“I’m sorry, Ty. Really I wasn’t laughing at you. I love it when you touch me.” He made a grunting sound of disbelief and saw her white teeth flash in her smile. He started to lift off her, but her soft hands cupped his cheeks, pushing gently up into his hair.

“I also like widow’s peak right here. It makes you look so dark and angry all the time. I wish I had one, it might help me to look more intimidating.”

“You don’t need to be intimidating. I’ll protect you.”

She rolled her eyes and his muscles loosened as her hands ran through his wet hair, tracing his scalp. “You can’t always be around for every second. What if I go shopping and some lady butts in line ahead of me? Maybe if I had a widow’s peak like you, she’d back the hell up.”

Tyrian looked at her as if she were crazy. “That’s nonsense.” Now she looked at him like he was crazy.

“Obviously you’ve never been shopping during Christmas rush. Things get nasty, quick.”

He shook his head and couldn’t keep from touching her anymore. His fingers trailed down her cheek to her neck, feeling the thump of her pulse. Her cheeks flushed.

“What?” he asked. If anything, her blush deepened.

“Nothing.” Tyrian’s lips pulled into a smile.

“Tell me.”

Eyes twinkling she said, “Is that an order, Commander?” He nodded as he would to one of his warriors and she laughed.

“Well, I...” she looked away then squeezed her eyes shut and said, “I was just

remembering when you’d bitten me. The way you touched my pulse reminded me. I liked it a lot.” Her eyes shot to his, hungry and hot. Tyrian felt his fangs descend. His cock pulsed against her.

“I did too.” For some reason talking to her felt natural, right. It completely disconcerted him. He watched as pleasure left her face, turning into anger.

“No more frimar. Please, I can’t stand the thought of you going and using her when I’m here.”

“No, impossible.” She wrapped her legs around his thighs and brought him flush against her sex. He could feel the heat of her through her barely there dress and it burned. If she was trying to use sex to convince him, then he was afraid it might actually...work.

“Let her be Draven’s or someone else’s. You are my Protector and my vampire

boyfriend. That means I’ll serve that need—happily, I might add,” she said huskily. Whether on purpose or not, her hips rocked against his, catching his cock against her pussy lips and stroking it. He took a steadying breath.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Say yes, please,” she whispered, her hands stroking his shoulders, pulling his mouth down to hers. She slanted her lips against his on a moan and kissed him with growing passion.

Soon their tongues were thrusting against each other, their breaths mingling like a dance.

Tyrian was lost. She could ask for the world in that moment and he’d find a way to give it to her. “Yes.”

She smiled brilliantly at him then pulled him down for another kiss. Her mouth was wet and soft, lips even softer as they pressed against his. Something so wonderful had to lead to devastation. Tyrian pulled back from her and stood once again at the edge of the bed. She pouted at him and he couldn’t help but smile.

“I like it when you smile. You actually look happy.” Tyrian immediately frowned. She laughed at him and poked him in the stomach with her toes. He grabbed on to her foot and couldn’t keep himself from rubbing the gentle arch of her foot, the slender bone of her ankle. She was so much smaller than he was, so fragile in comparison.

“If we’re going to do this, then it will be my way.” He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

Her toes curled in his hand as he caressed her calf up and down.

“How so?” she asked breathlessly.

“You’re mine. No one touches you. You don’t touch at another man.”

She scoffed. “As if I could be interested in anyone else when I have the leader of the Atal Warriors at my feet stroking me to heaven.”

“This isn’t stroking you to heaven, but I will be soon.” It was a dark promise that sent her eyes wide. Tyrian ran his hand up her slender thighs and felt the lacy press of her garter. He tossed the skirt of her dress up. Had to see it.

A deep, masculine groan left his chest at the sight of black stockings and creamy skin.

Her stocking met her thigh halfway and two dainty straps held her stocking up to some contraption around her waist.

“This is...” he stopped, unsure how to describe it, what to say. She smiled at him and he swore she wiggled her hips at him.

“My garter belt. Do you like? I was hoping you would.” Tyrian’s skin bunched tight. His control was slipping past him with unsettling ease. He ran both hands over her knees to caress the soft bare skin at the tops of her thighs.

Raggedly, he said, “The only thing that would be better would be if you’d worn no

underwear at all. Then I could see all of you, spread open and soft.” She gasped and undulated like a wave.

“Tyrian...I need your touch.”

He was in a sexual haze, something she always managed to make him feel when she was around. He reached and grasped her slender hips, loving the way she quivered in his hands.

“Are you wet and ready for me? Do you want me to touch your pussy? Will my cock sink inside you?”

“Yes.” Her answer was hoarse and filled with a need he understood.

The snap of the garter breaking was loud in the room. Tyrian didn’t care. He had to get her naked beneath him. He tugged the black stocking down over her creamy leg. Each new inch of skin raised his ardor like a stoked fire. He couldn’t keep himself from pressing his lips to her inner thigh.

His tongue flicked out, licking her warm skin. He smelled her sweet sex and wanted to pound in and never stop. But he couldn’t do that to her. He’d been rough so many times with her.

She deserved to be treated with gentle, slow loving. And if he kept a reign on his passion, he might just be able to do it.

Her hands tunneled into his hair and she almost seemed to be tugging him closer to her sex. He could smell her rich scent and didn’t want to leave. He’d tasted her before and knew first-hand how the taste and scent lingered on his tongue for days. It was ecstasy and torture.

His lips pressed against the rapid, throbbing pulse of her thigh as his fangs descended. He felt parched like he hadn’t drank in ages. He wrapped an arm around her lush, round thigh, cradling her close as he slid his free arm up her dress to latch onto a soft breast.

She moaned, her head swishing back and forth, hips pushing towards him in a rocking rhythm. He didn’t hesitate a second longer, he bared his fangs then sank them deep into her thigh.

She cried out, panted his name in a husky voice as her hands gripped his hair for support.

He lost his mind in her taste, in her essence. His cock throbbed so hard, so fast he was going to come if he didn’t stop. He heard her choked sob as she came, felt the pulsing waves soar through her. He kept at it, prolonging her release for as long as he could.

It was the hardest thing he ever had to do, to pull his mouth away, and lick the points of his passion.

Tyrian stood and dropped his cargo pants before climbing over her. She looked

disheveled and flushed—it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. She had one high heel on, one stocking on, and her dress was push up to her belly button.

Tyrian gripped the low hanging collar of her dress and ripped it down the middle.

“Baby! You didn’t have to do that.” He grunted, his eyes raking like coals over her breasts, her hard-tipped nipples.

“Disagree,” he said, then latched onto one breast, sucking as much of her as possible into his mouth. He licked and pulled at her nipple until she made soft, gasping sounds. Her legs scissored around his, her hips seeking, searching.