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Slow, he reminded himself. Take it slow.
But it was torture, that deliberate thrust and retreat, in and out, her inner tissues hugging him like a wet fist. He never took his eyes from hers, the contact the only thing that centered him. She held the power over him, and the more time he spent with her the more he realized he wanted it that way.
"Selene." He let out a ragged breath. "I can't--"
"Not yet," she warned. "Not until I give permission. Touch my clit. Pinch it. Hard."
Quinn adjusted his position to slide one hand to her pink slit, finding that hot button of nerves and rubbing and squeezing it. Stroke, stroke, stroke. He saw the impending climax in her eyes, in the flare of heat in her irises. Her gasp of breath. He was ready to beg when she finally said, "Now. Hard and fast."
He drove into her like a stallion mounting a mare, his thrusts so strong the headboard of the bed slammed into the wall. Over and over he plunged into her wet heat. With her ankles as leverage she lifted her hips until he was sure he could drive straight through her body. The second he felt her orgasm grip her and her breathless "Now, Quinn", he let go, every muscle spasming as his cock flexed and spurts of semen filled her.
He collapsed forward, grateful that Selene eased her legs down, permitting him to do so. A sheen of perspiration coated his skin, his heart trip-hammering so fast he thought it might pound its way out of his body.
With sex this intense, he'd expect to feel like he'd never be able to move a muscle again. In that first second, he barely had strength to ease himself from her body, but as he lay there he realized he wasn't as tired as he normally would be. He felt more like he had ten years ago, when he'd already be thinking about the next way he'd take the buckle bunny lying next to him.
"I think it's best you censor some of those thoughts," she warned, her lips curving with that sensual set that suggested she was thinking of ways to teach him just how to do that. His ass was still throbbing.
She pushed him onto his back. Drawing a line of kisses from his groin to the hollow of his throat and then along the line of his jaw made him go still, touched and aroused at once.
"Mistress," he murmured.
She straddled him, leaning down to lick the underside of his jaw. "Sleep now," she told him. "I think you'll find if you close your eyes, you're more tired than you expect. The second marking needs time to get fully through your system."
His eyes closed, and he found she was right. With that signal that he was preparing to sleep, his body seemed to sink an extra inch into the mattress. But just as he was about to tumble into the black void, the whisper of her voice drew him back.
You make me feel safe, cowboy.
Did she actually say that? He wished he could get his fucking brain to work, because he had a feeling he was missing something important. Safe from what?
He must have mumbled something because she brushed her mouth over his. "Not my body. My heart. I never thought to have that, yet here you are."
"Heart," he said sleepily. "Safe with me."
Her fingers curled into his chest. I know. It's yours that isn't safe with me. I'm sorry. But I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep and protect you.
That's all any of us can do. His mind drifted around hers, a floating, dreamlike dance. Human or vampire. Right?
Before he could hear her answer, he fell into a dreamless sleep.
*
Selene stroked his chest. In the random swirl of his thoughts as he drifted to sleep, she saw that he still wanted to take her to dinner Sunday night. Then he wanted her to come spend the night at the ranch with him. He wanted her to meet Annette, the housekeeper and cook, obviously an important person in his life. She supposed it could be worse. He could be trying to introduce her to his parents. What the hell was she doing?
She was trying to pretend she was still a human, where she could conduct this relationship like that. She could block Quinn from the thoughts in her head, all while fully monitoring his every thought without him having any ability to stop her. Yet she'd kept her mind open when she'd second marked him, and said the words that had just come into her mind, so sweet, simple and true. So terribly dangerous. Even as she whispered them again aloud now.
"You make me feel safe."
She'd told him the truth, that she meant her heart. She'd learned the heart's safety was more important than physical well-being, because physical power was an illusion. There was always someone more powerful who could threaten the body or mind. But with the right person, the heart could feel safe, inviolate. A rare, precious gift, one that made her afraid, but not at all for herself. All for him.
Just before dawn, she retrieved his clothes from the bar to put them neatly folded just inside the bedroom door. When she left him to retreat to her cellar room, out of habit, she locked it. Though Quinn had keys at his ranch, she didn't expect he'd brought them with him and so she'd be left undisturbed. She needed to keep sending him the message that everything was on her terms.
While it was a rational decision, she knew more than logic was driving the decision. She liked the idea that he was hers to command. Not only like a Mistress, but like a vampire. She just couldn't decide if holding on to her humanity or relinquishing it all to her vampire side was the best path for Quinn. Or if she'd damned him regardless.
God help us both.
*
Mid-morning, Quinn sat at his home office desk, booted foot propped on an open drawer, staring at a stack of paperwork, unseeing. He was thinking about the way they'd joked about the difference between Texans and New Yorkers. Yeah, people up North talked and acted fast, and they could be as sharp as they appeared. But his people weren't any less sharp. They thought things through, long and hard, from all different directions. Sometimes that could take a piece of time. Sometimes it only took a blink, especially if a man had had a lot of practice at having to make important decisions that might or might not land him under a bull's feet.
He was running through everything he'd heard in Selene's voice, seen in her body language when she talked about her life before. She was tough, his Mistress, but he could tell until she resolved this thing with Laurent and her past life, she was going to have to keep running and living scared. Yeah, there wasn't a timid bone in her body, but he could feel the fear, way down deep, when she held him, and whispered those potent words, You make me feel safe. There was too much sadness in it, as if she understood the feeling was deceptive. Even worse, he could tell she thought she'd somehow failed by marking him twice, looping him into her world.
Everybody needed somebody, and he was damn proud she'd chosen him. No matter how fool crazy it seemed, he wanted that third mark too. But first things first. He had an idea, and it seemed best to exercise it during daylight when she should be fast asleep and couldn't come traipsing into his head ordering a cease-and-desist.
Yeah. Like to see you enforce that in the bright sunlight, honey.
Picking up his phone from next to the steaming mug of coffee Annette had left him, he dialed. Time zone was off by a couple hours, but Sam got up with the dawn every damn day.
"I can almost smell Annette's coffee from here." The old man picked up with that greeting. With Sam it could be caller ID or damn telepathy. Quinn didn't question it.
"She probably waves it in your direction out the kitchen window. You know she was pretty taken with you. You probably could have tapped that."
Sam scoffed, affecting an old cowboy-western movie Indian monotone. "You hold out forbidden fruit, white man. That squaw is heap big trouble."
Quinn grinned. "No argument there. She fussed nonstop about you being here, but I could tell she missed you after you left. Think she liked your throw-downs."
"They were debates."
"Sounded like chickens chasing each other around the yard to me and the boys. So how's it going up there in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada?"
"It's been an interesting couple of years. Maggie and Matt moved back east and the new neighbors are...stimu
lating."
"No shit? I know they said they'd eventually head back that way since Matt was from North Carolina, but they seemed real dug in. They were a big help to you."
"The new ones are as well. A goddess-in-training and her angel mate."
"Of course," Quinn said dryly. "Couldn't be your standard couple, him a tax attorney and her a real estate agent. You have to train to be a god or goddess? Who'd have thought?"
"Everything new requires a period of growth and learning. As well as a lot of meditation on the right path to take." Sam's voice sharpened. "Which brings us to why you're calling."
Yeah, that was Sam. He didn't do a lot of chitchat, but when Quinn had spent time at his campfire, he'd found he really liked those long silences, filled with nothing but the crackle of the flames and the energy that filled the world around them.
"So should I even ask my question, or have you already heard it on the wind?"
Sam snorted. "You answered the most important question before it left the lips of the universe, so your way is set there, for better or worse. You might as well ask the other ones you have, since those answers might help you survive your foolish impulses."
