“Right, that did it!” I yanked my bra off over my head without even bothering to unhook it, all but ripped his jeans off, and dug my fingers into his butt cheeks in order to pull him closer to me. We stumbled over to the bed, both of us trying to get the last few items of clothing off while at the same time touching, licking, and kissing all exposed body parts.

We fell onto the bed with Constantine on the bottom, clunking our heads together painfully.

“Ow,” I said as I sent my tongue on a foray into his mouth.

He twisted around me, pulling off his shoes, socks, and the jeans that had gathered at his ankles before assisting me with my undies. At last we were both naked, panting, and coated with a light sheen of fire.

I straddled his hips, looking down on him with bemusement. “I don’t know what’s going on, or why I’m so crazy wild to make love to you when we should be adulting and telling the others what happened, but I am crazy wild, and evidently so are you—honestly, Constantine, did you get bigger? I don’t remember you that… erect… before—so I’m not going to waste time talking and asking questions, and instead will go wild all over your ass.”

“Again with my ass,” he said, trying to capture one of my nipples in his mouth. “I am beginning to think it is an obsession with you. You may admire my ass. You may touch it. You may even rake your fingernails across it, because that is pleasing, and does not make me uncomfortable. However, that is all. Please accept the fact that I do not desire any further action therein. And while you’re at it, stop squirming so that I can love you the way I wish to.”

“Arrogant wyvern,” I said saucily, and took his penis in both hands, an act that had him freezing beneath me. “You are so in my power now.”

“Yes, yes I am,” he fervently agreed, his eyes oh, so hopeful.

I smiled a slow, wicked smile, and leaned down to take just the tip of him into my mouth. He moaned, clutched the sheets, and writhed around in absolute, utter ecstasy. Although I’d never much been one for oral sex, there was something about Constantine that made me ache to taste him. And where other men tasted like… well… men, Constantine tasted like he kissed, all spicy sweetness, like a red-hot candy that sent a burn throughout my body. I wanted him, desperately wanted him, not just in a purely sexual way, but I wanted him in my life. Every day. I wanted to wake up to see him lying on his stomach next to me, and I wanted to fall asleep each night in his arms. I wanted him when he was grumpy, or bossy, or making me laugh with some silliness. I just wanted him, and it was at that exact moment I decided that even if he wanted out of the temporary mate arrangement we’d agreed to, I was going to fight to remain by his side.

“I’m falling in love with you, you irritating, annoying, incredibly wonderful man,” I told him, my voice quavering a little when I admitted the truth, but if there was one motto that held true, it was not to live my life in fear. It was the reason I’d become a Charmer. “And if you think you’re going to get rid of me once the situation with your father is over, you’d just better think again.”

He stopped writhing, lifting his head up to glare at me. “You’re stopping?”

I pinched his hip. “Dammit, I just told you I loved you! Is that all you’re going to say? You’re supposed to react to my statement! Appropriately, I might add.”

“You did not say you were in love with me; you said you were falling in love with me. There is an important difference. Tell me when you are fully in love with me, and then I will react appropriately.”

“Argh!” I yelled.

“Are you not going to finish?” he asked, looking pointedly at his penis, now waving at me quite happily.

I wrapped both hands around the base of it, and made the meanest eyes I could at him. “If you ever want to see this penis again, you’ll tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

“You can’t say it like that—I want you to say it like you mean it!” I slapped my hands on his belly. His wonderful, smooth, sexy belly. “Seriously, Constantine? Is this all I mean to you—sex? Steamy, red-hot sex?”

He sighed then, the true sigh of a martyr, and pulled me upward so that his mouth could tease mine. “Do you think that I would take a mate if she didn’t hold my heart?”

“We did the mate thing because you were trying to make me immortal,” I protested, a lovely warm glow spreading inside me despite my protest.

“And do you think I could not have removed you from Bael’s presence if all I wished to do was protect you from harm?” He shook his head. “A wyvern by himself is strong, but one with a mate at his side is stronger. And while some may think that love makes for weakness, I have always believed that it makes us stronger. Together, we can face anything.”

“Oh, Constantine,” I said, melting all over him. I kissed the corners of his mouth. “That was lovely. And I wholeheartedly agree—we are stronger together.”

He smiled, his eyes downright molten with desire. I sat up, looking down at this man of mine, a man who was so much more than just a drool-worthy body. He was thoughtful, he was caring… and he was mine.

“So are you going to go back to what you were doing?” he asked with a nod toward his groin, a crooked smile on his lips.

“Demanding, bossy… tsk.” I slid downward, taking him in my hands again, allowing my fingers to do some exploring. “If I knew what I’d be letting myself in for…”

“You’d still have accepted me,” he said, gasping as I hit a sensitive spot. And just as I was bending down to swirl my tongue around that very spot, he moved, flipping us around so fast, I wasn’t aware I was on my belly until he spread my legs and positioned himself.

“Constantine!” I squealed when he thrust inside. I swear the sensation of him deep inside me made my eyes cross, and it took several seconds before I could speak again. “I wanted to be… oh, gods, yes, that is sooo good… I wanted to be on top this time.”

“Later. First I must claim you as a dragon does his mate.”

“Really, you mean—hoobah!” I don’t know what Constantine did to kick into high gear, but whatever it was, it had my wholehearted approval. And best of all, he unleashed something in me that had me bucking beneath him, wanting nothing more than to touch him, and hold him, and even bite him. And when he bathed my back with fire, it pushed me over the edge, causing my entire body to arch like a bowstring. Muscles I didn’t even know I had clenched with ecstasy, sending Constantine into his own version of paradise.