I pushed my hips down as he surged up and I bit down hard on my lip to stifle a moan. I tasted the blood my bite produced. Nathan leaned back, his eyes dark. He unconsciously licked his lip.

My heart pounded, echoing the throb of his erection that was buried deep inside me. Nathan’s eyes never left the smear of blood on my mouth.

“Go ahead,” I whispered. “I want you to.”

He hesitated only a moment. Then he caught my lip between his teeth and licked the blood away.

When I’d ingested Cyrus’s blood, I’d seen a vision of Nathan’s past death. I could only imagine what Nathan saw when he tasted mine.

Whatever it was, it tore a fierce growl from his throat. He pushed me back on the bed and stretched my arms high above my head, pinning me.

Pain. In my blood, he’d seen pain.

The tenderness in his eyes overwhelmed me. “Why didn’t you tell me what he did to you?”

I shut my eyes. “Why would you want to know?”

His lips brushed mine. There was nothing in the gesture but kindness, the love of a sire. His frustration and rage shook me to the core. “I could have made it better. I don’t know how, but I could have.”

I swallowed against tears. “You could make me forget.”

With a sad smile, he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He moved within me, slowly. Over and over, he withdrew almost completely, then slid back in, gaining a bit of speed each time. Soon, he pumped against me so furiously, an explosion of breath escaped from me with each thrust. I clenched the sheets in my fists and rocked in time to his movement.

The familiar spiraling feeling, the sense of swiftly losing control, gripped me. I needed only a little push to make it over the edge. Hearing my silent desperation, he slipped his hand between us and rubbed my swollen clitoris. The stimulation was exactly what I sought. I arched up from the bed.

It was his name I cried when I came, his face I saw when I opened my eyes. The relief was so intense that I almost sobbed.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groaned against my hair. He abandoned the rhythm, plunging into me with more urgency than before.

“Come,” I urged, clutching at his sweat-slicked back. He thrust almost too hard against me as he reached the end.

“Thank you,” he whispered over and over when he could speak again. He kissed my lips, my forehead, anywhere he was able to reach.

When he laid beside me, I rolled awkwardly off of the bed, wrapping the sheet around my bare body.

Nathan frowned. “Where are you going?”

I suddenly felt cold, and oddly lonely. “The bathroom. To clean up.”

When I got to the door, he spoke. “It was good we got that out of our systems. It was probably inevitable.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. Hadn’t it meant anything to him? It didn’t have to be serious, but he had to feel something more than just relief that it was over.