But that was, apparently, what she was there to stop him from doing. While he was content to doubt the goodness in his soul, she seemed determined to draw him back to more earthly matters. Sliding toward him, she tentatively pressed her mouth to his chest. When he didn’t object, she continued to kiss him, stroking her palms in a maddening path from his ribs to the waistband of his trousers. She lay back again, and he lay beside her, bracketing her body with his hands as he slid down to rest his face against her thigh. As a vampire, he would have cut the tender, white flesh at the bend of her knee to drink her blood. It had always been his favorite moment, looking up at their faces when they’d gotten their first taste of the pain he would inflict on them. As a human, making love to a human, he had no desire to cause her pain. He bent his head and licked the warm crease there. She jerked on the bed, her eyes wide. He couldn’t help his smile as he moved his mouth farther up her leg, with his hand on her firm, warm calf. The closer he drew to her sex, the faster her breathing became. When he knelt on the floor and pulled her to the edge of the bed—a little roughly, for it couldn’t be all gentle—and traced the seam between her legs with the pointed tip of his tongue, she arched off the mattress and clawed at his shoulders, gasping.

The taste and smell and warmth of her intoxicated him. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. He groaned against her slick folds and eased one finger into her. He hadn’t guessed wrong the first time he’d touched her intimately; she was a virgin. Though now she was open and willing, the thin barrier remained.

“I know it’s a sin,” she informed him with a moan. “But I want you to. I want you to do it.”

He laved his tongue over her engorged flesh, teasing her with his teeth until her body arched again and tensed, and she pulled his hair to the point of pain. The sound of her climax started as a low moan and rose in pitch to a keening wail, and her body trembled as she peaked. Before her pleasure could subside, he rose and spread her legs. Her eyes narrowed in trepidation, then flared with panic, and she lifted her hands as if to push him away. He wondered if she would ask him to stop. He knew he would, if she did so. But her arms dropped to her sides, hands fisting as though she braced herself for what was to come.