She put her hands on his torso and watched as she ran them up his chest. Muscles rippled underneath her palms as he took in a shaking breath. She raked at his ni**les with gentle fingernails. Part of her was ecstatic with shock. I am touching him. He is touching me.

He hissed and grabbed her fingers, coming over her as he bore her back down. He put his hands at her waist and, understanding what he wanted, she lifted her hips for him to pull the leggings off. He shifted to tear off his jeans and fling them aside. Then he slid back over her, heavy and hard and naked, and they were lying skin to skin.

If he had seemed hot before, he had since turned volcanic. She could feel his heart hammering against her breast. She lost herself in the enjoyment of rubbing herself against him, running her hands up the considerable musculature of his powerful back.

He slid down her body, running his open, shaking mouth along the length of her neck, down her collarbone, until he could feast on her br**sts. He sucked and bit at the succulent flesh, gripping her ni**les between his teeth and flicking at them with his tongue, one after the other until she arched and cried out, incoherent with sharp delight.

Then he slid down farther, licking and biting his way along the curve of her waist. He gripped the inside of her slender knees and held her splayed as he sucked the tender flesh of her inner thighs. She writhed in his hold, crying out again as she lifted her hips up to him.

He paused to look his fill of her. Elegant bone structure, radiant cream and dusky pink, she lay on an extravagant pillow of tangled pale gold hair. He could track his journey across her body in the luscious suck-bruises that were blooming at the undersides of her br**sts, the insides of her thighs. Her violet dark eyes were huge and shimmering with desire, just like they had in the dream.

Just as he had craved ever since. Desire for him, the monster, the Great Beast.

But this was no dream, and he was so hard and full from wanting her he was in superb pain. He looked at the plump, fluted pink of her labia topped with a tangle of white-gold curls. She was slick with moisture, drenched with it, and his heavy c**k leaped at the generous evidence of her arousal. He whispered, “I’m going to eat you until you scream.”

Her slender feet curled and a deep groan burst out of her. He lowered his head and continued his assault, licking and biting and sucking with shaking greed. He drew her stiff little bud into his mouth and suckled as she bucked and shook with the force of the pleasure spiraling through her.

She lifted up on her elbows, panting, and stared at what he was doing to her. That dark head and those broad shoulders between her shivering thighs, his blade-cut face drenched with arousal as he worked her, was a sight so erotic it hurtled her into a climax. She hung her head back and squealed as she came with an intensity she had never known before.

He never stopped. He kept licking and suckling, his mouth absorbing the ripples that cascaded through her. He put a flattened hand on her lower abdomen as she clenched, feeling the rhythm of her climax. He wrung her out and still he continued to suck.

The sensitivity became too much. She sank trembling fingers into his hair, tried to pull his head back. “Stop, I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

He made a throaty sound, his hot gold gaze flashing as he focused on her sweaty dazed face and suckled harder. He plunged two fingers deep inside her, and just like that, he pushed her into another climax, this one longer and more intense than the first. He gobbled that climax down and without stopping shoved her into a third.

Her torso arched off the ground and the tendons in her neck distended as a thin, breathless scream broke out of her. She was completely taken over by what he was doing to her. The brilliant star-studded night sky disappeared as her eyes filled and spilled over.

At last he pulled away and crawled up her, breathing harsh, intent carving every flex and shift of his body. She had no words as she stared up at him. He was such a splendid aggressive male, the broad muscles in his chest and upper arms quivering, his large erect penis hanging long and heavy between rock-hard thighs. She looked into his eyes as she curved a hand around the broad mushroom head and stroked.

With that he went bat-shit crazy for the third time in three days. He lunged down at her, his lungs working to take in great gulps of air. He scooped an arm under her hips to yank her up for his entry. She guided him and he slammed all the way inside.

She shrieked at the invasion and dug her nails into his back. He was no delicate, diffident lover. He was like nothing she had ever experienced, a tsunami crashing over her head and destroying her old identity, reshaping her life.

He wrapped his other arm around her, clutching her by neck and hips as he began to plunge into her in heavy, powerful strokes. He was groaning in her ear with every thrust as they mated like the animals they were. The increasing pressure, the sound of their flesh coming together, her total lack of control, had her digging her nails into his back. She stretched and whimpered, lost in the inexorable rhythm of her body, and came again.

He threw back his head, face contorted in savagery, astonishment. With a last convulsive thrust he made a muffled sound and joined her in climax. She felt him pulse deep inside and she clenched everything she had around the delicious length of him, holding on to the sensation, on to him. He rocked into her, panting, eyes closed as he gushed into her. She put a hand at the back of his head, an arm around his waist, holding him as he held her, murmuring in his ear, yes, there you are, yes.

He turned his face, found her mouth and kissed her as he held them so tight together at pelvis and hip, for a while it felt as if they had fused together and become one creature, light and dark, yin and yang.

It was then her shattered consciousness caught up with what he had growled in her ear as he f**ked her. Mine, he had said. You’re mine. You’re mine.

She drifted, looking at the silhouette of the back of his head against the sky as she rubbed her cheek against his, as his weight bore her down. Something in her was sputtering and trying to shift into overdrive in reaction to what just happened. It was too much. She couldn’t think.

He started to move his hips again, pulling out, pushing in, his breathing deepening. Oh God, he was still huge and hard. Not human. She made an amazed noise at the back of her throat, clutching at him as he worked inside her. It was too gorgeous. She thrust up with her hips, matching his pace.

This time a moan tore through his chest and he shook all over as he started to pulse. She worked inner muscles and rocked him through the climax, murmuring in his ear. He turned his face into her neck.

He pulled out, face drawn. She woofed in surprise as he flipped her onto her stomach and yanked her hips up so that she was on her knees. Her tangled hair settled in a cloud over her face. “Not deep enough,” he groaned. “Got to get deeper.”

More than willing, she spread her knees and arched her pelvis back. She reached between her legs to help guide him as he pushed into her from behind. The slick, hot, velvet length of his c**k felt even bigger this way. She murmured a throaty encouragement as he buried himself to the hilt. She was taken over not just by his overwhelming sexuality but by this strange creature who lived inside her body and who felt more sensuous, more female, and more desired than she ever had before.

He covered her, one arm low around her waist to hold her for his frenzied thrusts, the other hand planted on the ground beside hers so that he bore most of his weight. This time the pistoning of his hips was relentless. He drove hard and steady as he buried his face in the back of her neck, his breath shuddering against her skin. The pressure built again, but this time she wasn’t sure she could take it. She sobbed and clutched at the ground for purchase. Grass tore under her fingernails.

He sank his teeth into the back of her neck as his Power curled around her. Come with me. He shifted to put his hand between her legs, to rub long fingers along the place where he entered her and to pinch her clitoris. He shoved in hard one last time and held taut. His Power rippled over her, through her, with his climax.

Her mind went incandescent. She flew apart.

Dragos poured everything he had into her. It came roaring up from the base of his spine as he locked himself in the tight glove of her sheath. This wasn’t sex. He’d had sex countless times. Sex was a simple coupling and release. More often than not, half an hour later he would have already forgotten the female’s name.

This was something he’d never done before. This was something far more elemental and necessary than sex. Feasting on her didn’t ease his hunger but fed his need. Working inside her wasn’t enough. Climaxing didn’t assuage the lust. It built the frenzy. She absorbed everything he did to her and amplified it back, and bloomed even more lustrous and intoxicating. He had to drive into her so deep he never came back out.

He came back to awareness. He still covered her from behind, was still inside her, his hand spanning the graceful are of her pelvis. Tremors quaked through her body. The slender muscles in her thighs quivered against his. She gasped for breath in quiet sobs.

What had he done? He pressed his lips to her neck and drew them along the sleek angle of her shoulder. He withdrew his hand from her pelvis to brush the tangled cloud of her hair out of the way as he tried to see her face. “Ssh,” he murmured. “Easy.”

She was too weak to stay on her hands and knees without his hold supporting her. His softening penis slipped out of her as she sank to the ground. She rested her head on her arms. He shifted to lie on his side, one thigh draped over the back of hers. He smoothed her hair, rubbed her shivering back.

Her face seemed wet. Was she crying? Had he hurt her? The questions knifed him. He could have sworn she was with him the entire way.

He stopped breathing. He eased fingers under her chin to coax her head up and turn her toward him. Her face and those brilliant eyes were devastated and wide-open. She looked as beautiful and fragile as cut crystal. His gut clenched.

“I lost control,” he whispered.

That, along with the worry darkening his eyes, anchored her back in her body. Was he trying to apologize?

“So did I,” she whispered back.

“I’ve never done that before.” He touched the delicate skin at the corner of her eye, rubbed the ball of his thumb along her lower lip.

“Neither have I,” she confessed. A smile broke over her face.

His fingers dropped to trace the curve of her lips. “Are you—all right?”

She was a mess. She was euphoric, an emotional train wreck. She needed to go into a quiet, dark room somewhere and try to make sense of everything that had happened—and that he had done—to her.

But first she had to wipe that uncertainty off his face.

Her smile widened, and she told him the truth. “No,” she said. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to those incredible seductive lips. “You demolished me. I had no idea anybody could do the things you did. And I want to know how soon we can do it again.”

The worry vanished and an answering smile lit his eyes. He looked at her mouth. “I want a lot of things.”

“What you do with your tongue is a sin,” she teased.

That vulnerability he saw in her still lurked around the edges, but he chose to go with her attempt to lighten things up. He told her, “There are many advantages to being a bad man.”

“Such as?”

He sat up and pulled her onto his lap, turning her so that she faced him, torso to torso, groin to groin, her slender legs stretched out on either side of him. It was an intimate position made even more so by their nudity, a position perfect for making love. He wrapped his arms around her and she curled hers around his neck.

Even sitting on his lap as she was, his body was so much bigger and longer than hers, he had to tilt his head down to go nose to nose with her.

“A comfortable lack of conscience,” he said. “The enjoyment of unbroken sleep. An uncomplicated desire to discover every possible carnal pleasure with the beautiful woman in his arms.”

Her eyes brightened at the compliment and crinkled at him. He smiled back and kissed her, a long, leisurely exploration that curled her toes.

“Well, I think you keep a very well-hidden secret,” she told him when she could breathe again.

He cocked an eyebrow.

She tapped a finger against his chest. “There is a pretty charming creature buried deep inside there. You should let him out more often.” He laughed out loud, but then the look on his face turned calculating. She laughed too as she realized she found even that charming. God, she was a goner. She warned, “Don’t make me regret telling you that.”

“I’ll try not to take too much advantage,” he said.

“Oh, thank you very much.” She rolled her eyes. That probably meant he was going to wring everything he could out of it. Her stomach rumbled. “I’m starving again.”

They sat in reach of the pack. He gave her a leaf-wrapped wafer, which she unwrapped. She ate while he tried to run his fingers through her tangles. “We did a number on your hair,” he said. He sent a gentle pulse of Power through his hands and her hair smoothed out.

She swallowed a bite of the delicious wayfarer bread. “You ever get tired of being a multibillionaire businessman, you could make another fortune as a hairdresser.”

“I’ll be sure to keep it in mind,” he said. He didn’t tell her he had no interest in anyone else’s hair but hers. He looked around the clearing. “We’ve lingered too long here. We should leave as soon as you finish.”

“Right,” she said, looking around also. “And why did we come this way, instead of going back the way they brought us?”

“You’ve never been to an Other land before, right?” She nodded, and he continued, “This isn’t the best analogy, but it will work for now. Time and space buckled when the earth was formed, and the buckling created dimensional pockets where magic pooled. Picture them like lakes or large bodies of water. There are lakes of varying sizes. Some are quite small, more like ponds, and some stand by themselves. Others are almost as big as oceans and are linked together, with streams or rivers. I can sense that this”—he gestured around them—“is a very large area connected to other large land areas.”