Her gaze widened, and inexplicably, she calmed down. She muttered, “I guess you never know when the medieval Spanish nobleman might surface.”

“He is always here,” Xavier told her. “And he has fallen in love with you.” He whispered, barely audible against her skin. “He’s waiting for you to join him.”

Her response was immediate, and passionate. “I am. I have. I’m here too.”

That was all he needed to hear. He pulled her down and took her mouth. Urgency drove him. He needed to go deep inside of her, and he speared her with his tongue. A raw moan broke out of her. It sounded so needy and shaken the instinct to cover her vulnerability from the world took precedence over everything else.

He rolled with her until he had her pinned underneath him, and she readily parted her legs to cradle him with her strong, sleek thighs.

Then something else occurred to him. He lifted his head and said with surprise, “I bit you.”

She blinked, awareness showing through the arousal that flushed her face. One corner of her mouth lifted in a remarkably shy smile. “Yeah, you did.”

Stroking her torso from breast to hip, he checked her neck. Aided by the properties in his bite, the small wounds had already healed. He asked, “How do you feel about it?”

She hesitated, thinking, as she turned her head to press her lips against his bicep. “It can be like a drug, can’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, turning guarded. “It can be. Some grow addicted to it.”

Her gaze focused on him. “I would never let anyone else do such a thing to me,” she said. Her voice had turned crisp and decisive. “I would never let them take blood from me like that, or let myself feel that kind of—dangerously meaningless euphoria. I would never give them that kind of power over me.”

His jaw tightened. He couldn’t fault her in the slightest for saying any of it. “I see,” he said. “I’m only sorry you had to do it the way you did, and I’m grateful you were willing to do it to save my life.”

A frown appeared between her slender eyebrows as she studied him. A corner of her mouth lifted. She told him, “You did hear what I said, didn’t you? I wouldn’t let anyone else bite me. But you . . . Xavier, I loved it with you. I do trust you, and I loved giving you something so important.”

The invisible band that had begun to tighten around his chest eased, and warmth, heat and light flooded him. He caressed the tender skin at her temple with his lips. He whispered, “Thank you for giving it to me.”

Her expression gentled. “Even at your worst, you were reluctant to do it, and you stopped almost immediately.” Hesitating for a moment, she murmured, “Can you do it again—now that we’re safe?”

The thought of sharing something so powerful with her made him close his eyes. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder as his whole body pulsed with desire. “I could,” he muttered. If anything, his penis grew even harder, and he felt like he was on fire. Without his conscious volition, his fangs descended. He managed to say, more or less coherently, “I wouldn’t have to take any more blood.”

Lifting her head, she whispered in his ear, “So, bite me.”

She deliberately used the same words and inflection from the first time, but then, she had been defiant and afraid. Now, the way she said them was in a soft, sensual invitation, and they sent him tumbling back deep into the well in his soul, which filled with fire.

Growling low in his throat, he nipped at the soft, fleshy part of her shoulder, and his fangs penetrated her skin. Only lightly—he would not bite deep—but it was enough to let the smallest trickle of her blood flow onto his tongue.

The pure power of it flooded him, such precious, beautiful life. It was a blood covenant unlike any other that he had experienced, given from love to love.

A shaking groan left her parted lips. She arched up to his mouth, whispering, “Oh, my God. My God.”

A demon overtook him. He growled in her head, You’ll never give this to anyone else. Never give it to anyone but me.

Of course, she had already said it, but no matter how ridiculous it was, he had to demand it.

“Never,” she gasped.

I want you so much, you make me die a little, he muttered. He ran his hands all over her, greedy to experience everything at once.

“What?” Her head twisted on the pillow, eyes bewildered and glazed. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Dimly, he realized he had lapsed back into his native tongue, but he was so twisted up with the intensity of his need, he couldn’t find his way back to speaking English again.

He gave up on the effort and praised the texture of her skin, the perfection of her lips, which grew swollen and moist from his kisses.

The taste of her skin, the softness of her breasts.

The beauty in her eyes. The strength in her spirit.

He slid down her body to lavish all of his attention on her breasts. Her nipples pebbled underneath his mouth as he suckled at her. He drew hard, raking his fingernails lightly along the length of her thigh, until she spread her legs wide and let him delve into her incredible, soft fluted flesh.

She was so wet, so wet.

She knotted her hands in his hair and pulled his head back up to hers. She said against his mouth, “I’ve really got to learn how to speak Spanish.”

When she grasped his cock, he shook all over. Obeying her silent urging, he fell back against the pillows and she came up to straddle him. He cupped her breasts again as she guided him between her legs, and she rubbed the tip of his erection back and forth on her, moistening the head.

Then she eased down, taking his stiff, hard length inside of her, and she felt so good, so tight, so absolutely, utterly perfect, he arched up to her, driving in as deeply as he could go.

She threw back her head, flexing her torso as she braced herself with both flattened hands on his chest. Her face was flushed, her eyes closed, as she lost herself in the moment.

That was what pulled him out of his own pleasure. He stared at her, transfixed by the sight of her. Her hair was tangled, and her skin showed rosy patches where his mouth had been.

He had marked her, him. She would never give anyone else blood, but him. She was lost in pleasure that he gave her.

Lightness filled the well in his soul. No one else might be able to hear his thoughts in that deep place, or know the balance of his decisions, but she joined him there. She did join him there, and he was not alone.