Page 36 of Caretaker

And he wanted me.

I cupped his face, gently stroking him like he was a wild animal I needed to tame. I murmured his name, shivering as he scraped his teeth over my almost painfully rigid nipple, then I tugged him off it and to the other one for the same attention.

He traced the cross-shaped scar on my chest, a gift from Silverlight, then slipped down my body, kissing my scars, exploring me as I’d explored him. His face darkened when he saw what Amias had done to me. He used his tongue to soothe a deep, stinging pain I would never lose, a reminder of that long ago night when I’d survived a vicious vampire attack that should have killed me.

But right then, it didn’t matter.

Shane mattered. What he was doing with me mattered.

He flipped me to my stomach and straddled me, and I felt his lips at my neck, then his teeth as he nipped—again with the restrained promise that made me shiver—and kissed his way down my body.

He stroked his fingers over my back, my ribs, my hips, almost worshipful, fascinated as he took the time, for the first time in his life, with a woman’s body.

He didn’t ask me if he could do anything—he just did what he wanted to do. Some things I had not experienced. He was not the only one with firsts that night.

I lay sprawled, loose-limbed, heavy with passion, and it was as though my wrists and ankles were restrained with invisible cuffs.

I did not—could not—move as he inserted his fingers into me, used his mouth on me, loved me.

When he was finished, there was not an inch of me left untouched, and my entire body throbbed and quivered and screamed for release.

He turned me to my back and I watched him watch me, his eyes heavily lidded, his lips parted, his breath hitching. “You’re so fucking sexy.” His voice was low and thick and hoarse. “So fucking beautiful.”

He pushed his hands beneath my hips and lay between my splayed legs, his hot breath on my feverish, exposed flesh.

“Shane,” I cried, when he closed his lips over my swollen clit and ran his fingers through the wet heat he’d created, and my body clenched as I orgasmed so violently I nearly passed out.

He used his fingers to bring me to orgasm again, staring up the over the line of my body so he could watch my response to him. I let him see. I didn’t hold back my reaction. I squirmed and arched and cried out, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets to keep myself from reaching for him.

He wanted to see, and I wanted him to.

The look in his eyes was fierce, proud, and full of lust.

But it was also full of tenderness.

And finally, I tugged at him until he lay down, and then I climbed on top of him and eased myself over his thick hardness. I whimpered when his cock stretched me, filled me up, deeper and deeper until finally, he gripped my thighs and began to thrust into me.

In the end, he flipped me to my back, buried his mouth against the side of my throat, and finally lost his restraint.

He pounded into me, and there was the violence, the unrestrained passion, the loss of control. And it was good. It was…perfection.

I was ready for it, and I slammed my pelvis against his, wanting more, needing more, and he gave it to me. He gave me everything.

My orgasm built as he plunged into me, continued to build until I was almost afraid I might not be able to take the release when it came—and when it did, it roared over me, taking and touching every part of me. Mind, body, heart.

Something changed that night. For both of us.

Afterward, we lay on our sides, facing each other, both a little dazed.

“You’re mine,” I said, once.

“Yeah,” he answered, finally. “Fuck it. Yeah.”

I fell asleep tucked against his chest, cradled securely in his arms, contented, safe, and very happily exhausted.