Now, however, she wanted to be perfect. The best. She wanted to please Nicolai the way he had pleased her in her fantasy.

She had enjoyed sex. And she had missed it, despite her lack of desire, all these months. Actually, nearly a year now. Mostly, she had loved and missed the afterglow, lying in a man’s arms, absorbing his heat, talking, laughing.

“I’ve lost you to your thoughts.” Nicolai cursed under his breath, but there was humor in the undercurrent. “I’m trying to resist you, Jane, and I’m failing. The challenge of engaging your attention isn’t helping.”

“Why?” A breathy entreaty. “I mean, why are you trying to resist?”

“You need time to recover. And there’s something I must tell you first. Something you will not like.”

Stomach cramp. “What is it?”

One heartbeat, two. “Without my memories, I can’t be sure…a woman could be waiting…”

Another cramp. “Oh, God. You’re married?”

“No. No, that much I know. Just before my appearance in the Sex Market, I was with a woman…a servant. Yes. I remember that. I would not have been with a servant if I were married. But I might have promised myself to another.”

Might have… No. Not possible. “You hadn’t.” This she said with a sudden surge of confidence. He was too possessive to sleep with a servant if a fiancée waited in the wings.

A glimmer of hope in his expression. “I mention this only as a possibility, not a reality. I could never want anyone as much as I want you right now.” He was looming over her a second later, his mouth poised just above hers. He was breathing shallowly, his hands anchored next to her temples, his erection pressed between her legs.

Finally. The contact she’d yearned for. He was hers, hers, only hers. She could believe nothing less. “You may not know yourself, but I think I know you,” she said. “Trust me, no one is waiting for you.”

She wasn’t being stubborn or blind about this. Discarding his possessive nature and the fact that any woman he committed to would have his full attention, he was vampire and vampires mated for life. Physically they couldn’t stray. Research had proven that. So, memory or not, he would not react to Jane if his heart belonged to another.

“Perhaps I am a horrible person, because I don’t care about a faceless stranger,” he said. “I can’t resist you. I won’t resist you. Don’t deny me, Jane. Must taste you, all of you. Please.” He didn’t wait for her reply but leaned the rest of the way down.

“Nicolai—” She meant to tell him that she couldn’t resist him, either, and she would never deny him, that he wasn’t a horrible person, but the words were lost in a scorching kiss as he meshed their lips together.

His tongue thrust past her teeth and rolled with hers. Hot, so hot.

He tasted of mint and…candy. Mmm. Yes, candy. Sugary sweet, the flavor all his own, consumed her.

Unable to stop herself, she glided her fingers into his hair.

“Yes. Please. Please,” she said, finally begging.

Her nails bit into his scalp, holding him to her. She needed more, had to have more, everything else forgotten. Her knees squeezed at his waist, and she rocked herself against him. A gasp of hungry joy escaped her. God! The feel of his erection against her was mind-blowing, shattering, necessary, better than anything she’d ever known. Maybe because she was so damn wet and ready. So she did it again, rocking, rubbing, gasping.

With a growl of approval, he thrust his tongue deeper. Their teeth scraped together. Dizzying friction, welcome but torturous as her need ratcheted up another level. Then he angled his head for even deeper contact, and she felt the graze of his fangs. No, this was need. True, undiluted need. She wanted to be bitten, again and again and again. To be everything to him. Lover, sustenance, breath.

Her blood was heating unbearably, her stomach quivering. On and on the kiss continued, until there was no more oxygen left in her lungs. Until Nicolai was her only lifeline.

“Please,” she rasped. “Do it.”

“Gods, Jane. You’re…you’re like fire. I want to be burned.”

“Yes.”

He licked his way to the pulse hammering at the base of her neck. Was he going to bite her at last? But no, he continued laving at her pulse, sucking on it as one of his hands cupped her breast and kneaded. He pinched the throbbing nipple, and a lance of delicious sensation shot through her entire body.

Heaven and hell, so sweetly offered…how close she was to falling over the edge. But when she did, if she did—please, let her—where would she land? The clouds, or the fiery pits?

Only one way to find out…

“Nicolai?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. His sweetheart. “Bite me.”

“Jane.” A groan. “You tempt me. I shouldn’t.”

Shouldn’t, because he still thought she needed to heal? Or because a part of him still believed another female was out there, waiting for him? If the impossible happened and he was committed… Why impossible? she wondered next. Jane was here, wasn’t she? Nothing was impossible.

The knowledge caused the first tendrils of doubt to surface. Jane despised cheaters, but she also hated stories that forced two people to remain together because of a sense of duty, rather than love. Nicolai wasn’t in love. And if he had a woman, why hadn’t she searched for him? Saved him? Again, that made Jane think he couldn’t possibly be committed. No girlfriend would have let this guy go. Therefore, Jane could still have him.

But, she didn’t want him resenting her. Or feeling pressured. Or regretting what they did. “All right. We won’t—”

“We will. Just don’t want to hurt you.”

Relief. So much relief, ecstasy shimmering, within reach. “You could never hurt me. Nicolai, please. Do it.”

“Yes, yes, please. I’ll beg if necessary. I must have more….” His fangs returned to her neck and grazed her sizzling skin. “Must taste, will die if I do not.”

“Do it.” She hissed out a breath and stiffened as she mentally prepared herself for the onslaught. Of pleasure or pain, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she needed this, too.

He dragged in a shaky breath. “You are sure? I don’t have to. I can stop.”

“Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop. I’m just wary of the unknown.”

Liiick. “Do not fear, little Jane. I’ll be careful with you. Will control myself.” Then, with agonizing slowness, he sank his fangs into her neck, sucked on her, swallowed her blood.

Not once did she experience any pain, but the pleasure, oh, God, the pleasure…exactly as she’d imagined, beautiful in the most erotic way. The missing piece to the puzzle of her life.

The burn of his mouth, the suction of his tongue, both caused riotous reactions in her body. She clutched at his back, pulled at his hair, lost to a bliss that should have been impossible. Soon she was even writhing and thrashing against him, desperate for completion.

He purred against her, his breath warm. Then something hot, so wonderfully hot, entered her system. And okay, she hadn’t truly known pleasure before that moment. This was pleasure. Pleasure in its purest form. Strength, heat, power. She felt those, too.

Her thrashing became a single-minded pursuit for the elusive satisfaction that still hovered so close. She ground herself against his erection, over and over again, little shivers of sensation coursing through her every time he swallowed. God. She could climb him like a mountain. Could eat him up, one tasty bite at a time. Could remain in his arms forever.

He wrenched free of her vein. “Have to…stop. Can’t take…too much.”

There was no such thing as too much. “Take more.”

“Promised to be careful.” He licked the punctures, shooting more of that liquid heat into her system. He growled, “Now you are marked. Mine.”

His, just as he was hers. Hers, and no one else’s.

“So good. Never tasted anything…so sweet. Addicted…already…”

Yes. Addicted. He was a drug. Her drug, and she doubted there was a cure.

With her painkillers, she’d had to stop using cold and flat. The withdrawals had been nightmarish. Yet she knew with sudden, shocking clarity that those would not compare to what she’d experience without Nicolai.

He replaced the hand on her breast with his mouth, flicking his white-hot tongue over her nipple, shooting more of those gratifying lances through her. He didn’t bite, though, not again.

She wanted him to bite her everywhere. “Please, Nicolai.”

“Anything you want, I will give you.”

She arched into him, locking her ankles at his lower back. The long, thick length of his erection hit her just right, more liquid dampening her panties. “I want it all.”

He still wore the loincloth, but the leather must have bunched up, freeing his cock, because she could feel the heat of his silky skin, soft yet, oh, so hard, pushing at the cotton in a bid to move it out of the way. Just a little more, and they’d be skin-to-skin. Strength-to-wet.

She ached for that. Wanted it with every fiber of her being. But Nicolai had other plans. He continued his downward journey, tracing her scars with his tongue, laving her navel. She would have been humbled by the decadent attention, but she was too aroused. Goose bumps broke out, sensitizing her skin to an almost unbearable degree.

“Mine,” he growled.

Yes. Yes! His. Always. She frowned. No, not always. The repercussions of his druglike lovemaking hit her like a hammer to the head. She could go home at any moment. This wasn’t permanent, and she couldn’t forget that fact. Couldn’t become attached to him. To this.

You already are.

Yes, she was.

How could she return to her old life now? She’d tasted the forbidden fruit, was addicted just as she’d suspected, and she needed more. More of his hands and his mouth and his teeth and his fingers. More of the heat and the sweetness and the ferocity. But if she didn’t finish this, if she attempted to walk away now, she would always wonder about what could have happened.