The raw admission liquefied her bones. “Do Adwaewethians sicken when they are intimate?” she asked, stepping closer to smash her breasts into the rigid strength in his chest. She licked her lips, secretly thrilling when he clocked the action with his gaze. A gaze he flipped up, meeting hers.

New thrums of intrigue danced over his stunning features. “Do you?” He combed his fingers through her hair before cupping her nape, hard. The gleam in his eyes...a dark ferocity she’d never before encountered. “And don’t tell me I must answer your question or you won’t answer mine. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Fine. Yes, I sicken anytime I attempt intimacy.”

He tightened his grip on her. “I was with Aveline before her Blood Rite. We were intimate countless times, and neither of us sickened.”

“Oh. I see.” The problem came from Nola. Aching, wretched Nola.

“But,” he said, something hot and dark simmering in his voice...something possessive. “I might know why you alone sicken...”

Shivers. Heat. “Tell me.”

“First,” he said, “I must know if you’ll sicken with me.”

Her pulse jumped. “I suspect I...won’t. I haven’t so far. And I want... I want pleasure.” The words rushed from her. “I’m so hungry for it, even you look good.”

“Even me?” He sputtered a moment, incredulous, his muscles plumping right before her eyes. “I see I haven’t given you an accurate impression of my skill. Time to change that.”

Swooping down, he pressed his mouth against hers and kissed the breath from her lungs.

CHAPTER TWELVE

How to beat those first kiss jitters

NEVER, IN ALL his days, had Bane been this hard, or ached this intensely. After everything he’d suffered over the centuries, he deserved sexual release with the most beautiful female he’d ever beheld. The woman who maddened him beyond all reason.

Being so close to Nola...breathing in her honeysuckle and jasmine scent, home...touching the silken softness of her skin...watching her ruby lips part, and the pulse quicken at the base of her neck... He’d raced from reality to fantasy, starved for everything she had to give.

Now, he drowned in sensation, and she’d become his only source of oxygen. He kissed her like a man who couldn’t live without his woman. At the moment, he couldn’t.

In his arms, she was a live wire of passion, her responses unguarded. She trembled, kissing him back with utter abandon, their tongues thrusting together in a wild and carnal dance. Her little gasps pushed him closer to the razor’s edge of sanity. Bane, and the beast.

The beast loved sex, needed it—finally! please!—but still hated royals with the heat of a thousand suns; he uttered protests and conflicting commands. Translation: Stop. Don’t stop. Stop, damn you. Never stop.