hanks of it tightly. “Right there.”
Steadily, he played her, stroking and dashing his tongue against softness, then hard, to follow with a firm lick. She smelled like a jasmine garden here, and he was reminded of the faery ritual before the bride walked down the aisle. The bride-to-be would spend the day being pampered and perfumed, at one point squatting over an incense burner to infuse all parts of her skin with heady scent.
Don’t think about that stolen moment. Concentrate. Or you’ll begin to regret.
Kicking the door shut on memory, Vail soared back to the present and into his captive’s lushness. Lyric’s scent dizzied him. It was almost better than a dust high.
The vampiress cried out boldly. Her hips bucked and the fingers in his hair tugged painfully before releasing him.
He had pleased her. The hot spill of her over his fingers thrilled him. He sucked each digit clean, but was jumbled upon the mattress as she sat and reached for him.
She pushed down his pants and gripped his erection. “Now. Inside me. You know you want it, vampire.”
He sucked one last finger clean. “Just waiting for the invitation to cross your threshold.”
“If that’s the way you ask for an invite, you’ll never be turned down.”
Kicking off his boots and slipping down his leather pants, Vail then plunged into her depths and the dull mortal world changed colors. The faery dust highs he was accustomed to grew shallow and insignificant when immersed within Lyric. So tight, she hugged him as he moved in and out of her. Grasping him. Claiming him. It wasn’t going to take long for him to come, but he wanted to prolong the exquisite torture.
She’d turned the tables on him. Apparently, this seductive brand of torture could be sallied back and forth. He didn’t mind. This was all about finding the sweet spot. Mastering the moment.
Winning her trust.
Vail’s muscles clenched and his body trembled above Lyric’s gorgeous limbs. Her skin glowed pale under the moonlight. Her lips, so red from kissing, parted. She was his. He’d challenge any man who claimed differently.
Tensing his jaw, he waited as the orgasm focused in his muscles and segued at his core. He released, ramming himself deep within her to ride the wave.
SUNLIGHT TEASED Lyric awake. She hated the sun. It would burn her if she stood beneath direct rays. Prolonged UV exposure could drive a vampire mad. Even this pale stuff beaming through the dirty window could prove deadly with longer exposure.
She rolled away from the obnoxious light and her body hugged against Vail’s naked form. He lay on his side, facing her, his eyes open. He touched her mouth. A lash of her tongue in the wake of his touch tasted sex and salt and something sweet that she thought might be faery dust.
“You going to track down the fence today?” she asked.
“No reason to bother. It’s a ruse. You made up the name. I knew it before I even made the call.”
“Then why—why can’t you let me go?”
“Told you.” He gripped her around the nape of her neck, but not threateningly. His finger touched her behind the ear, and she cautioned herself against making a fast move. Some secrets were best kept. “I need the gown, Lyric.”
This guy had a one-track mind, and the replay was growing old fast. “If you had the gown would you let me go?”
“Do you have a gown to give me?”
She rolled to her back, wincing at the sunlight. He thumbed her nipple, but she batted his hand away.
“That was the best sex I’ve had. Ever,” he said, sitting and reaching for his pants. “Thanks.”
She closed her eyes. Men were not supposed to thank a woman for having sex. That was wrong on every imaginable level. So much for bad-boy fantasies. He’d used her.
But she had used him, too.
The best ever? Poor guy, didn’t get around much, did he? On the other hand, it had been so freakin’ good. Her best ever? She wouldn’t admit it to herself.
“I suppose if I take a shower, you’ll dodge out the window.”
“You know it,” she answered.
“I need to go home, shower, and change my clothes. After lying on this bed, I feel … crusty. Which means you’ll be coming with me, sweetie.”
“I’m not your sweetie.”
“No, you’re not.” He exhaled and stood.
Lyric gazed at his bare back and ass. The hard muscles that flexed with his movement defined the dimples at the top of his buttocks. Nice. Without warrant, she imagined him inside her again, pumping hard, filling her, his jaw clenched, and bringing her to climax. A shiver traced through her system.
“Yeah, it was as good as you remember,” he commented over his shoulder.
Lyric leaned up on an elbow. “You know you just had sex with a vampire.”
“I know.”
“You ever do that before?”
“Nope.”
Wow. Most vamps socialized with one another, and a lot dated vampires exclusively and used mortals for sex only when biting them.
“Any regrets?” she asked.
Shimmying up his pants and carefully tucking away his semihard penis as he zipped, Vail shrugged. “Actually, no, no regrets.”
“You seem surprised.”
He picked up her dress and tossed it over her breasts, then leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, slow, delving, most definitely not a regretful kiss.
“I am,” he said. Another quick kiss. “You’ve only just met me, but I’m sure you’ve determined a vampire would not be my first choice to bed.”
“Faeries first?”
He shrugged. “Anything but vampires.”
Way to make her feel sexy and appreciated. Not.
“We were just using each other,” she felt the need to say. It was an ingrained response.
No man had ever looked at her and seen Lyric, the girl who wanted to live in a faery-tale castle. The girl who wanted to travel the world, and live on a tropical island where the houses had no walls and the sand was white. The girl who spent her free time tucked away in a quiet gym in the second arrondissement, suspended upside down from silken fabric because joining the circus was also a real dream.
No, suitors had always seen the advantages to aligning themselves to the Santiago clan. Lyric expected others to use her.
“Don’t sweat it,” she offered by rote.
Vail grabbed her hands as she inspected the torn dress. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
His dark eyes were still smudged with black liner this morning and it drew her focus to the gorgeous blue irises. “What we did last night started out as a means to get what I wanted from you,” he said. “But do you seriously believe fucking a woman is the wisest way to conduct an investigation?”
The kiss touched her at the corner of her mouth, sweet yet lingering, as if wanting to imprint his mark for the world to see every time her smile curled.
She’d been imprinted once already. Lyric twisted her head away from Vail’s touch. She didn’t want another imprint, and needed one like a bullet through her brain right now.
“It was good, Lyric. But I don’t think either of us should beat ourselves up trying to figure the whys and hows of it. It happened. We enjoyed it. Now we step back into our roles.”
“You bad guy, me fleeing you?”
“Something