Hot Blooded

of him. He had
the ugly suspicion she was clinging to sanity by her fingernails. Hours of
contact with that monster's mind had worn her down. They had to sever that
connection fast.
    "Fuck," he snarled in fury.
    "Now would be good," Grace agreed. Lying back on the bed, she drew her thighs
apart. "Let's get it over with."
    He eyed her. "That is not a phrase a woman has ever used to me before—and I'm
sure as hell not taking it from you."
    "Dammit, Lance, we don't have time for candlelight and flowers."
    Sliding the robe off his shoulders, he eased onto the mattress and lowered
his head between her legs. "Candlelight was not what I had in mind."
    "We don't have time for
that
, either." Grace tried to sit up, but he
wrapped his hands around her thighs and held her still. Using two fingers, he
spread her delicate folds and studied the pink lips.
    "You're dry, darling—I'd hurt you, and I've never hurt a woman that way in my
very long life. Besides which, for this to work, you need to come. It
jump-starts the Gift."
    "I'm not exactly in the mood, Lance."
    He gave her his best darkly seductive smile. "Let me worry about that."
    Lowering his head, he stroked his tongue between her lips. She quivered
against him. Feeling the slight motion under his hands, Lance smiled.
    And got to work doing what he did best.
    Â 
    AFTER the day she'd spent, Grace hadn't thought it would be possible to wring
arousal from her battered mind. She'd underestimated Lancelot du Lac.
    With all the skill gained over sixteen hundred years as the Seducer of
Avalon, Lance used his clever tongue and wicked hands to drive her ruthlessly
into arousal. He knew just where to lick, where to stroke, where to drive two
long fingers, using tongue and lips and teeth to drag her into lust with a speed
she would have thought impossible. He filled her so thoroughly with himself
there was no room for anything else, not even her awareness of the killer. And
Grace was almost pitifully grateful for the respite.
    As she moaned helplessly, he licked and swirled his tongue over her clit,
lapped slowly between her creamy lips, rumbling deep, masculine purrs of
approval. "You taste so good," he lifted his head to say, and reached up her
torso to cup her breasts in both hands, thumbed her nipples in skilled flicks.
    She reached down to fist her hands in his dark curls, rolling her hips,
silently begging for more. "Damn, Lance," she gasped, "you're good at that."
    He smiled at her wickedly over her belly. "I've had a lot of practice." Then
he buried his face against her and thrust his tongue deep. His fingers pinched
and twirled the burning tips of her breasts. Pleasure coiled and lashed inside
her like a tiger's tail until she twisted helplessly on the sheets. The hot,
dark surge went right on building, fiercer than anything she'd ever felt before.
She realized dizzily the Change was beginning, prepared by her previous exposure
to his saliva, his sperm, his pheromones. She could almost feel the rising snap
and crackle of the Gift surging through her on a wave of silent hormonal
signals. She found herself going helplessly limp, dazzled by the sparks bursting
in front of her eyes.
    Lance lifted his head from between her thighs and gave her a hot, predatory
smile. "
There
you are. I knew you were going to be one of the ones that
go over fast." He sat back on his heels with a surge of muscle, caught her by
one hip, and flipped her over on her belly. She moaned helplessly as he piled a
mound of pillows on the mattress.
    Dazed from the strange, hot sensations pouring over her, she couldn't even
move as he lifted her effortlessly and arranged her bottom-up across the
pillows. Big hands spread her thighs wide.
    Then, at last, he covered her, gathering both wrists in one hand while he
wrapped the other around her chin and turned her head. She licked her lips and
lifted her spinning head. "What? Why are you… ?"
    "I want you helpless," he growled in her ear. The heat from his breath made
her shiver, like a tiger's exhalations. "I want you to feel my cock driving you
into the Gift. Me, Grace. Nobody else." Her dazed eyes focusing on the mirror of
his oak bureau, she saw him angle the thick length of his erection, aiming it
for her creamy core. "You may be doing this out of duty, but you're damn well
never going to forget this moment," he said, his voice rough with submerged
anger. "Even if it's all I'll ever get of