Page 99 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

My heart speeds up, which I know he can hear.

“Anything you want.”

His hand slides down over my hip and pulls me closer. “I am very strong,” he says quietly. “I want you to use it.”

There’s no warning. One moment I’m beside him, and the next I’m straddling his hips, and his hands are on my thighs. He looks at me like a man who has been given a gift he didn’t dare ask for. I want to give him anything he wants, and I want to spend the rest of my life doing it. That’s another dangerous thought, but I don’t care. I bend down and kiss him.

His hands close over my breasts, cool thumbs feathering across my nipples and making me gasp. One hand leaves my breast and slides between my legs, and he makes that sound, deep in his throat. I pull my mouth from his.

“Julian, please.”

He doesn’t hesitate. He lifts me as if I weigh nothing at all, then brings me down over him. I am so wet and ready for him that he slides all the way up in one long thrust. I cry out and dig my fingers into his shoulders.

“Am I hurting you?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m perfect.”

He holds still a moment longer, letting me adjust to his size, while his hand moves between us to touch me again. He waits until I begin to move, rocking my hips against him. Then he begins pushing up into me in long, slow strokes that drive every bit of air out of me. I move with him, and he watches me with an intensity that makes my heart stutter.

It’s good. It’s so good. And then he leans up and puts his mouth on my throat again. The place he bit me is right there, and when his tongue flicks out over it, I come. I come so hard that I can feel it squeeze him, and then he’s coming too, groaning my name against my neck.

Afterwards, I sink onto his chest. He wraps his arms around me and holds me there, one hand stroking my hair. I want to stay like this forever, listening to the sea and feeling him quiet beneath me.

But eventually I do move, because I want to see his face. He lets me push myself up so I can see him, and I see that he is perfectly satisfied, in a way that he doesn’t bother to hide.

“You’re very smug right now.”

“Yes,” he says.

“That’s good, though. You can be as smug as you like.”

“I intend to be.”

I kiss him, long and slow, and he pulls me down against his chest again.

“You said no one has ever stayed,” I say quietly.

“I said I have never stayed.”

“Different statements.”

“Yes.”

I turn my head. He is looking up at the ceiling of his bedroom like a man doing arithmetic.

“Was it all right? The staying.”

Julian is quiet for a moment.

“I would like to do it again,” he says. “Tonight, if that is available.”

“It’s Sunday. I’ve got sixty-two covers.”

“After the sixty-two covers.”

“Then yes.”

“Good.” A pause. “There is a cookie in my coat.”