded by sliding a gentle, seeking finger into her wet heat.
He was rewarded with a small gasp, and an undulating arch that took more of that finger inside herself. He swallowed and added a second, and a bone-deep shiver went through her, before he felt her deliberately relax around him. Allowing him to stroke deep inside, to hear her groan as he touched just there, to feel her hips shift and rotate as he began a slow circular caress over the sensitive spot, pleasuring and stretching at the same time.
He drew back and added a third finger, before beginning to thrust carefully, seeing sweat begin to gather and glisten in the hollows of her throat, between the full breasts, down the center of the taut stomach. His need was now great, to the point that he was shaking with it, but he continued until she began to rock harder, arching up to meet every thrust, her breath making low growls in her throat. Until the growls finally formed words.
“I’m not going to break. Do it.”
Mircea didn’t need to be told twice. He slid smoothly into her, trembling with the effort of restraint, his hands curling over her hip bones, pulling her onto him. She gasped and tightened convulsively around him, and he bit his lip, struggling for control. Before drawing back with agonizing care and then thrusting forward, a little harder than at first.
The sensation tore through him, as much mental as physical. For two years, he had been dead, in every sense of the word. He had thought he would never be anything again, never do anything. That he had been cursed to a hopeless existence, little more than a shade, doomed to walk in darkness, cold and alone for whatever time he had left.
And yet here he was, making love in the sunlight.
It seemed impossible; it seemed absurd. But he could feel it on his shoulders, like a rich mantle. Could taste it on the warm air that blew over them. Could see it glisten on a few strands of his hair as they blew in the breeze. And in the sheen in her eyes as she looked up at him, knowing and strangely compassionate. He uttered a choked cry, and made another thrust, more powerful yet, bringing his hips up tight against her.
She met him hard, with a hot, needy stare that destroyed the last of Mircea’s composure. He began to pump furiously even as his eyes slid shut, allowing him to savor the tight, slick friction of their joining. He knew he was going to finish fast, but he couldn’t seem to hold back anymore, driving his need and wonder and pain and joy into the body beneath him.
She bared her neck for his kisses, her fingers tangled in his hair, freeing it to curtain their faces as she pulled him down again. Their mouths fastened hungrily on each other as she writhed beneath him. Her tight heat pulsing around him in a way that was designed to take him over the edge.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, against his throat. “Finish for me.”
And Mircea did. Bracing himself above her and thrusting with all his strength, feeling some cold, hard knot inside him crack and break as he neared release. And then burst apart when he came, along with the rest of the world, vanishing in a shock of heat and light and all-consuming fire.
Chapter Sixteen