I dropped my hands from his body with great reluctance and pressed my fingertips into the wall so I could push off. We stumbled blindly over to the bed, where I pushed him down and continued to strip him naked. Burying his hand in my hair, he pulled me on top of him. His kisses were hotter now and his body felt like it was on fire next to mine. I stretched out, pressing my entire length along his so I could feel all of him.

My fangs ached to enter his neck. Something inside of me craved his blood like a human craved air. The feeling crawled inside of me, burning away at my soul. I clenched my teeth and focused on his hands as they slid over my body, learning every curve and hollow. The craving finally subsided but the need to have him grew stronger.

“Please, Danaus, I need you,” I panted, pulling him on top of me. He rolled over, positioning himself between my thighs. I grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and pulled his mouth down to mine as he grabbed my hips and thrust into me. My back arched off the bed and I moaned.

Danaus swore softly once as he started to slowly move inside of me. I dropped my hands to the bedsheets and raked my long fingernails along the fabric, shredding it. I moved in time with him, following each wave of pleasure as it pulsed through me.

Smiling up at him as his long black hair crowded around his face, I wrapped my legs around his and pushed him over onto his back while he remained inside of me. Straddling him, I rode him slowly, running my fingers along his rib cage and over his flat nipples.

“I take it you want to be on top,” he murmured in a deep husky voice that sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to take this slowly. I had waited too long to finally be able to touch him, to look down on his face wreathed in peace and pleasure. I wanted to savor this moment when the world wasn’t crashing in around us.

But the slow ride couldn’t last. I felt the orgasm rising within me, building so that muscles tightened and I could no longer form a coherent thought beyond the feeling of him moving in and out of my body. The need was on Danaus as well. He roughly grabbed my hips, forcing me to go at a faster pace as he pushed harder within me. I braced my hands on either side of his head and arched my back as the first wave rippled through me, tearing a scream from my throat in the form of his name. I rode him into mindless oblivion, where he joined me only seconds later. I felt the warm rush inside me as his own orgasm claimed his body. His arms tightened around my waist and he let out a low groan that seemed to have been torn from his very soul.

I collapsed on top of him, no longer able to hold myself up. My body was covered in his sweat and I rose and fell with each heavy breath he took. I felt at peace. There were no naturi or coven Elders waiting for us just around the corner. The world wasn’t going to Hell in a handbasket. We weren’t enemies sworn to fight until one or both of us died. We were just two people enjoying each other.

After several minutes I leaned up on one elbow and looked down on Danaus. His eyes were closed and his breathing had evened out at last. I brushed some of his long hair out of his eyes and smoothed it away from his sweaty brow.

“Feeling better?” I asked, unable to keep the contented purr from my voice.

“It’s a good start,” he said with a smile.

But to my dismay the smile faded almost as quickly as it formed and slight furrows appeared on his smooth brow. His look of peace and contentment crumbled before my eyes and I couldn’t understand why. Reluctantly, I dipped into his mind. I just wanted to see where his thoughts were going. Were worries of the naturi and Veyron seeping back in already?

How are we going to make this work?

Danaus’s words echoed through my brain, assaulting my heart. I could feel the doubt hanging in those heavy words and I felt paralyzed. I was losing him before we had ever really had a chance.

Sucking in a deep breath, I forced a smile on my face before pressing a brief kiss to his temple. “Don’t think about it too much. It was just sex,” I forced myself to say as I rolled off him. I briskly scooped up my robe from where I had dropped it on the floor and pulled it on while walking into the living room of the hotel suite.

I carefully erected a wall of stone around my heart, but it felt as if it were crumbling before the mortar had a chance to dry. I wanted Danaus. Not just in my bed, but in my life. I wanted him as my companion, my lover, and my friend. But I could feel the doubt rising within him. I was a nightwalker and he was a nightwalker hunter. He had spent centuries hating my kind. That was not going to be overcome with one night in bed.

Maybe he was right. How were we going to make this work?

I walked over to the desk and leaned my hands against the top, staring down at the piece of paper on which I’d written the names of the leaders of Budapest. Picking up my pen, I drew an X through Ferko’s name. One down, four to go.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Danaus walk into the room still completely naked and oblivious to the broken bit of furniture and glass that still littered the ground.

“Why did you leave?” he asked as he came to stand behind me. “I wasn’t done with you yet.”

“I thought I’d give you a chance to recover,” I said, not moving from where I stood leaning over the desk.

Danaus reached down and pulled up the edge of the robe so my backside was exposed. I started to stand upright when he placed a firm hand on my lower back, keeping me bent over. His other hand swept over my thighs before he reached between my legs. He inserted two fingers inside me, drawing a groan from my throat as my eyes drifted shut. “Why did you run from me?” he demanded as he drew his fingers in and out.

“I didn’t,” I croaked. My throat would no longer work and I was choking on the words. “I thought you needed to rest.”

“You’re wrong and you’re lying,” he said. He removed his fingers and immediately pushed his rock hard penis back inside of me. He slowly drew it out and then pushed it back inside. “So wet,” he murmured. “Just for me. So tight and so wet, just for me.”

His words sent a shiver through my body as I could feel his pleasure. He grew harder and thicker as he moved within me. From this angle he was deeper than he had been before, driving me insane with his slow movement when I wanted him hard and fast.

“It’s never just sex between us, Mira. It never could be,” he whispered in a rough voice. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my shoulder that nearly brought tears to my eyes. “Does this feel like just sex to you? Do you think that’s even possible between us?”

“No,” I groaned as I tried to quicken the pace, but he held me still. He moved with a slow pace, driving me toward madness as he brought me to the edge of an orgasm, but I couldn’t quite reach it.

“Then why say it?”

“Because you have doubts. You don’t think we can work. I heard your thoughts,” I admitted. I tried to reach between my legs to touch myself, to finally push my body over the edge I was teetering on, but Danaus grabbed my hands and held them down on the desk and leaned forward.

“I have doubts, but I’m willing to try. It’s the best I can offer,” he said, growing still as his voice became deeper and huskier. “Will you try? I need you, Mira. Try for me.”

“I’ll try,” I whispered. I leaned over and pressed a kiss into his arm, loving the feel of him wrapped around me and pressed deep inside of me.

“Thank you,” he said. He reached down between my legs, pressing his fingers into my clitoris. My body jerked and hummed with a newfound tension as he pulled me back toward the edge. He picked up the pace, pounding his body inside of mine, earning a whimper from me as I hovered just short of an orgasm.

And then my world shattered. My bowstring taut body snapped and everything exploded as wave after wave of pleasure hammered through my frame, leaving me weak-kneed and shaking. Danaus held tight to my hips as he continued to pound into me until his body went stiff with the orgasm that swept through him.