I knew she wouldn’t say the entire thing. Let me take this. Give this to me. Asking permission was so ingrained into living vampires that if she didn’t, she would think she had blood-raped me even if I cut myself and bled into her mouth. I gazed into her pupil-black eyes, seeing her desperate need raw and unhidden instead of the impassive face she usually showed the world. A last strike of fear lit through me at the chance I was taking. A memory of her biting me almost to death in Kisten’s van rose and fell. I could feel the tension in her where we touched: her right hand on my shoulder, her left at my back, one hip drifting close to mine. She wouldn’t overstep the bounds and would keep the sex out of it. If she didn’t, I’d be gone and she knew it. It was a cruel game she played with herself, but I think she hoped that if she waited long enough, I’d come to her.

Maybe she was right. If someone had told me last year that I’d be here now, teasing a vampire into biting me, I would have said they were insane.

My eyes closed. It wasn’t worth the effort to try to figure my life out. I had to live it as it came. “Take it,” I whispered, locking my knees against the coming rise of feeling.

A sigh came from Ivy, and she pressed lightly into me. Her grip tightened, and with absolutely no hesitation, she tilted her head to meet my neck and sank her teeth.

Ecstasy burned, the pain of the bite shifting instantly into bliss. I took a gasping breath, then held it, stiffening for a glorious instant before catching myself. I couldn’t lose myself to sensation. It would all go wrong if I did, and as Ivy’s teeth sank deeper, I vowed I wouldn’t. Not this time. I wouldn’t let this become a bad decision.

Her breath against me came and went in time with the pulls of her mouth, drawing my blood into her to fill her. My hand drifted up to touch her new scar, and I pulled away. In a flash of tension, I brought myself back. “Ivy, slow down,” I breathed, needing to know that she could stop. Fear pulsed through me when she didn’t, and when I hinted at pushing against her, she pulled her lips from me with a ragged, rough breath. Thank you, God. We could do this. Damn it, we could do this!

Pulse fast, I did nothing as we stood, our heads inches from each other. I realized my hands were on her shoulders, and I weighed the sensations flashing through me to gauge Ivy’s control and my resolve not to slip into a vampire-pheromone-induced stupor that her instincts wouldn’t be able to resist.