Not even what they had shared twenty years ago came close. Things had been powerful before, but so much simpler, and even at times naive, at least on her part.

Now, complexity of emotion played through her like a symphony, the familiar juxtaposed with the new. She wasn't sure that her skin could contain it all, and she shook from the force of it, her mouth working under his.

In response, he muttered something against her lips. It sounded like a curse. Hooking one arm underneath her knees, he lifted her all the way onto the bed and climbed over her, while slanting his mouth over hers. He speared her with his tongue, hard and deep, while he supported his weight on one elbow and ran a hand down her torso.

His fingers were shaking. Or maybe she was shaking. Breaking away from his kiss, she plunged upward. She had so many competing impulses, she tried to do everything at once rubbing her face against the sprinkle of hair on the wide expanse of his chest, reaching between his legs to cup him again.

He sank a fist in her hair and pulled her head back, wordlessly demanding she offer her neck to him. She loved loved his barbarism. Gasping, she let her head fall back, trusting to his hold, while she arched her body up to him.

Her gesture caused him to growl deep in his throat. He bit her neck not as a Vampyre, not breaking the skin but quick, erotic nips that shivered down the length of her body and escalated her growing need.

In response, she clenched her fist on his cock. Part of her knew she was being clumsy and rough, but she couldn't control herself. He didn't act like he minded in the slightest. Instead, he hissed against her shoulder, bucking into her hand.

When he pulled away from her hold, it was her turn to growl in frustration, but he was only shifting down her body so that he could kiss and suckle at her breasts. As his tongue teased and flicked at her sensitive nipples, he ran his hand along the inside of her thighs, urging her to part her legs for him.

She did so gladly, anticipating the magic he could make with his fingers, the pressure and penetration, but then he teased her some more, barely stroking the surface of her private flesh, making her arousal spike so sharply, it became outright pain.

She felt his fingers grow slick with her response. He raised his fingers to his mouth to lick them with relish, then he went down even further to settle between her legs and tongue her most sensitive place.

His caress was knowledgeable, electric. It lifted her head off of the bed, while a shaking cry broke from her lips. The reaction inside her body was so volcanic, she had to hold on to something, somehow. She tried to grasp the back of his head, but his hair was too short. Tickling her clitoris with his tongue, he reached up to grab her hands and pin them at her sides.

She was trapped, exposed. The confinement made everything too intense. She tried to jerk her hands free, but he was much too strong for her. All the while, he feasted on her, flicking and sucking in turns at her delicate, stiff little bud, until she bucked in his hold and almost fought him.

Except she wasn't really fighting him. It was just that the pleasure was intolerable, and he knew, he knew what he was doing. He knew how she felt.

"I can't stand it," she managed to gasp.

"Mmm," he crooned against her. "You can."

"Seriously. Julian, please." She lifted her hips to his wise, wicked mouth. It was literally the only thing she could do. With every caress, he stripped her down until she was even more naked, more in need, and the pleasure built and built...

Until the most glorious sensation flared up, blooming through her body like a glowing lotus flower.

A ragged cry broke out of her. She was not in control of it. She wasn't in control of anything. After the first wave of pleasure, her climax pulsed rhythmically. He found the secret of it, tonguing her in rhythm with the pulse, and oh my God, how did he know to do that, and she couldn't take any more.

"Holy shit," she said. Her voice was shaking badly, while tears spilled out the corners of her eyes. "Okay, okay Julian, I can't do any more -"

Yes, you can, he said in her head.

He didn't let go of her hands.

He didn't lift his mouth from her, or stop.

Oh, God.

Her next climax didn't bloom like a flower. It cracked through her body like lightning. Lifting her head from the force of it, she would have screamed except she had lost her breath. All that came out of her mouth was a helpless, mewling cry. She tried to swear. Inside her head, she was going off like a sailor, but what came out of her mouth was begging.

"Please. Please."

Oh, baby, he said gently. I'm not going to quit until you give me another one.

"I c-can't!"

You can, he murmured. You will. Tell me what you're feeling.

He was the darkest of voices inside her head, the Nightkind King, and when he turned his gift of persuasion onto her, she wanted to take her soul out of her body and hand it to him.

Somehow she made her shaking mouth form words. She whispered, "I love you."

He stilled. The world stopped.

Then, while she lay totally open and shivering uncontrollably, he released her hands and lifted up to settle on her fully. The weight of his big body was such a relief, she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

Another, softer man might have stopped at that point.

But he wasn't a soft man, and he didn't stop.

Stroking her hair off her forehead, he played his lips over hers, with such light, ravishing voluptuousness, she lost even more of herself to him.

"Say it again," he said against her mouth.

That time, she couldn't articulate verbally and had to switch to telepathy. I love you.

He reached between them to bring the broad head of his cock to her opening, stroking her until she was ready for him. Then he pushed in and didn't stop rocking until he had planted himself, all the way to the root.

He felt so big and good, nestled inside. He pulled out and pushed in again. Pressing her face against his shoulder, lifting her hips for each thrust of his, she reveled in his penetration.

Gradually he picked up his pace until he was fucking her with long, sure strokes. At first she simply enjoyed it, but his pace was so relentless, so inescapable, it reached her deep inside, and the pleasure began to intensify again.

She couldn't reach another peak. She was spent. But then he reached between them again and found her clitoris.

"Look at me," he said.

She met the Vampyre's red, fierce gaze.

Baring his fangs, he said, I told you. I'm not going to quit until you give me another one.

She whimpered and gave it up to him. This third climax went bone deep, soul deep. It stamped itself onto her DNA. While she shook from it, he pistoned into her, hard and fast, until his back arched and he twisted with a gasp.

Inside, she felt his erection pulse, which was when she remembered how the whole thing had started.

Damn it, she was going to suck on that.

As quickly as the thought occurred to her, it ghosted away again. She was left watching him, feeling him climax. It was so beautiful to watch the power of what he experienced transform him. Greedy for every moment, she soaked it all in.

Afterward, he rested his forehead on the pillow beside her. She realized he was breathing heavily and smiled to herself.

That was when he whispered in her ear, "I love you too, Melly. Always have, you know."

All of her filters had been stripped away. At times, that could be a good thing.

Other times, it wasn't. The first thing that came to mind was what fell out of her mouth. "You have a hell of a way of showing it sometimes."

The silence that greeted that felt too charged and unpredictable. Inwardly cursing herself for shattering the moment, she turned her face away and covered her eyes with one hand.

Maybe they were going to have that talk right now, whether they were ready or not.

Fourteen.

J.

ulian stared down at Melly's averted face. She was hiding her eyes, but the rest of her was available for his perusal.

She looked so much better than she had when he had first laid eyes on her in the tunnel. Her skin glowed a warm, healthy color in the soft bedroom light, and her blond, curly hair glinted with gold highlights. The tip of one of her elegant, pointed ears peeked out of a curl. The healing properties from his bites were aiding her natural Light Fae ability to heal. Her bruises were fading, and her cuts and scratches already looked like they were several days old.

She was clearly upset. He rolled away from her, onto his back, and stared up at the ceiling.

He said in a controlled, even voice, "We're short on rest, and our emotions have been running at full throttle. Are you sure you want to have this conversation right now?"

"I don't know." She sounded frustrated. "Apparently the nap I took in the bathtub reenergized me. I'm sorry that fell out of my mouth, but I can't take it back. And I'm not even sure I want to."

"All right."

He watched as she left the bed, walked into the bathroom and reappeared a few moments later. She wore his dark blue silk bathrobe, and she had pulled her hair back into a loose braid. Not looking at him, she went to sit in the armchair where she lifted the lid off the covered food tray and inspected the contents.

After a moment, she picked up a cup of tea and cradled it in her fingers. Her expression was shuttered and unhappy.

He closed his eyes. Then he sat at the edge of the bed, pulled on a pair of dark gray boxers and put his head in his hands.

His old anger and pain had become such a toxic habit. He could feel the emotions begin to wrap around him again, like a familiar, restricting straitjacket. They felt as heavy as ever, only this time after the lightness of the sensuality and laughter that he and Melly had just shared, the weight felt intolerable and crushed his chest.

Intolerable.

No. No more.

Living with it was like living forever in the tunnels, or finding himself trapped back in the slave pits. It was a dirty, ugly place to exist. He might not have much of a soul, but those negative emotions were strangling whatever he had left.

He wanted her laughter. He needed her tenderness. He wanted her head resting on his chest in front of a winter fire, her fingers laced through his. He needed to embrace the possibility that he really could make different choices at the beginning of a new day.

"I want to let go of the past," he said quietly. "Can we do that? Let's draw a line right here and agree that whatever happened before is over and done. We make a pact to forgive each other and move on."

He could hear the stress in her breathing from across the room. "Why?"

"Because I love you more than anything we've done to each other," he told her. "Because I want to believe you're right, and that we can make different choices that redefine our lives. Because I believe in you now more than I was able to believe in you then."

He stood and walked over to kneel in front of her. She watched him with a damp, wary gaze, her expression closed in. Carefully easing the teacup away from her, he set it aside and took her hands.

"I want to tell you some things for your sake, not mine," he whispered. "Okay?"

Her mouth worked, then she pressed her lips together and nodded.

"You're a genuinely good person." His voice was gentle. "You are so much better than I am. You're kind, and you're funny, and you're ingenious and loyal to the point of stupidity."

"Hey," she said in warning.

In answer, he pulled the robe open and drew one finger lightly down the path of the scabs on her shoulder, where the feral had clawed her at the gate, and he raised his eyebrows pointedly at her. She scowled at him and yanked the robe closed.

Biting back a brief impulse to smile, he told her, "You are a beautiful woman, inside and out. I see you better now than I did when we were together before, and I love you more." He paused and shook his head. "Whereas, I'm still a bastard. I learned all the many ways there are to kill a person before I ever learned anything else, and I'm always going to be rough around the edges. I know where the spoons, knives and forks are supposed to go, and I just don't care."

A small snort escaped her, even as a tear spilled down her cheek.

Carefully, he wiped her face with a thumb as he told her, "When we were together, I wanted to believe all the things you said to me, but I think at my core, I never did believe I was worthy of you. So of course you would end up with someone else. It was inevitable, wasn't it? After you learned who I really was, there was no way you would ever want to be with me."

"Oh, Julian."

"Hush, I'm not finished." He tightened his hold on her slender fingers and brought them up to his mouth. He said against them, "For the longest time, all I wanted to do was strike out at you and hurt you the way I was hurting. And I don't want to live that way, or be that man anymore with you. I'm sorry I caused you so much pain, and I want very much to try again, if you will."

Sniffing, she tugged at her hands. When he released her, she picked up the napkin off the tray and blew her nose.

"I have so many reactions, I don't know where to start," she murmured. "Which is par for the course with you. So I'm going to tell them one at a time, okay?"

"Okay."

She met his gaze. "You're worthy of me. You're worth it. Spoons and knives and forks are the most unimportant things in the world. Even when you're at your lowest point, you have so much damn heart. You offered your life in exchange for mine when you were angry and full of bitterness. I think that's one of the finest things I've ever seen anybody do. So if you can be that man with me, and I mean if you can really let go of your bitterness and trust me when I say I want to be with you, and I love you, and I won't leave you, hurt or betray you then yes, I want to try again."

He felt the smile begin to break over his face, and he opened his mouth to reply.

She put a hand over his mouth. "Hush, I'm the one who's not finished now. I listened very carefully to what you just said. It sounds like you still might think I cheated on you, even when I told you down by the tunnel gate that I didn't."

His smile vanished. "What happened in the past doesn't matter. All I want to do is draw the line between now and then, and let it all go."

"You want to forgive and forget, even that." She looked at him intently. "I'm not rehashing an old issue, Julian. That conversation just happened."