Tempt the Stars

lean body, and it didn’t need words. The hands that had been gentle a moment before gripped my hips, fingers digging into my naked flesh. And pulled me roughly back against him, abruptly enough to wrest another gasp from my lips.
    Or maybe that was the image that flashed across my vision, of a powerful body standing under the spray, one arm braced against the wall, tight jaw beaded with water, and eyes half-lidded as he . . . pleasured himself?
    It didn’t make sense, any more than the fact that the tiles he was leaning against were a different color from mine. Or that the shower he was standing in was configured in a different direction, making my brain hurt. But I didn’t have time to process it, because the visuals were a little . . . overwhelming.
    Wet dark hair streaming over his shoulders, free as few ever saw it. Chest running with rivulets, stomach and buttocks tight with effort, biceps hard and bunching on the arm that he was braced with, and the one he was using to hold himself. Only hold wasn’t the right word.
    He was pulling out of the cage of his palm in long, slow strokes and then surging in hard, letting me feel the power behind each thrust. There was none of the butterfly touch he often used with me, which I’d mistaken for his preference. But which I now realized was the result of a vampire overcompensating for the fragility of a human, so afraid he might hurt her that he was overgentle, overcautious.
    He wasn’t being cautious now. And it was beautiful, he was beautiful, in his casual brutality. Someone who couldn’t hurt himself and knew he couldn’t, pushing his limits, reaching for a climax that—
    Suddenly included me?
    Those incredible eyes closed, sharp teeth buried in his lower lip, and a frown of intense concentration came over his face. A hand pushed my wet curls to the side, the tongue found the indentations on my neck he’d left there as a mark of his possession. And something like an electric shock reverberated through me. Hands slid over my body, furling my nipples, tightening my skin, even before an unmistakable thickness slid against me.
    It was hard and hot and unbelievably heavy. Mircea wasn’t small, even soft, and like this he was both eye-widening and somewhat terrifying. At least normally. But right now there was none of that. Just this, just gasping breath and raw need and pulsing, unfulfilled ache, and I was actually going to explode, to come apart at the seams, to go completely insane if he didn’t—
    “Oh God.
Yes.
” That’s what I’d wanted, what I’d needed, not my own touch but his, the feel of him as I wrapped my legs around his waist—
    And almost fell off. My back was against wet, slippery tile, my front was against soapy, slippery vampire, and any moment now, I was going to land in an undignified heap. And given my experience, probably on my butt. But then Mircea slid strong hands underneath my thighs, boosting me up, bracing me with his body as he pushed into me—
    Carefully, as he hadn’t been just moments ago. He was slowing down, being cautious, holding back. And I didn’t want that.
    “No,” I gasped, even as he held me, so, so carefully. Like I was china, like I might break. When I wanted to break; I wanted to
feel.
“Not like that. Like before.”
    “I’ll hurt you.”
    “You won’t.”
    But Mircea was being stubborn. “My fantasy, my rules,” he told me, shifting position, getting that last half inch . . . just there. . . 
    “That’s cheating,” I gasped. “And it’s my fantasy.”
    A dark eyebrow quirked, causing a miniature cascade down one sculpted cheek. “Forgive me,
dulceaţă
, but I believe this is
my
fantasy, which would explain why you are being difficult.”
    “You like it when I’m difficult?”
    “I like you any way,” he murmured into my ear, dark, wet hair falling around me as he sped up—
    But not enough.
    Long, thick strokes were more maddening than satisfying, and I’d about had it. “Damn it!” I tongued his earlobe. “Do what I tell you!”
    He slowed down even further, a long, sensual glide. “Make me.”
    I bit down on that tantalizing bit of flesh, and felt him vibrate against me. Oh, he’d liked that, had he? “Harder,” I ordered.
    “
That
is cheating,” he muttered, but the pace sped noticeably up.
    I bit his neck next, right at the spot where hard shoulder met strong throat, and he barked out a laugh. “Now I know I’m dreaming.”
    It bled a little, but the