“I want to finish you off with my mouth for one.”

She felt him shudder and deep inside her, his cock twitched. Nice.

“I want to have my hips pressed up close to your face.”

“I’d tongue you.”

“I’d count on that.” She reached up and kissed him. “But do you know what I really want to do?”

He shook his head. His hips swiveled, and she could feel that he was growing hard again. She responded by giving her pelvis a quick upward jerk. He groaned. “What do you really want to do?” he asked.

“I want to explore every part of your body, especially the muscles of your arms, your thighs, your ass. I want to use my lips, my tongue, my breasts, my fingers and savor all that you are.”

He began to move into her once more. She moved with him. She kept talking about his body, his chest, pecs, and abs, how she would suck on him and use her hand at the same time. She talked about biting his feet then each butt cheek in turn. She kept it up until he was pounding once more, hard and fast, and she was shouting into his face, “Fuck me, Adrien. Fuck me.”

With her flesh made tender by the first orgasm, the second was like a skyrocket shooting through her body. She clung to him and screamed and savored the pleasure that streaked along every sensitive nerve and that kept streaking as long as he slammed into her.

His hips continued to pound her and then she felt it, like a tingling through her abdomen that ended at the vein of her neck.

She touched his face and eased back his upper lip.

His fangs glistened.

“Lily.” His deep voice filled the air.

She rolled her head.

He struck quickly, a flash of pain that disappeared in a funnel of sucking pleasure as he began to drink from her. Her back arched as desire flooded her body. What was it about the giving of her lifeblood that heightened the ecstasy rising once more?

He groaned as he drank, his hips thrusting into her heavily again, his hands holding her shoulders to keep her seated against his mouth.

The well of her took strong pulls on what was so beautifully hard, and the spasming started all over again. More cries and moans left her mouth.

When his release came, she rode yet another wave of ecstasy to the point that she grew hoarse and her arms ached from holding on to him so hard.

When the last of the pleasure drifted away, she struggled to catch her breath. Her body leaked perspiration. She wiped a stream from his forehead as well and said, “Can you fly us straight back to the shower in Rumy’s suite? Just like this?”

He chuckled. “In a minute, when I can breathe again.”

She laughed and hugged him. She sighed and this time took air deep into her lungs, a place she was sure her body hadn’t received air in a long, long time.

An hour later, Adrien stood by the mantel of the fireplace in Rumy’s guest suite, staring at nothing in particular, sobered by what had happened at Eve’s apartment.

He felt different, yet more himself than he’d ever been.

He wore his Brioni tux, ready for the gala, but what would he find there in Beijing? Daniel would attend. He never missed a social event of this magnitude in which at least a hundred Ancestrals would be present as well as the Council.

And now Adrien had the right to attend because he’d embraced his genetics and his future.

Daniel’s machinations had forced the issue, of course. If Daniel hadn’t taken over the Council, if he hadn’t somehow forced Lily’s hand to create a blood-chain bond with Adrien, if Daniel hadn’t wanted the extinction weapon as though his life depended on it, Adrien wouldn’t have gone down this path.

He’d still be a regular fighting vampire, working on behalf of the his world to keep peace and to sustain secrecy.

Now he was on the Ancestral track and he could never return to the old ways.

He stared at his ruby cuff links, frowning. He liked his new level of power, and what he experienced was just the beginning.

Everything felt new and different to him, as though even his vision had changed.

“Adrien, I’m ready.”

He pushed away from the stone mantelpiece and turned, but what met his sight wasn’t Lily, but the vision of her that he’d had not so long ago, before he’d even met her, the woman in the burgundy gown with gold crystals embroidered along the deep V cut of the bodice. The gown fit snugly to her waist and hips, flaring around her shoes just enough to allow for walking. Otherwise it fit her like a second skin.

“You look beautiful.” He started moving in her direction, drawn to her, the chains resting beneath his shirt vibrating softly when he was this close, and yes, feeling this much.

He took both her hands in his and kissed the backs of her fingers. She wore lip gloss, which meant he needed to let her keep it on, so he dipped low and kissed down her exquisite line of cleavage. Maybe he would never have chosen this path for himself, but sharing the blood-chains with Lily had become a surprisingly tender and moving experience.

The soft moan that left her lips, combined with the rush of her sweet, feminine scent, helped him to know that she was as engaged as he.

When he lifted his head, tearing himself away from her soft breasts, he drew her carefully into his arms. “Is this love?” he asked.

She shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s damn close.” Her eyes glistened.

“Aw to hell with it.” He kissed her full on the lips, ruining the gloss she’d applied so carefully.

Lily slung her arm around Adrien’s neck and kissed him back. From the moment she’d seen him by the fireplace, her desire for him, her need for him, had risen all over again. That he looked magnificent in black and white didn’t help matters at all.

But it was more than just his appearance, which always tended to weaken her knees anyway. He had a different air, a different feeling about him, something the chains helped her to feel, of course, but even his posture was different, a little straighter, his chin higher.

She understood that feeling because she shared it—a kind of brazen confidence born from overcoming a few things, like being able to dominate a vampire on a sex table, or tracking a weapon through miles of extended caves, or even being able to siphon Adrien’s power and finally communicate with her son.

Yes, she understood what Adrien was feeling extremely well because on the coattails was that elusive thing called hope. Maybe now, after accomplishing so much together, they could succeed at what needed doing, at finding the weapon and rescuing Josh because of it, so that Lily could at last bring him home.

As she drew back, she wondered if she should tell Adrien about her son. Hadn’t he earned the right to know the truth despite Kiernan’s warning to keep it a secret? Didn’t her hard-won relationship with Adrien demand the truth?

She wanted to tell him. Desperately.

She planted a hand on his chest.

“What is it?” His brow furrowed, a familiar look for him.

She made the decision and the dam within her broke. “Adrien, my son isn’t dead. He’s alive. Kiernan has him. He’s had him for two years, since the attack on my neighborhood. He’s kept him all this time, without my knowledge, when I thought Josh was dead, so that when Daniel wanted to use him to get to me, to create this”—she touched the chain at her neck—“he’d have the tool he needed, the only thing that would have ever persuaded me down this road with you.”

Adrien blinked a couple of times. His head jerked as he processed what she’d just told him. His lips parted; he might even have murmured something. He finally said, “I imagined so many things, this secret that you’d kept from me, but not this. Oh, dear God.” He stepped sideways, releasing her. He seemed to have trouble breathing. He pressed a fist to his forehead.