“Your jeans?” he echoed.

“You put them on me, and they’re definitely in the way. Take them off.” Her hand was wandering lower, her fingers walking lightly over his clenching muscles, a deliberate persuasion.

His hands made quick work of unfastening her jeans and tugging them down her legs. She kicked them aside and leaned forward to press a kiss onto his stomach. Her hair slid over his heavy fullness, a silken tangle that nearly drove him out of his mind. “Sometimes your orders are very easy to follow, ma chérie,” he murmured, his eyes closing as her mouth wandered lower.

He cupped her breasts in his palms, his thumbs caressing the tips into hard, beckoning peaks. His hips thrust forward almost against his own will, his body taking on a life of its own. Her fingers dug into his buttocks, urging him deeper into her, then slid down to caress the thick columns of his thighs. Her fingernails raked his skin gently even as she arched her body to allow him better access to her aching breasts.

He burned for her in his body and his mind. There was a dull roar in his head, a rush of pleasure that washed over him and took with it every vestige of sanity. Outside, the wind began to pick up. It sang at the windows and brushed the thick walls, heralding a storm.

Neither heard or cared. The storm was raging inside as he pushed her down, his mouth finding every inch of her body, every shadow and hollow, caressing and inflaming. Creating fire. Creating a storm. Gregori moved over her, her soft skin against his palms, his mouth hot on her skin. She drove away his demons, the terrible sights and hideous deaths. She took away the loneliness and replaced it with such pleasure, he wasn’t certain he would survive it.

Her inarticulate cry was muffled with his own mouth as he entered her, burying himself deep. She was velvet soft, fiery hot, exquisitely tight, surrounding him, gripping him in molten heat. He whispered to her in the ancient language, words she couldn’t understand, but he meant every one of them, words he had never said before, never felt before. She might never really know him, yet he was branded by her for all time. He was hers alone. He worshipped her. And the only way he had of showing her was with his body, his strength, his knowledge, his expertise.

His body took hers, a demanding possession that went on and on. A bolt of lighting sizzled and danced across the sky. The earth moved beneath them. None of it mattered. He took his time, over and over, ensuring her pleasure first and foremost. She was clinging to him, with him, as he finally allowed himself release. He never wanted to stop, afraid that if he let her go, she would somehow slip away forever.

Gregori swore softly and rolled over to force his body away from hers. She was making him crazy. Desperate. He was going to kill them both with his insatiable appetite. Already his fingers were curling in her hair, bunching silken strands in his fist.

Savannah heard the soft, hissing words flowing from his mouth, and her heart stood still. He had just shaken her entire world, set it on fire, and now he was angry. She turned her back to him so that he could not see her hurt. “What did I do wrong?” she asked in a small voice.

Gregori tugged on her hair to force her back to him. “You make me feel alive, Savannah.”

“Do I? Is that why you’re swearing?” She turned onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows.

He leaned into her, brushing his mouth across the swell of her breast. “You are managing to tie me up in knots. You take away all my good judgment.”

A slight smile curved her mouth. “I never noticed that you had particularly good judgment to begin with.”

His white teeth gleamed, a predator’s smile, then sank into soft bare flesh. She yelped but moved closer to him when his tongue swirled and caressed, taking away the sting. “I have always had good judgment,” he told her firmly, his teeth scraping back and forth in the valley between her breasts.

“So you say. But that doesn’t make it so. You let evil idiots shoot you with poisoned darts. You go by yourself into laboratories filled with your enemies. Need I go on?” Her blue eyes were laughing at him.

Her firm, rounded bottom was far too tempting to resist. He brought his open palm down in mock punishment. Savannah jumped, but before she could scoot away, his palm began caressing, producing a far different effect. “Judging from our positions, ma chérie,I would say my judgment looks better than yours.”

She laughed. “All right, I’m going to let you win this time.”

“Would you care for a shower?” he asked solicitously.

When she nodded, Gregori flowed off the bed, lifted her high into his arms, and cradled her against his chest. There was something too innocent about him. She eyed him warily. But in an instant he had already glided across the tiled floor to the balcony door, which flew open at his whim, and carried her, naked, into the cold, glittering downpour.

Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. “Gregori! You’re so mean. I can’t believe you did this.”

“Well, I have poor judgment.” He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. “Is that not what you said?”

“I take it back!” she moaned, clinging to him, burying her face on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast.

“Run with me tonight,” Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world.

She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost. The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony, she couldn’t look away from those hungry eyes. She nodded, accepting his will for them that night.

Following the desire in his mind, she focused on picturing the necessary image. And her body began to contort. There was a curious wrenching, a strange, disorienting feeling, and then her skin rippled with glossy blue-black fur as her body rapidly changed. Soon a small, blue-eyed wolf stood in the rain, watching as a huge black wolf nudged her, his tongue lapping a rough caress along her muzzle.

Savannah turned and trotted through the dense vegetation, exalting in the freedom of the wolf’s body. Gregori glided beside her, close and protective. The wind sang, and the trees rustled. She could hear everything, feel everything, the night itself calling to her. She began to run as her body was meant to, with long, loping strides, her neck stretched forward.

She felt wild. No longer human. Free. She ran fast, swerving in and out through the trees. Gregori kept pace, occasionally touching her sleek body with his muzzle or nudging her flank or shoulder to turn her in the direction he wished to go. Savannah flushed out a rabbit, then chased it for the sheer joy of it before turning along a little-used path through heavy brush.

She scented others of her kind. Wolves running free. Several males, three females. The huge wolf at her side bared his fangs and nudged her away from the scent. Savannah resisted his efforts and trotted around him, lured by the wild call. Gregori growled, fangs exposed, his large body bumping, then blocking hers, effectively stopping her. He pushed her toward home.

She gave him one look that said it all. He had proposed the run, the shape-shifting; now she was demanding that he quit messing with her fun. He began nudging her harder. She would be exhausted with the night’s activities. He wanted her to start back.

When she refused, he nipped her small flank, a reminder of who was in charge. She snapped at him but ultimately obeyed, and they loped back together through the forest.

Once at the house, they shimmered back into human form, and Gregori caught her hand and pulled her inside. Water streamed off her naked body and dripped from her hair. She glared at him. “You have to be bossy no matter what you are, don’t you?”