“Less? You mean because you’re dallying with a human?” There was no mistaking the sharpness entering his tone. But then he seemed to visibly catch himself and he sighed softly. “No. Of course you wouldn’t think that way. You only mean you need his respect and for him to view your behavior as an equal. Well, don’t worry. I know Jackson. He would never judge someone too harshly. In fact, his sense of fair play and respect has often allowed him to give people who don’t deserve it another chance. He’s a good man and a great friend. As long as he’s pulling half the weight of what makes Jackson and Menes Pharaoh of his people, he will always make sure Menes views everything with unprejudicial eyes. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about myself.”

Leo stepped away from her and, taking her hand in his, he walked backward toward the bedroom connected to the living area. He didn’t stop until they were standing by the bed and he was dropping his strip of contraception on the bedside table.

When he turned back to her, it was with pure devilment in his eyes. “Looks like we have our work cut out for us. Your new mission, should you decide to accept it, is to achieve upward of one orgasm per use of one condom. I, however, am quite convinced that you are capable of much more than that.” He reached to put a hand on the small of her back and used it to yank her forward, bringing them belly to belly and hip to hip. “And frankly, I’m tired of talking about it and not actually doing anything about it. So shut up and give in.”

She laughed, her incredulity soft and amazed. “You are so cocksure you think I’m going to say yes?”

“Well, if your answer is no, please allow me the opportunity to change your mind.”

He reached to fondle the top button of her dress, the same one with the little blue flowers, his thumb rubbing in a slow circle over it. She had practically ripped off the catsuit the minute they’d been safe at Grey’s and put the dress back on. But the suggestive swirl of his thumb on that button made her think of other things well beyond him simply taking her dress off. Faith was pretty positive she wasn’t the only one to see the suggestiveness of it. It made her knees weaken and made other parts of her perk up with interest. Slowly, very deliberately as they both watched with full attention, he slipped the first button free.

Leo looked up at her face and features. Her lips were parted, most likely to accommodate the increasing speed with which she was breathing. Her chartreuse eyes were beautiful with anticipation, and he could sense, since he could not see, a warm flush crawling across her cheeks and over her neck.

The next button came free and the way it made her breath hitch made him all the more determined to do it much slower next time.

“Please,” she begged him breathlessly when he finally got around to slipping the fourth button free. He was exposing the generous curves of her delectable breasts. The fact that he knew she was braless brought back a heated run of memories about how he had come to the knowledge in Grey’s library. But this time would be different. Very different.

“Please what?” he teased her even though they both knew what she was asking for.

“Please, Leo, put your hands on me,” she said, reaching to grab hold of his wrist and turning his hand into the open neck of her dress. Her breast was so warm, the feel of it so incredibly full and sweet, he couldn’t scold her for ruining the delicious tension that he’d been orchestrating between them.

“Do you have any other requests?” he asked her, his free hand moving to unbutton the next three buttons quickly, letting the fabric part like some kind of biblical miracle, allowing him access to both br**sts and the warm expanse of the onyx black skin of her chest and belly.

“I have hundreds of them,” she said on a breathy laugh. That made him smile a seductive smile at her, his fingers sweeping and painting across her skin from one warm breast to the next.

“Good. That’s very very good.” He cupped her in both hands pressing the weight of her breast against her chest, a rough thumb scraping each nipple simultaneously to the other. She let out a low groan of pleasure and again he smiled.

“You know, I think I like this dress,” he said, pushing three more buttons out of his way. His hands swept up to her shoulders, catching the fabric of her dress and running them down her arms as he pushed it off her. Gravity played the rest of the act and the dress fell from her body and pooled like a cool blue puddle around her ankles. His fingers continued to scan lightly over her skin, from the yoke of her collarbone to her rapidly rising and falling breast to her belly just above her navel. “I find it so amazing that the only hair you have on your entire body is here.” He reached to touch the cream white of her hair at her temple.

“I could say the reverse to you,” she said, her hands reaching to pull up his shirt, pushing it up his belly and chest until he obliged her by grabbing his collar and yanking the thing off. It met the same fate as her dress.

It allowed her to run her hands freely over him, her nails scraping through the hair on his chest until she laughed a soft laugh. “I don’t think I’ll ever take this sensation for granted. It’s so new to me…so different.”

“We have a lot of differences,” he noted.

“But none insurmountable,” she dared to say as she looked straight into his eyes. “We’ve proven there’s nothing we can’t beat.”

“Yes,” he said, but it was an absent agreement. He still had his demons and it would take time for him to finish wrestling them. But she did not expect any miracles and she did not demand results before he was ready.

Leo was done discussing difficult things and he wanted the same from her. They needed to leave the difficulties of their lives behind for a little while. Or a long while, he amended as he let his eyes roam her bare body. He was definitely going to need some serious time here.

He cupped her shoulders in his hands and slowly turned her around, burning every line and curve of her body into his memory. He was good at that. Topography. He was good at remembering every hill and valley in a determined area. And as he continued to sweep memorizing fingers over every curve of her, his smile drifted away and concentration took root. He touched her. Lightly with a single finger, or heavily with both his palms…constantly he touched her. Her skin was so incredibly soft, even when it was pulled snuggly over athletic muscles. Soft and warm…and growing ever warmer. All he could hear was the rapidly changing breaths they both breathed, and the sound of his skin brushing over hers.

“Leo, please,” she said after several long minutes of letting him touch her everywhere he could immediately reach.

“Another request?” he asked teasingly as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Anything specific?”

He pulled her up against himself, chest to chest once more, a hand on her backside pulling her in hip to hip as well.

“No, I…yes. Kiss me,” she said. “And then let me undress you.”

Leo took a breath trying to control the raging surge of heat that whipped through him, tried to calm the fire that seemed to scorch it’s way along the length of his erection. He needed to slow down a little…to take it slow…because just the feel of her was already making him struggle with uncontrollable impulses. He wanted this to be good for her. He wanted to make up for his dumb-ass maneuvers earlier in Grey’s library. Had that only been hours ago? It felt like days. It felt as though he had been starving for her for days.

He kissed her, her lush mouth like melting caramel that spread sweet and warm over his tongue. And once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Determined to have her way, however, her hands fell to his belt, grabbing hold of the leather and quickly working it free of its buckle. Before he knew it she had popped open the button to his jeans and was slowly sliding her hand down the front of his pants. Her fingers slipped around him, searing like a stripe of heat from a whip as she took his shaft in her hand.

“Christ,” he breathed into her delicious mouth as her kisses grew hot and aggressive to match her hot, aggressive caress. “Faith…oh Faith, you’re killing me,” he accused her, reaching to unzip his jeans with fumbling haste. He barely left her mouth long enough to push them down his legs, toe off his boots and kick the tangled mess of it away. It was almost impossible to coordinate it since she wouldn’t give up the touch of his mouth or the feel of his c**k for even a second.

He was hauling her onto the bed in a sudden sweeping flex of strength, causing her to bounce in among the bedding. She crawled back, elbows and heels, until she was in the dead center of the thing, and he crawled with her until he was braced over her, his thighs between hers, her br**sts caught between their chests. She felt so hot, from neck to ankles, and he was almost afraid to let them come into intimate contact…afraid that the simple touch of her would set him on fire and have him prematurely ejaculating all over her…just because he loved the very idea of it; the idea of painting her with the heat of his seed.

“Faith, I don’t think this is going to be very pretty,” he said in hard, punctuating words as he slid impatient fingers into the wet, eager folds of her sex. “No, not pretty at all.” He groaned at the slick, hot sensation of her around his fingers. She was so ripe. So ready. And he’d hardly done a damn thing to deserve it. “But it is going to be hot…and hard…and you won’t have an instant to wonder about how much I really, really want you. And how fiercely I’m really going to take you.”

He thrust his fingers into her, catching her gasp in his mouth. He swept his tongue into the depths of her mouth as his fingers slid into the depths of her hot, tight little channel. Oh god, he thought, remembering and understanding why she was so tight, why she would always feel like a woman untried.

It pushed his desire for her into an entirely new stratosphere. Waiting was necessary one moment, impossible the next. He slipped his hand free of her in order to make way for the hard length of his sex. He felt painfully ready for her, as if he’d been longing for her for years instead of the mere days…mere hours…brief moments it really had been. He slid against her, reveling in her hot gasp, swallowing it up in a fierce, needful kiss.

And once again he found himself in the same instant and dangerous need to have her at all costs, damn all the consequences. But he struggled to quiet himself a little, to think and have a care for her. Not only because he knew why she was so tight for him, but because he had to pay her the respect she deserved.

He reached for the condoms on the nightstand, fumbling with them and groaning as her legs wove around his. Her knees trapped his hips, her h*ps lifted and undulated in order to rub her sex along the length of his.

“Jesus, Faith, you don’t play fair, do you?”

“Mmm…no,” she admitted without any contrition. “It turns me on to watch you lose control, Leo Alvarez…because I know you don’t lose control that often or that easily.”

He laughed at that and pulled away from her just long enough to dress himself in the condom. “I might have believed that a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t been in control for a while now.” He sent her a searing look, “especially as far as you are concerned.”

“Let’s make love,” she encouraged him on a hot breath. “I don’t want anything else to matter outside of this bed.”

“As always, I’m happy to accommodate your wishes.” They both heard him say the word “wish” and both winced at the same time.

“Don’t,” she laughed.

“Sorry. I’ll be careful.”

He found his way back to her, his mouth drifting up over her skin, pausing to toy with her berry-colored ni**les, devouring her like an impatient child. Her legs wrapped around him again and he felt himself cradled up against her core. He looked down into her eyes, the beauty of passion across her features.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he ejected on a breath. “And I need to take you right now, okay?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said with a breathy laugh.

And with a mutual shift of their h*ps he began to work himself into her. She gasped when the head of his c**k popped past the lip of her vagina, and then again when he thrust more deeply into her. Leo thought he would go insane if he didn’t get to the root of her. He’d never known such a need like this one. Before he could control himself he found himself lurching into her in ragged, demanding thrusts. She cried out, her back arching, lifting them both off the bed. Jesus God, she was amazing. She felt unbelievable. Tight. Hot. Wet. Everything he could possibly need. And in so many ways.

He began to thrust into her in a hard, punctuating rhythm, their bodies undulating together as if they were one being. She moaned every time he buried himself to the hilt within her, a cadence of sound that grew louder and more present, more real, with every passing instant. She was a passionate creature. He had known this all along, but to see it applied this way…