The sight of her midnight eyes clouded with desire filled him with a satisfaction he wouldn’t have believed himself capable of, not when it came to a human. But she wasn’t just any human. She was the one who’d freed him.

She cried out when he pressed deeper. She was so tight, so hot he nearly came from the exquisite pleasure of having the muscles of her sheath tighten and spasm on him.

“Araña,” he whispered, the name torment and benediction.

It strained his control to keep from thrusting all the way in a single stroke, to keep from giving in to the mindless, clawing hunger she created in him—a hunger magnified by centuries upon centuries of abstinence.

Alpha and omega. The first and the last.

He couldn’t remember anything as pleasurable, didn’t know if he’d ever lain with a woman before.

He’d never imagined how close ecstasy and torment could be.

With excruciating slowness he worked his way in. He couldn’t resist the urge to cover her mouth with his, to feel her open for him, letting his tongue slide past her lips as his cock had done through the slick, swollen folds of her labia.

He shivered when he was fully seated. Stilled.

It was beyond imagining.

Tight vaginal muscles rippled and clenched, welcomed and resisted.

Heat surrounded him, bathed him, made him want to cry out.

Araña.

Her name echoed through him. In warning? In recognition?

He didn’t know. He knew only that nothing had ever felt as good as this, as having her beneath him, her body open and his penis held deep and fast inside her.

Araña’s arms tightened around Tir’s neck. The thick length of his cock was a throbbing presence in her channel, an echoed heartbeat filling her, stretching her in a seamless blending of pain and pleasure.

His lips left hers and she cried out at the loss. When their eyes met, the intimacy was nearly too much for her. She felt exposed, stripped bare, the shields necessary to survive no longer hiding her vulnerability, her need for love and touch.

Araña lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his, wanting to hide, willing to give her body but not her soul, not to a stranger who would soon be gone from her life.

His kiss didn’t allow the escape. His tongue plundered, commanded, insisted she cling to him, surrender a part of herself she knew she would never recover.

It didn’t matter, she told herself, knowing it was a lie and forcing everything from her mind but the moment, the reality of having Tir inside her.

She felt him fighting to give her time to adjust to his size even as need pulsed between them in a fierce, rapid beat that made it impossible to remain still.

Her sheath tightened on him. Feminine pride surged through her with the catch of his breath, the sharp thrust of his hips.

“Please, Tir,” she said against his mouth, and it was as if some barrier inside him broke.

His tongue fucked against hers as the hard length of him surged in and out of her.

She clung to him, moved with him.

Ecstasy. There was no other word for it.

She understood then why fortunes and lives and honor itself were sacrificed for the promise of passion.

Hot flesh and masculine desire turned her into a primal woman, a creature caught in the endless spirals of fierce joy.

She struggled for breath.

To get closer.

To reach the pinnacle that expressed itself in a sharp cry and brought exultation when her orgasm triggered his, leaving her swamped in feelings she never thought she’d experience.

For long moments afterward he continued to lie on top of her, nuzzling, kissing, his cock still inside her, as if he were in no hurry to part from her.

He was everything she’d dreamed a lover would be.

It was foolish, she knew it was, but she closed her eyes and allowed herself to pretend she’d always have this. Tir’s touch. His body covering hers. The pleasure he’d shown her was possible between a man and a woman.

When he finally rolled away to sit in the shallow pool, she wanted to follow him, to climb onto his lap and cling to him. Instead she sat, bathing herself in the sun-warmed water, struggling in the aftermath of sex to find words, chiding herself for the fierce longing to be held, for craving true intimacy as well as touch.

Her eyes teared with memories of Matthew and Erik together. Their shared glances and casual caresses, the way it was impossible to think about one of them without thinking about the other. Her throat tightened and she forced the pain back to the place in her heart that would always contain it. She couldn’t afford the weakness.

Live in the moment, in the here and now. That’s what life had taught her.

Make the most of every opportunity. That was the lesson favored by Erik and Matthew.

Tir watched the play of Araña’s thoughts across her face. Her emotions buffeted him, sliding through mental barriers erected over centuries.

What was it about this human that affected him so strongly? Stripped away his control as though it were nonexistent?

She rose from the shallow pool, black hair and water trailing down her back, tanned skin covering sleek muscle and a beautiful feminine form. She was like the Eve of the religious— unbearable temptation capable of leading any man to his destruction.

Tir caressed her with his eyes, hunger flaming to life, filling his cock so it rose along his abdomen, filling his testicles so they hung heavy with seed. There was a fleeting thought to ask her about the scars crisscrossing her back, the brand on her hand, but when she stepped onto the mossy bank and turned toward him, dark eyes sultry, holding a knowledge he’d given her, only carnal desire remained.

“I want you again,” she whispered, meeting his gaze boldly before lowering her eyelashes, shy temptress and brazen seductress rolled into one.

TIR surged out of the water to go to her, the gentle first lover he had been giving way to something darker, more primitive, as the promises he’d made to himself roared to life with the sight of her bare mound.

“Lie down,” he ordered.

Color bloomed in her cheeks. But her nipples beaded, making him hunger for a taste of them.

She sat, drawing her knees to her chest, her movements graceful. The erotic fear he read in her and her subtle disobedience heightened his desire.

Tir crouched in front of her, a male in his prime, his thighs splayed, affording her a view of his thick erection and heavy testicles.

If he hadn’t been sure of his own ability to discern the nature of others, he’d have thought she had to be a gifted witch to affect him so profoundly, to do what no human female had ever done before, harden his cock and take away his will to resist.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, tightened them until she tilted her head backward, exposing her neck in an unconscious show of submission.

The scent of her arousal swamped him, told him she would accept a dominant lover. And his lips pulled back in silent anger at the thought of any other male having her.

He pressed his lips to her throat, feeling the wildness of her heartbeat there—a primal fear mixed with the desire to mate, both of them knowing he could easily kill her. Both of them knowing he wouldn’t.

Because of her, he wore no shackles. Because of her, sunlight danced on his skin, flirting with shadows as a breeze dried him, reminding him he was physically free for the first time in memory.

He wouldn’t let the desire he felt for her enslave him, he told himself, kissing upward until he covered her mouth with his, swallowing her cry before he took her breath and gave her his. He’d been at the mercy of humans for centuries. Now he had one of them completely helpless, subject to his will.

His tongue dominated hers. His fingers slid through raven-black hair, tugging, pulling her backward until she lay sprawled on lush green moss. It took more effort than it should have to keep from following her all the way down, from covering her body with his and thrusting inside her again.