The corners of her mouth curved upward. “But I have patience to learn, and I learn best by doing.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “Now kiss me, Sire.”

He was powerless to resist. His mouth captured hers, opening her to his tongue. She tasted of rain and heat, her tongue twining with his until he wondered which of them would consume the other. For someone who’d never engaged in such intimacy, she threatened to turn him into a scorch mark on the floor. She groaned into his mouth and sucked his tongue. Shivers wracked his body, and she pulled him ever closer. He hoisted her up, hands sliding beneath her buttocks to brace her against him. Long legs wrapped around his waist and squeezed until he grunted a protest.

She was the first to break the kiss and gasp for air. Eyes glassy and mouth swollen, she buried her hands in his hair. “That isn’t kissing,” she said between gasps. “That’s magic.”

He carried her to the bed. Her legs slid down his sides as they fell onto the mattress. Cededa rolled, carrying her with him so that he bore her weight. It was she who initiated the second kiss, as all-consuming as the first. Blood and lust pounded through his veins, ignited by the lethal power of Imogen's frantic hands as they stroked his chest and ribs. Her hips rocked against his until his fingers gripped her bottom to hold her still. The motion pushed him to the edge. If she didn’t stop, he’d lose the last, fraying threads of his control and come on her thighs.

This time he ended the kiss with a soft tug on her bottom lip. Imogen stared at him, her lips red and full. Her nostrils flared with every short breath. “Why...”

Cededa reached up and placed a finger against her lips. His own harsh breathing clipped his words. “Patience, Imogen.” He smiled. “It seems I’m not the only overeager one.”

He rolled her beneath him, wedging one leg between her sleek thighs. He braced himself on his elbows, Imogen’s head and shoulders framed by his forearms. Her hair spilled across the pillows, dark against skin made rosy by her passions. Slender hands wandered over his shoulders and down his back, leaving heat trails in their wake. Her bane crashed through his body, his muscles quivering under its onslaught. In Imogen’s touch, death was neither cold nor insidious but a candent force that set him alight and freed him from immortality’s shackles.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered. She tucked loose strands of his hair behind his ear.

That you are beautiful, and I am dying. He didn’t answer her. Instead, he lowered his weight onto her, pressing her into the mattress as his mouth mapped a path from her jaw to her neck to her collarbone and finally to her breast.

Imogen arched her back as Cededa's lips closed over her nipple and suckled. “Oh gods.” Her invocation became a litany as he teased one breast and then the other and nuzzled his face into her cleavage. She hooked an ankle behind his thigh and pulled. The motion drove him forward so that his hips rocked hard against the cradle of her pelvis, and she rubbed his cock in a wordless plea.