The pulse point in her wrist throbbed under his grasp. Their bodies brushed against each other, her curves soft against all the places he was hard. She breathed rapidly, her blue eyes dusky with desire.
Darion stroked his free hand along her cheek, down onto the side of her neck. His touch pulled a ragged sigh out of her, but her heart was still galloping like a wild horse. The feel of her--the strength and softness of her--nearly undid him where he stood.
His fangs surged, and the erection that had been raging even before her body brushed against him was now as hard as stone and greedy to be inside her.
“I came here prepared to fight an enemy,” he murmured, his voice rough with need. “I came here expecting to feel contempt for you, not this. Christ, anything but this.”
He lowered his head and kissed her, hot and hard and deep.
She melted against him, no resistance in her at all. The hand he’d been holding slipped out of his loose grip and came to rest against his chest, right above the thundering pound of his heart. She moaned as he took her deeper into his kiss. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his tunic as she clung to him, her mouth as fevered as his.
He growled against her lips, a low, possessive sound. The intense kiss they’d shared before was only a pale prelude to this one. Darion wanted to devour her. He wanted to uncover every sweet inch of her body and make her his.
But he needed to hear her tell him she wanted that too.
“If you say you don’t want this,” he rasped thickly, pulling back from her kiss to search her gorgeous blue eyes. “Ah fuck . . . even if you lie when you say it, tell me to stop now and I will.”
She stared at him, panting through her kiss-bruised, parted lips. Her little crown was askew, her pale blonde hair falling loose from its confinements. She was immortal and ageless, a formidable queen, but she looked as innocent as a kitten in his arms.
She shook her head in response to his demand.
“Not good enough,” he growled. “I need to hear you say the words.”
“Yes.” The word rushed out of her like a curse, like a prayer. “Yes, I do want this.You.”
The dark sound of satisfaction he made was unearthly, even to his own ears.
A large marble table with a sculpture of a sea nymph stood beside them under the pergola. Gripping Selene under her fine ass, he lifted her onto the edge of the table. His hand went to one perfect breast as he kissed her again, his fingers kneading and caressing over the top of the silky bodice of her gown, coaxing the tight peak of her nipple until it was like a pebble to his touch.
He needed to feel her softness without the barrier of clothing. Slipping his hand inside, he moved the fabric away and lifted her bare breast in his palm. On a groan he bent his head and suckled her, careful to keep his fangs from nicking her tender flesh.
No easy thing when everything Breed in him drummed with the urge to possess her in every way.
His hands shook with the force of that want as he pulled her bodice down off her arms and bared her torso to his hungry gaze. She was beyond lovely. Creamy skin so flawless and delicate it radiated an unearthly luminescence, as though she were made of starlight and moonbeams.
He touched her with reverence, his hand looking too big and rough against her skin. He marveled, not only at the extraordinary beauty seated in front of him, but at the fact that she wanted him.
“Selene,” he uttered hoarsely, lifting his admiring gaze to the desire-drenched eyes that watched him with a hunger that rocked him. “I’ve never seen anything as perfect as you.”
She started to shake her head, but he stopped her with another kiss. This time, he took his time, despite the savage arousal spurring him with every hard beat of his pulse.
He hadn’t come there to seduce her, but he couldn’t keep his hands or mouth away from her now. After kissing her breathless, he moved on to lavish more praise on her breasts.
Selene’s short nails dragged down his back as she arched into him. When she brought her hands back up again, she drew the hem of his tunic up at the same time. He shrugged out of it, eager for her touch on him too.
He stood still and let her trace theglyphsthat spread out over his chest and shoulders. Her fingertips on his skin markings left a trail of fire in their wake, stirring theglyphsinto moving, variegating colors.
“Amazing,” she whispered, then leaned forward to trace the same paths with her tongue.
He went taut as a bowstring, his head tipped back on his shoulders with a strangled groan hissed through his teeth and fangs. His arousal was beyond bearing, a hard, pulsing demand.
When he brought his chin down again, his vision burned with amber, and he didn’t have to hear her quiet inhalation to know how fierce and feral he must look to one of her kind.
Selene didn’t shrink away. No, not her. She didn’t turn her head in horror, or try to avoid seeing what he truly was.
Breed.
The enemy race she professed so vehemently to despise.
