Burning Up

long muscles of her thighs working as she jogged in easy strength. Her tattoo seemed to glow in shades of red and green on her cheekbone beneath the green flash of her eyes, and her lips pouted at him, inviting kisses he couldn’t reach her to give.
    It was maddening to be so utterly at her mercy, driven to climax by her luscious body, gripped so intimately, yet unable to touch.
    Orgasm struck him like a spell, a ferocious blast that convulsed his thighs and curled his hands into helpless fists. He arched beneath her, surging upward, her core sheathing his cock in slick, sliding heat. His seed exploded from him in a wave of fire that emptied his balls and dropped him back on the bed, bound and panting.
    With one last high, sweet shout, she collapsed on top of him, panting, sweat slicking her skin.
    For several long, stunned moments, they lay together like storm survivors. Raniero’s muscles quivered and jumped in helpless spasms. He was more than a little satisfied when he felt hers do the same.
    At least he wasn’t the only one left wrung out and shivering. It had been the most amazing fuck he’d ever had, yet he found himself resenting it. Resenting her. She’d taken him like a camp whore in a ruthless possession.
    He was the one who did the possessing, dammit.
    She rose from his body, his drained sex slipping from her tight inner grip to plop on his sweating abdomen like a dead bird. Face averted, the Rose searched out the shift she’d tossed on the floor and shrugged it over her head. She tied the laces with hands that shook.
    “Are you just going to leave me with my cock hanging out?”
    She looked around at him as she stuffed her feet in her shoes. Her gaze dropped to his reddened, sticky organ. Blushing like a schoolgirl, the Rose reached down to drag his breeches up until he was decently covered again.
    A moment later, the door banged shut behind her hem. He listened to the patter of her footsteps on the stone.
    One of his guards said something he couldn’t make out, and the other men laughed in a nasty, knowing little chorus of chuckles that made Raniero’s face heat.
    Bitch.
    But Red God’s balls, he’d never had better.
     
    A maris fled down the stairs as if a squadron of Varil was on her heels.
    She hadn’t even known her body was capable of . . . that. An explosion of ripe carnality so intense, she felt dazzled, as if she’d stared too long at the sun. Except she’d done the staring with every sense she had. Echoes of the vampire jolted through her body in hot pulses. She could still taste him on her tongue, hear his groans, feel the hard muscled heat of him between her thighs—and deeper, buried in her core, long and thick, an erotic invasion that made her shudder at the memory.
    It was one thing to swive some vampire, another to imprint him on your soul. How had he done it? One fuck, and he’d driven himself impossibly deep, like a dagger between the ribs.
    Bitter experience warned her to stay away from him. Yet Korban would demand she go to him again, use all her Blood Rose skills to seduce him into betraying his king.
    She rounded the curve of the stone stairway—and almost slammed into a massive reptilian body. The Varil raiders hissed at her, evidently on their way up. In her agitation, she made no reply, instead turning sideways and slipping between the two, barely avoiding the claws that darted out in search of her flesh. They cursed her as she fled.
    She reached the bottom of the tower stairs and escaped along the snaking corridor of the keep until she found her chamber. It was far from comfortable—a thin layer of rushes on the floor, a pallet that made her back ache in the morning, and a rough wooden bench before the fire. But as it also served as a vivid reminder of her status, it suited her just as well.
    She poked up the fire and tossed on another log. As the room took on a dim glow, she collapsed on the bench to stare blankly into the flames.
    What was she going to do about the vampire?
     
    S ergeant Milric Lio Ony straightened warily when the two Varil raiders appeared at the head of the stairs. Wizard Lord Korban might trust the reptilian bastards, but he did not.
    “You are dismissed,” the larger of the two Varil said, his words spoken in a hissing accent that was nigh incomprehensible. A pair of iridescent blue stripes ran the length of his body from eye to tail. “Lord Korban has assigned my kevil and me to watch the vampire.”
    Milric exchanged a wary look