Her last words sounded lost and alone, afraid to risk the hurt again. My eyes flashed open. “Ivy,” I pleaded. “I told you. This is all I can give—”

She moved, and my words froze when she put a finger to my lips. “It’s enough.”

Ivy’s feather-light touch sent a spark of adrenaline through me. I took a clean breath when the weight of her finger fell away. I exhaled, and her free hand slipped into the narrow space between the wall of the van and the small of my back. My eyes shut as her fingers pressed into me, pulling me forward. Breath shaking, I locked my knees, wise to the sudden rush that would send me tumbling down. I felt emotion rise, knowing she was experiencing it too. “Ivy?”

I sounded frightened, and she pushed my hair aside, whispering, “How I’ve wanted this,” her lips brushing the smooth skin under my ear. The warm dampness of her breath made me shiver at the mix of the familiar and the unknown. With a soft exhalation, she shifted her head and her lips found my collarbone, teasingly shy of my old scar. Tendrils pulsed in time with my heart, building on the ones before to an unseen height. Oh God. Save me from myself.

Tension pulled my eyes open when her fingers traced a trail down my neck. Sensation blossomed, and I threw my head back and sucked in the air. Her arm slipped around my waist, catching me before I fell.

“Rachel, I…God you smell good,” she said, and a torrent of heat flowed through me as her lips brushed against me with her words. The smoothness of her teeth across my skin sent my pulse pounding as I fought for breath. “You won’t leave?” she asked. “Promise you won’t.”

She wasn’t asking me to be her scion; she was only asking me not to leave. “I won’t leave.”

“You give this to me?”

Shaking inside, I whispered, “Yes.”

Ivy exhaled, sounding as if she had been freed. My blood rose, mixing with my lingering fear of the unknown to drive her to a fever pitch. Her lips touched my lower neck and vertigo spun the room, burning tracings of desire to settle deep and low in me. I exhaled into the promise of more to come, calling it to me. I breathed it in like smoke, the rising passion starting a feeling of abandonment inside. I didn’t care anymore if it was right or wrong. It just was.

Her grip on my shoulder tightened, and slowly there was a gentle pressure upon my skin, and her teeth slid into me without preamble.

I groaned at the rush of fear and desire. My knees gave way, and Ivy shifted her hold. Her touch was light—keeping me upright while I went flaccid, my body struck into overload—but her mouth on my neck was savage with a fierce need. And then she pulled on me.

My air came in a rush. Gasping, I stiffened, my hands springing up to clutch at her, clenching when she threatened to pull away in fear that she had hurt me. “No,” I moaned, fire running through me. “Don’t stop. Oh…God…”