I rose, and reached my hand out to her. “No,” she said.

I waited. I could do anything I wanted with her. I could force her, then wipe the memory from her brain. I could simply take her blood, just enough to read her, not enough to make me sick. Blood from anyone but the Source or my bonded mate was dangerous, even in small amounts, but it was a risk I had to take.

“Come with me, Allie,” I said. And I made her move, because I could. “Come.” And she rose.

I DIDNT WANT TO MOVE. It didn’t matter. He pulled me up and stood over me. I hated tall men—they made me feel weak and inconsequential. I was still wearing his clothes, his black jacket, his black T-shirt, his black silk trousers. He took the lapels of the jacket and pushed it off my shoulders, down my arms. I stood still, knowing I ought to argue, protest, anything but stand there and let him slide the jacket off me and toss it behind him onto the sofa.

He reached for the hem of my T-shirt, and I wanted to back away, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I tried to stem my panic. This was the fulfillment of a fantasy that obsessed half the teenage girls in the world. It didn’t matter. Having sex with a fallen-angel-slash-vampire was a really bad idea.

“Please don’t,” I said, trying to sound calm and sure of myself. If he did this, I’d have nothing with which to fight him. If he did this, it would matter too much, and I wouldn’t be able to break away. If he did this, it would break my heart.

He pulled my T-shirt up, and I unwillingly lifted my arms to let him peel it off, so that I was standing there in nothing but his loose pants low on my hips. I felt conspicuous, vulnerable, and it took all my self-control to just stand there and look at him.

“I should point out,” he said with surprising gentleness, “that my favorite period of time was the Renaissance.”

With all those voluptuous beauties. He was probably lying, but I gave him points for trying. I still didn’t move.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He was leaning down, his mouth so close I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. “I wouldn’t do this to you if it wasn’t necessary.”

I’d been ready for his kiss, but at this my eyes flew open. “What do you mean, ‘necessary’?”

I was silenced, not by one of his slight gestures, but by his mouth on mine as he pulled me into his arms.

It was no sweet kiss of seduction, no chaste, heavenly kiss. It was full and openmouthed and carnal, and I stood frozen in shock as he put one arm around my waist, pulling me against his hard body, and the other had caught my chin, his long fingers cradling my face.

I’d been kissed before, of course. But never like this, with an almost cosmic sense of urgency and longing. I could feel my nipples harden against the solid warmth of his chest, and I could feel the heat between my legs, the clutch of longing in my belly. Who the hell was I trying to fool? I was turned on every time he was in the room.

He dragged his mouth away. “Stop thinking,” he said a little breathlessly, and if it were anyone else, any other circumstances, I’d have thought he was turned on.

In fact, I could feel his cock against my belly, a hard ridge of flesh. Must be some angel trick, I thought dizzily, to be able to perform on command, even if he was doing it for obscure reasons that had nothing to do with desire—

“Stop thinking,” he said again, his voice hot. “I want you. All right? I don’t want to—you’re nothing but trouble. I wish I could just walk away from you. But I can’t.”

“I’m not getting into that bed with you,” I said, one last attempt to preserve my self-control. “If you say so.”

There was no escape. Particularly because I didn’t want to escape. I turned my back to him, but he simply pulled me against him, his arm around my waist, and carried me into the bedroom.

After the dimness in the living room the lights were blindingly bright, and I shut my eyes. I was pressed against him, his strength and heat spreading through me, and I wanted to sink back into him, letting my body flow into his, and I knew I was past protesting. Who was I fooling? I wanted this so badly my heart was pounding, my hands shaking, and I knew I was already wet. Ready for him.

He must have felt it. “Yes,” he said, a low murmur of approval as he set me on my feet, my back still turned to him. His hands were on me, pushing the silk trousers and my underwear down with one movement so that they pooled around my ankles. He lifted me out of them and turned me so that I faced him, naked, totally vulnerable.

He looked at me, and the heat in his strange eyes was palpable, burning away the last of my doubts. And the last of his. I could feel his reserve melt away in the heat between us, and his breath was coming sharp and fast. “Were you sent here to torment me?” he whispered, sliding his arm around my waist, pulling me against him. “Did he know exactly what I needed, what I couldn’t fight?”

He? Who? But before I could ask the question, he kissed me again, and I was lost, needing to get closer to him, needing his skin beneath my fingers.

His tongue was in my mouth, and I welcomed it, reaching between us and pulling his shirt apart so I could touch his skin, his hot, smooth skin. His heart was racing, and I wanted to put my mouth against it, wanted to taste his flat nipples, wanted my mouth all over him.

Before I realized what he was going to do he slid his arm under me, lifting me. I twined my fingers through his thick hair, kissing him back, using my tongue, hearing my own quiet moan of surrender as surely as he unbuttoned his jeans. And then I could feel him against my sex, hard and heavy, and I knew it was going to hurt. He was too big, and he hadn’t even touched me there, and I was the kind of woman who required a lot of foreplay, and if he was going to try this he was going to have trouble and it was going to—

He slid into me, smoothly, no pulling, no resistance, and reaction spiked through my body. I was sleek and wet and welcoming, and I shivered in primal delight. The more I had of him the more I needed, and the heat of his skin against my breasts was unbearably arousing. I was burning with need, shaking with it. He started to pull out, and I clutched at him, suddenly terrified he would leave me.

But he was already pushing back into me, deeper than the first thrust, slick and sure, deeper, thicker, harder, and when he pulled back I let out a cry, desperate.

This time he slammed into me, all the way in, pushing me hard up against the wall, and my body suddenly shattered. I let out a muffled scream, burying it against his shoulder, against the smell of clean cotton and warm skin, and another wave hit me, and then another, until I was sure I couldn’t take any more.

If anything he seemed to grow bigger still inside me, and he pulled away from the wall, supporting me in his arms, and he was so strong it seemed effortless. He was moving faster now, filling me so deeply I thought I could taste him, and I convulsed in helpless pleasure at the thought. He gave in, pushing deep inside me, and I felt the hot pulse as he climaxed, my body milking him with answering contractions, and as the final wave washed over me I lost myself, as everything dissolved around us.