Dain made a tiny sound of pleasure, and the tips of his claws dug into my hips as he tightened his grip on me. Heat pounded between my legs, reckless adrenaline desire surging into me. The most feared man in the Western Continent, a man who had suffered humiliation and torture in order to be someone I could be proud of, complicated and complex and with depths I wanted to plumb. He looked up at me with a helpless expression, trembling with contained desire, and I decided I could live for now without knowing his secret.

I rolled my hips along the growing heat of his desire with the slow control of a belly dancer, and wrapped one arm around his back to pull my body flush against the wall of his chest. Maybe I couldn't give him his heart's desire, but I could give him this. I could kiss him until the sun came up, and leave him happy. With a smile, I buried my other hand in his hair and tightened my fingers, holding him like I wouldn't let go, my whole body feeling flushed and sensitive. The heat of him pressed against me, his panting breath fanning against my face, a temptation I no longer wanted to resist.

Dain's eyes sank down to my parted mouth and stayed there, an expression of untamed longing settling onto his striking features.

No one ever saw him like this. No one but me.

"You have a bargain, Dain Sundamar," I said through the desire in my chest, watching Dain's eyelids flutter closed. "Let me show you thorough."

Kissing him in the ballroom had been reckless and possessive, focused not on Dain but on the people treating him like a piece of shit on the bottom of their shoes. He'd kissed me back, yes, and I'd enjoyed it, but it wasn't about him and it certainly wasn't about me.

This was like kissing lightning.

Desire blazed down my spine and roared through my body with such intensity that it stole my breath and made my body tremble. My tongue moved against his in a slow slide that took up almost all of my focus, leaving me clinging to him. Dain moaned into my mouth and started kissing me back, his lips moving against mine as he ran his tongue up along mine, the forks of his gripping my tongue in a possessive caress. It was incredible—he was incredible. I could barely think, not with the taste of him on my tongue, not with the heat of his mouth on mine.

One of his hands slid up along my back, pressing my breasts hard against his chest as he poured his own hunger up against me. The fingers of a wing-hand laced through my loose hair and closed, the tug as he pulled my hair making me whimper as he held me against him.