“Don’t be sorry,” he growled. “Just do it again.” He sucked on her bottom lip, hard, causing sizzling goose bumps to sprout from head to toe.

More erotic, freeing words had never been spoken. As a Harpy, she was stronger and more vicious than almost all other immortals. She’d always had to temper her passions and hold back. Even with Paris.

She didn’t think she’d have to hold back with Strider—and wouldn’t. Whatever she dished, he could take. Hell, he would revel in. He was too strong, too determined for anything less. And really, he might look like an angel, but he was far wickeder than any other Lord. The best kind of wicked, at that. Devilish. Gentle and easy weren’t his style.

He found humor in the strangest things. If he discovered one of his friends chained to a female’s bed (cough Lucien cough), he took pictures and emailed them to every one he knew. How cool was that?

A man like that would never ask her to stop stealing. He might even join her on her obligatory forays, keeping her dark side happy without causing too much damage. More than that, he knew triumph and loss better than any other. He would revel in her every accomplishment, good, bad or ugly. He would be the first to tell her when she’d screwed up, but he wouldn’t write her off.

Or maybe the man she pictured in her mind was pure fantasy. The one on top of her thought to barter with her, his body in exchange for her cooperation. That pissed her off royally—but not enough to stop this tasting.

He was her drug of choice, she mused, and she was already addicted to him.

“Kaia! Pay some fucking attention to what’s happening here,” he snarled.

Startled back to her senses, she blinked up at him. He was panting, sweating—perhaps more than he should—his features tight with strain. He must have been calling for her for quite a while. And damn, she’d stopped kissing him to ponder his virtues and follies, she realized. A travesty she would rectify immediately.

“I’m here.” She wrapped her legs around him and locked her ankles, arching up. More contact with his erection, more gasping from her. So delicious. So perfect. So freaking hot.

“Good girl.” His tongue found its way back inside her mouth, and they dueled, fighting for dominance.

She let him win, submitting, allowing him to take the lead, urging her toward complete satisfaction. Or maybe insanity. Her mind fogged with desire, her blood heated to blistering and her Harpy sang with approval.

This was everything she had been dreaming of, fantasizing about, craving with every fiber of her being. Her man, feasting on her, grinding against her. She would never get enough of him, would always want more. Always need more. Her nerve endings caught fire, the ever-growing blaze nearly too much, the ache between her legs fierce.

She had to lock this deal up tight. Love him within an inch of his life, bind them together, and never, never, allow him to escape her. Never allow any of the other Harpies near him. He was hers. Would always be hers.

You can’t think like that. He’s a warrior, used to control. You try to bind him, and he’ll run. This has to be a partnership, not a Harpytatorship. Yes, okay. She could do that. Work with him. Anything to keep him with her, to kiss him again, to have him, all of him. Question—could he work with her?

“Damn it, Kaia.” He removed his hand from her jaw and cupped one of her breasts, squeezing. “What the hell is going on in that head of yours?”

“You, us, together. Yes,” she moaned, pressing herself into the touch. Hot, she was so hot, and only growing hotter. “More.”

“Good, okay, yes. Harder?”

“Harder. Please.” She lifted her hips off the mattress, the springs squeaking, and moved herself against him. Steam might even have risen from her pores, surrounding them both, thickening the air. “More. All.”

“Damn, your mouth is a firestorm. Burns. And yeah, baby doll, I’ll give you—” He sucked in another breath, stiffened, cursed. Cursed so violently she was surprised her ears hadn’t started bleeding. “All right. Yes. We’ll do this. You and me. I’ll give you more, all.”

His voice was…odd, she thought distantly. No longer layered with arousal, but as stiff as his body now was, and formal. Almost robotic. Why? What had changed? She mourned the loss.

He fit their lips back together and the kiss continued. She rubbed her core up and down his length, unable to stop herself, never loosening her grip around his waist. He settled against her, his skin slick with sweat. She fell back to the bed, but all the while she fought through the now cooling lust-fog, determined to figure out what was going on with him.

His tongue moved in and out of her mouth, mimicking sex. His hand squeezed her breast every few seconds. He swirled his hips at the same time, brushing against her clitoris. It was a dance, each movement fitting the rhythm of the next. His technique was flawless. Soon he would make her come.

Technique, she thought then. Yes, that’s exactly what this was. A technique. He was hard where it counted, yes, but also where it didn’t, his muscles petrified into stone. He wasn’t moaning in surrender. How could he? Every swish of his tongue was calculated, as if he were thinking about what to do rather than allowing instinct to guide him. As if he had absolute control and wasn’t even close to losing it.

Which meant he wasn’t enjoying what he was doing. He was simply performing, driving her need higher and higher, manipulating her. Giving her what she wanted, but not taking what he needed.

He had somehow managed to detach himself.

“What do you like?” he asked. “Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

She could have been anyone, and it wouldn’t have mattered to him. And when it was over, he would have taken her, had her, but she would have been one of a thousand others, unimportant and temporary. An easy conquest. A means to an end.

No. No! She would not be Kaia the Disappointment. Not with him. She would not be content with the scraps of his affections and call it good. She would have all or nothing. Settling was for the weak.

She was not weak.

But even knowing what he was doing, even hurting as she was—again—and even as desperate as she was for release, she couldn’t bring herself to harm him physically. Not by her hand, and not by using his demon. He had to win this contest of wills without smothering her pride anymore than he already had. Somehow, someway.

She cut off a bitter laugh. Once again she would be throwing a fight. This time, however, the prize was far more important. His body…and his heart? No, not his heart. That, he would never offer. Not to her. The same determination that had sculpted him into such a fierce warrior and lover had turned him into an emotional recluse. Cooling…cooling… “Strider?”

A swipe of his tongue, a squeeze of his hand. “Tell me,” he said, ignoring her. “Your mouth, the heat is gone.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Either way, I like it. But why the change?”

Enough of this. Besides, she didn’t know. She’d never heated up like that before. “I don’t…I don’t think you can stop.” Gods, saying the words, letting them raze her throat, left her trembling with frustration.

He froze above her, beads of sweat still dripping from him. In fact, his shirt was soaked, sticking to his chest. “What did you just say?”

“I don’t think you can stop kissing me, stop touching me.”

With more of those black curses ringing from him, he jolted away from her, off the bed and to his feet. He remained at the edge of the mattress, glaring down at her as she eased to a sitting position. She struggled to breathe, her lungs still cooling…cooling.

“Damn it, Kaia.”

She flashed her fangs at him. “That isn’t my name.”

That gave him pause. “What? Kaia? I happen to know otherwise.”

“No. Damn it, Kaia isn’t my name.”