With that assurance, she forgot about the game and the thousands of people watching it, to concentrate on the man. His dark hair shone in the sunlight and his eyes had a slumbering-predator gleam. She couldn’t resist; she skimmed her fingers the length of that hair. The strands felt silky and warm from the sun. “Bet you’re ready for a nap in the sun after all you ate.”

“Not until I get my ice cream.” He kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear. “And I have plenty of incentives to stay awake.”

Up till now she’d kept her hands occupied with food. They were empty now. So she touched his body. And felt righteous doing it. Wasn’t there something about idle hands doing something? Well, her hands wouldn’t be idle.

She closed her eyes so she could enjoy every tactile sensation as she ran her fingers over the side of his face. He clenched his jaw. Patience, patience. Then she followed the pull of gravity along the side of his neck and down over his collarbone. She had to open her eyes to zero in on exactly the right spot. His male nipple drew her. She traced a path around it with the tip of her fingernail and then leaned over to flick it with her tongue.

He didn’t move. He didn’t gasp. But his reaction was so powerful she felt it as a ripple of sensation in her own body, as though someone had touched her nipple. She did gasp. What was that about?

“I can’t do this.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “I thought I could stay still while you grew comfortable with me, but I don’t have that kind of strength.” He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. Then he lowered his head.

She was ready for his kiss, a precursor to better things to come. But as he traced the curve of her lower lip with the tip of his tongue and then took her mouth in a heated plundering that seduced all her senses, she readjusted her opinion of it as merely a precursor.

His lips were firm yet soft, smooth, warm and, as she explored his mouth, she tasted his need. As strange as it sounded, she also tasted the darkness in him. His scent of aroused male stirred something primitive in her that had lain dormant for a lifetime.

Even the smooth slide of her tongue across his fangs was sensual. Fangs? His fangs? She broke the kiss and raised her gaze to his. In another world she would’ve run screaming, but this place, this time was different. “Vampire?”

He nodded, his expression wary.

“Let me see.”