Page 68 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“I had intended to be more restrained,” he murmurs.

“Please don’t.”

He smiles against my throat. “I wanted to take my time with you. For so many reasons. But I find now that I am having difficulty.”

I put my hand around the back of his neck.

“Fuck me, Julian.”

His head jerks up. “You’re sure?”

“Completely. I trust you.”

I don’t think I have ever seen his eyes this dark. He leans down and kisses me again, a long, deep kiss that feels like he’s taking the words out of my mouth. Then he lines himself up and pushes into me. All the way. And I cry out.

He immediately goes still, and I realize the sound was not entirely pleasure. He starts to move away and I clamp my legs around his hips.

“Don’t.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m not. I swear. Just give me a moment.”

I shift under him, finding space, and something inside me relaxes. When he moves again, it’s perfect. I’ve never felt anything like it. Cool and solid and filling me so completely that I can’t think.

“God,” he says, and it’s a prayer. “Penny, I can’t⁠—”

“Then don’t.”

He looks down at me and begins to move, and I don’t want him to ever stop moving. He’s strong and he’s deep and he is entirely focused on me, on every small noise I make and every time I arch against him, and I’m so close again, so fast, that I’m almost frightened of it.

I clutch his shoulders and tighten around him, and his eyes close as if in pain. Then he pulls almost all the way out and does it again, and the whole world narrows to the rhythm of him moving in me and the places where our bodies meet.

It is perfect and it’s not enough. I pull his mouth down to mine and kiss him until his thrusts grow harder and deeper, and he puts his hand on my hip to pull me closer, and he is saying my name over and over against my mouth, and this time when I fall apart, he falls with me.

We lie still for a long time. Eventually I open my eyes to find his face inches from mine, and his eyes are back to the usual deep brown.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” he says gravely.

“I can’t move.”

“Then I suggest we stay here for the foreseeable future.”

I laugh weakly. He is still inside me, and I have no intention of moving. I run my hand over his back, just feeling the muscles, and he makes a low, contented sound.

“That feels very good.”

“I haven’t even started.”

He shifts, very slightly, under my hand.

“I’m not sure I’ll survive it.”

I kiss his jaw.

“You’re four hundred years old. You can survive anything.”