His lips latched onto her clit, and he sucked hard, his tongue circling and flicking… and then he inserted his finger deep into her core. It was as if lightning had struck her. Every cell in her body exploded with ecstasy, her blood boiled, and pleasure shot up her spine and came out her mouth as a scream. His finger swirled inside her as his mouth continued to work on her flesh, and she came again, over and over, her body bucking uncontrollably, until finally, mercifully, he stopped, and she lay limp on the floor.

He crawled up her body, his muscles tense, bunching as he moved. “I’m not done with you, sweetheart,” he growled. “Not. Even. Close.”

A tremor shook her body at the undercurrent of possession in his voice. He wasn’t done because he hadn’t gotten what he wanted out of her yet. And as she looked into his heated gaze, she knew what he wanted.

Her soul.

Sin’s broken, whispered words, “I can’t,” when he’d said they were going to make love instead of get down and dirty and violent had sucker punched Con. He’d known at that moment that no one had ever taken time with her, had ever shown her any kind of compassion or attention during sex, and she didn’t know how to handle it, accept it, or feel deserving of it. For the longest time, he’d assumed her tough exterior was a defense against the things she did and saw on the job, but now he’d glimpsed something inside her—an extremely low measure of self-worth.

And Con was at least partly to blame.

His own words, spoken just before they’d first had sex, came back in a sickening rush. She’d asked him about his motives, and he’d been crystal clear. I don’t want to get to know you. I want to fuck you.

How many times had she heard that in her life? How many times had a male dismissed her as a person and valued her only as an object to rut on? The answer, he knew, was too many, and while he couldn’t erase all of them, he could make up for his own shameful callousness.

“I see you, Sin,” he whispered. “I see you.”

He didn’t know if she heard, but before she could recover from the half-dozen climaxes he’d given her, Con stood, scooped her into his arms, and sank his fangs into her throat. She gasped, a sweet feminine sound that nearly took him to his knees again. He mounted the stairs two at a time, stalked to the bedroom, and eased them both onto the bed. At some point, she’d grabbed one of her daggers, and he wondered if she thought she needed protection from him… or if being armed was a habit that had risen out of living a dangerous life.

Gently, he extracted the blade from her hand, which still left her with her primary weapon—her gift. She didn’t protest, though she did note exactly where he had set the dagger on the nightstand.

Using his thigh to separate her legs, he sank between them. His shaft slipped between her swollen folds, and instantly, she locked her legs around his waist, urging him, tempting him. He didn’t tease. Her spicy blood mingled with the taste of her orgasms, feeding his desire.

His stomach and buttocks tightened as he concentrated on maintaining control, on sliding into her slowly instead of slamming home and fucking her into the mattress like instinct demanded of him. He’d taken things slow to this point, and he wasn’t going to stop now.

Not yet.

Her hot core clamped around him, sucking him deep and shredding his control. His body hummed with lust and new energy as her blood filled him. Deep inside, the connection with her intensified. He felt drugged, wanting… needing… more. It was as if every swallow made him hungrier instead of sated. Oh, this was bad, very bad…

Sin’s dermoirelit up, and her warmth joined the hum in his veins. “Almost, Con,” she breathed. “It’s almost gone.”

He had to stop. He was about two swallows from no return. She must have sensed his reluctance, because she fisted his hair and held him.

“This time, we finish it.”

Last time, he’d had the willpower to pull away, but then, he hadn’t been buried deep inside her. Now, he was helpless, a slave to the pull of her blood. He swallowed, again and again, knowing he’d crossed a line.

“It’s done,” she gasped. “The virus… it’s… gone.”

He barely heard her. Ecstasy had taken over, had engulfed him in a vortex he couldn’t escape. More… he needed more.

Sin cried out as pleasure swamped her. That was the danger of this addiction… The victim would feel nothing but euphoria and orgasms as they were drained to death.

Gods, no!

Con roared as he ripped his fangs from her throat. His entire body convulsed, and instant craving began again. He swiped his tongue over the punctures, savoring the last taste he could ever have of Sin.

Anger, frustration, and lust combined into a massively caustic mood, but somehow he managed to take it easy instead of pumping into her with punishing thrusts. But maybe in a way the gentle rhythm wasthe punishment. Forcing her to accept kindness might actually be cruel. It definitely wasn’t what she wanted.

“Harder,” she moaned, and he intentionally pulled back, holding her on the very edge.

“Am I your first?” he whispered, some deep, selfish part of him wanting to know for sure, wanted to hear her say that he was the only male who had ever made the act about more than tab A into slot B.

She threw her head back, exposing her long, graceful neck and making her hair spill like black silk across the red satin duvet. “Con—”

“Tell me.” He ground against her, took her breast into his mouth, and suckled until she whimpered. “Am. I. Your. First?”

“Yes.” That one barely audible word was loaded with a lifetime of emotion: regret, anger, sorrow. For a moment, he thought she was going to break down, but then her fingers raked down his back and ass, and he shuddered at the pleasure. “Now, please…”

He should have felt victorious, but instead, he felt like a bastard. Furious at himself, at her, at the entire world, he broke loose, hammered into her, and the result was electric. A shout tore from his throat, and he blew apart into a million pieces. Sin joined him, the effect of his seed splashing inside her instantaneous and magnificent. She shattered, her body clenching, her core milking him so hard he came again.

When it was over, when his senses came back online, he realized that beneath him, she’d stiffened. He inhaled, needing to know where her emotions were, and yeah, mingled with the heady scent of sex was an acrid note of anger.

Well, you wanted her to feel. Said you’d make it happen. Promised it would happen.

For the first time in his life, he wished he’d broken a promise.

“You son of a bitch,” Sin rasped.

“Yes, I’m a son of a bitch for making you come.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” She felt naked—well, more than physically, anyway. He’d somehow stripped away some of her emotional shielding, leaving an exposed gash.

Con lifted his head, and she saw something sad in his gaze before he rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “Tell me.”

He didn’t have to say anything else. She knew what he wanted. She trembled, and he simply held her, breaking her down with the force of his will and the strength of his embrace. “They… leave me.”

His eyes popped open. “Who leaves you?”

“Everyone,” she whispered. “If I care about them, or if I want them to care about me, they can’t. They leave me.” God, she couldn’t believe she was spilling her guts like that. The emotional laceration he’d made was bleeding out, a steady trickle of words she couldn’t stop.

Smoothly, he rolled them to their sides and his hand stroked her back, coaxing more out of her. “You have Lore.”

“He left me, too.”

“Lore? What happened?” He tucked her face into his chest, the best thing he could have done, because she couldn’t talk while looking at him. When she said nothing, because she couldn’t find the words, he prompted her with a light caress over the base of her throat. “Start with something easy. Like when you were a child.”