“You and your ‘afters.’” He glared at her, the long length of his lashes fused together and shielding the uniqueness of his dual-colored irises. “This is blackmail.” As irritated as he appeared, he also seemed…proud.

Why proud? In and out she breathed, luxuriating in the scent of sandalwood. Far stronger now than when she’d dreamed or read the book. “Yes, it’s blackmail, and I won’t back down.”

Cruel of her, but she suspected the moment she released him, he’d feed first, then race out the door, leaving her behind without giving her a single answer. He had the look of a cornered panther, ready to bite and bolt. Plus, he hadn’t wanted to talk to her in the dungeon and wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t pressed him. Therefore, she would continue to press him.

“Apparently, I’m risking a whipping by being here with you,” she added. “You kind of owe me.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he gritted.

She’d graduated high school at the age of fifteen. Acquired her master’s at eighteen. Then, while working toward her doctorate, she’d joined a highly classified branch of the government to research unexplainable abilities and phenomenon, as well as find ways to accomplish the unexplainable. The only reason she’d quit and changed the focus of her studies to health sciences was to move back home and help her mother, who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I think I can keep up,” she said dryly. She anchored her hands on her hips, the material pulling tight over her chest.

His gaze lowered to her breasts, and his lips stretched taut over his teeth. “Very well. We’ll talk. After you straddle me.”

She blinked at the sensual request, even as her body responded to him, readying for penetration. “What…why?”

“You get what you want, I get what I want.”

“Blackmail?” she parroted, not nearly as controlled as she sounded. Blood rushed through her veins at an alarming rate.

“Yes.”

Tempting. So tempting. And probably meant to cow her. “Well, I’m not caving.” One of them had to keep things on a business level.

“Are you wet?”

Breath caught in her throat. Clearly that someone was not Nicolai. Really, what kind of question was that? “I—I don’t even know you, of course I’m not… I can’t be…what you asked.”

“Jane. I saw the way you looked at my cock. You can be. So. Are you wet?”

“Yes,” she whispered, blushing. She’d done that a lot today. And just as clearly, she wasn’t that someone, either.

“I’m hard for you.”

I know. I sooo know. “That doesn’t matter.” Oh, God, that mattered. She wanted to introduce herself to that hardness properly. Meaning, a nice, firm handshake. “I mean, uh, are you planning to hurt me like you hurt the real Odette?”

A beat of silence. “Odette, I hated. Jane, I crave.”

Such sweet, intoxicating words, all the more potent because she couldn’t accuse him of only lusting for what was available. Laila, too, had wanted him in a bad, bad way, but he hadn’t wanted the princess at all. So, logically, Jane had to believe he was as attracted to her as she was to him. Yeah, logically. And not just because she was trembling and desperately wanted it to be true.

He could simply be trying to soften her up.

Oh, great. The upsetting thought poked its way from an ugly place inside her. A place that never wanted her to be happy. A place that felt she didn’t deserve to be happy. They’d been butting heads for months; more and more, she won the battles. Today, she might not.

“If I hurt you, you would not help me,” he said in a silky tone. “I want you to help me, and I am not a foolish man.”

No, he was a sexy one. “You’re a violent man. I know you are.”

“Yes.”

His honesty deflated her upcoming argument before she could start.

“Do you fear me, little Jane?”

“Maybe. What if you bite me? Or do that marking thing?”

“You’ll like it, the bite and the marking, but I won’t do either until you beg. You have my word. Now. Straddle me,” he repeated. “I’m also capable of giving pleasure. Giving and taking. That’s what we’ll do here and now. Give and take pleasure while we talk.”

Beg… Sweet heaven, she just might. Because deep inside, at the core of her femininity, she wanted to be with him. As if she’d been born for him, and him alone. Or bespelled. But even the thought of magic couldn’t dull her desire for this man. The desire was somehow as familiar as his scent.

“I’m not taking off my robe. Or my panties. We just met. That would be, uh, tacky.” Idiot. “I’m trusting you to keep your word. And I’m only doing this for answers,” she lied.

“Don’t care why. Just want to feel you.”

Slowly, unsure, she climbed on top of him, placing a knee on each side of his waist. Her robe hiked up, revealing the length of her thighs. Just as slowly, she lowered her body until her female core brushed his erection. She gasped at the contact. He moaned.

This was better than her fantasy. He was hot, so hot. Hard, so hard.

“Talk,” she said, flattening her palms on his chest. Before she did what she’d said she wouldn’t and stripped out of her panties.

He arched up, pressing more firmly against her. They moaned in unison, his heart drumming as erratically as hers. She liked that.

A moment passed. “You said you enjoy puzzles,” he mentioned huskily. His gaze settled on her neck.

Her pulse fluttered, as though happy to have gained his notice. “Yes.”

“We fit together very nicely, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” God. How moronic she sounded. Yes this, and yes that. It was just, he’d fried her circuits. She was on top of him, poised over his cock. And she ached. Ached like a drug addict in need of a fix. Why else would she have practically thrown herself at a vampire?

He waited. When she said no more, he arched his hips again. “What did you want to know, Jane?”

She rubbed against him. An accident, she told herself, and just once, but enough to leave her sweating. “I want…to know…about you. About why you summoned me to free you?” There. She’d found her voice, without panting like she was climbing a mountain. Or a well-endowed man.

“You never said,” she continued. “Do I look like Princess Odette or something?” If so, Odette and Laila must have been an odd sight. The blond giant and the brunette toddler. Jealous? “I mean, you told me that, in everyone else’s mind, I’m their princess.” She rubbed again, harder, but slow, so slow, and impossible to label as accidental. Need drove her. “But when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw, well, myself.”

Little beads of perspiration formed on his brow as he met her, moving with her. “You look nothing like her. Yes, keep doing that.”

“Then how does your magic work?” The tip of his erection brushed her most sensitive spot, and she moaned. “Why does everyone assume I’m her?”

“When I summoned you, I also shifted my ability to cast illusions to you, projecting Odette’s image.” His chains rattled as he attempted to lower his arms. When he realized he couldn’t, he scowled. “To everyone around you, with the exception of me, you look and sound like her. But gods, you smell divine.”

“So do you.” He’d spoken of intrinsic power. So very, very good…uh, interesting. Getting answers had never been this wonderfully agonizing in class. “Can you remove the illusion?”

The leather of his loincloth was soft between her legs, a startling contrast to his erection, creating a dizzying friction. Her heart hammered against her ribs with so much force, she feared the bones would crack.

She needed to slow down, or she would explode before the conversation ended.

“No, I cannot. Not while we’re together. My power…they did something to me. Bound my abilities in some way, as surely as they bound my body.” He licked his lips, revealing and hiding his fangs. So sharp, so deadly. “Do you like this, Jane? Do I please you?”

So much it scared her. “Yes.”

“Lean down. Kiss me.”

Another urge to obey… She stilled instead. Yes. She wanted to kiss him. Yet she knew that if she leaned down, if she kissed the breath out of his lungs as she wanted him to do to her, they would have sex. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Look how close she was to begging for it already!

She couldn’t have sex with him. They were strangers. Worse, he was a vampire, a drinker of blood, and she’d studied his kind for research. Oh, God. Talk about a mood killer. If he ever found out, the mood wasn’t the only thing that would be killed.

He wouldn’t find out, she assured herself before she could panic. Wasn’t like she’d tell him, and who else knew? No one. Although he might wonder why she knew more about his physiology than she should. Like the fact that he was alive, and not dead, with the same basic organ alignment as a human.

Besides, she would return home at some point. She hoped. More than that, they were in danger and under a time crunch. She needed answers from him, not pleasure. Not kisses.

Reluctantly she crawled off him and stood beside the bed. Her knees almost buckled. Amazing that she was able to maintain her balance, since her muscles had the consistency of Jell-O.

“Jane?”

She couldn’t look at him. She would cave. He was just so damn beautiful, those eyes so hungry. For her. Plain Jane, as the kids at school had once called her. Already she was tempted to fling herself back on top of him, rubbing her way to ecstasy. The scent of him clung to her. Sandalwood. Delicious. Every time she inhaled, she smelled him, weakening her resolve.

“Can someone else remove the illusion?” she asked, keeping her profile to him. “While we’re together?”

“Why did you leave me?”