Kira held his gaze as she closed the distance between them. She'd gone on this walk meaning to confront him about following her. To find out if Mencheres had been motivated by suspicion or by the desire to see her again, but that wasn't necessary now.

She could feel his craving for her. It seeped out from that wall he shielded himself with in ever-widening streams, until it was a tangible force, invisible but everywhere.

And it flared a hunger in her that almost brought her to her knees. She wanted to touch his skin, taste his mouth, and twist her hands in his long hair while he took her in his arms with something other than protectiveness. A throb took up cadence inside her as she came closer, almost within touching distance, impatient to feel him surrounding her with his body instead of just his power.

"Kira."

His voice was low, and he breathed in after he said it, as if inhaling her name. She reached out, her hands almost aching to connect with his flesh. Mencheres caught them, but he held her away from him, his aura of need changing to frustration.

"You don't really want this."

She almost laughed at the absurdity of that statement. Couldn't he sense the ache building in her, too strong to be called desire, too deep to be mere lust? If she could feel his emotion raging past his barriers, couldn't he feel hers, too?

"I want this. You. All of it."

She brought her body flush against his as she spoke, though he still held her hands away from him. The contact with his body, even covered in clothes, was enough to send a shock through Kira. She closed her eyes while a moan edged out of her throat. With his power sizzling into her everywhere they touched, he felt so good it almost hurt.

A harsh noise escaped him as well, so deep and primal, more heat flooded into her loins. Kira tried to free her hands from his grip with all of her uncontrollable strength, but Mencheres held her effortlessly, not even shifting his stance. His head dipped, his hair brushing her face and neck like sensual flicks of silk.

"This isn't what you feel. It's your new senses," he said, his voice dropping to almost a growl. "They make you feel things that might not be real - "

"I felt this for you before," Kira cut him off, need roughening her tone. "Even when you held me captive, but especially after you let me go. Don't tell me what I'm feeling isn't real, and don't even pretend that you don't want me, too."

She didn't care how challenging that sounded. With the same uninhibited, single-minded clarity she'd only felt before in dreams, all Kira knew was she wanted him and that he felt the same way about her. She tried to free her hands again. This time, Mencheres released her while his eyes turned from black to bright, blazing green.

Then he yanked her to him. Her nerve endings jumped in frantic response to the crush of his body against hers. She had time to wind her fingers into his hair before his mouth slanted over hers.

The jolt she felt at that contact seemed to go straight to her core, sending a ripple of shocks through her. His tongue raked past her lips to explore her mouth with blistering passion. He tasted like dark spices, rich and heady, exotic and intoxicating, filling her with heat. The erotic way he stroked his tongue along hers only increased when Kira's fangs burst free, inadvertently drawing his blood. Instead of pulling back, Mencheres kissed her deeper, holding her tighter, lifting her until her feet were off the ground and it was just his arms keeping her upright.

Her initial desire felt like only a vague whisper of longing. With Mencheres gripping her to him and his tongue ravening her mouth, she burned for him. Her hands left his hair to glide down his back, nails restlessly digging into him. Those hard muscles moved underneath her palms, taunting her with the rub of skin that was so close yet denied to her by their clothes.

Kira didn't want fabric between them. She wanted to feel his skin on hers. The steady pulsing between her legs built into a throb that demanded to be sated. She tried to tell him that, but his mouth continued to dominate hers with hungry, sensual insistence. She couldn't speak. She could barely even think.

Something soft brushed down her back and legs. Then, somehow, her sweater and jeans were gone, and Mencheres was on the ground with her on top of him. She didn't pause to wonder at the buttons that popped off his shirt of their own accord before the fabric slithered away from him. All she cared about was the incredible surge she felt when their skin met. How hard, smooth, and tight his chest felt against her breasts, and how it seemed that he suddenly had a dozen hands, because she felt him stroking every part of her.

The sensations bombarding her were just as intense as when Kira first awoke as a vampire, only this time, they weren't frightening. Her skin felt feverish, her body trembling with need and shuddering with ecstasy just from the feel of him. A loud moan broke free when Mencheres slid his mouth down from her lips to her throat, grazing her skin with his prominently extended fangs. Instead of biting her, he licked and sucked the highly sensitive spot where his fangs had pierced her two nights before.

The electric feel of his mouth shot a path of blind, aching need from her neck to her loins, making everything inside her tighten.

"I want you so much," she gasped, grinding herself against him.

Mencheres tore away from her throat with a groan that seemed to echo all through him.

She gripped his hair, desperate to have his mouth on her again, and then felt the aching bliss of him molding her to him before he kissed her once more.

Her desire rose to a painful level. Kira curled her fists in his hair, almost tearing it out in her impatience to bring his mouth closer. When his hand slid up her thigh, she let out a smothered groan at the tingling trail it left. Then he cupped her sex, his palm sensually grinding against her clitoris with firm, circular strokes, his fingers devastating her with their skil even through her panties.

Molten heat blasted through Kira as all her lower nerve endings felt like they'd been struck by lightning. The sensation was so intense, so fierce, it overwhelmed her. She cried out at the sudden convulsive tightening within her, ecstasy blasting through her in uncontrollable waves that rippled from her core and spread out to the rest of her body.

Mencheres reveled in the feel of Kira's orgasm. The intoxicating sweetness of her mouth, the torturous ecstasy of her skin against his, her body shuddering on top of him while hoarse cries vibrated against his mouth - it was a memory he would replay many times in the future, however short that future might be.

But he'd already taken more than he should. If he were honorable, he'd have assuaged Kira's need without laying hands on her. He'd used his power for those purposes in the past with other new vampires he sired, but always at a distance, where it was impersonal. All vampire urges were too overwhelming to control at first, and lust was no exception. But when Kira told him she wanted him, when she reached for him . . .

Mencheres could not bring himself merely to satisfy her with his power. He had to have his hands and mouth on her, feel her next to him, no matter that it was as painful as it was magnificent.

With the greatest reluctance, he ended their kiss, licking his lips to savor Kira's taste one last time. Then he sent his power out to gather up the sweater and pants that he'd hastily stripped from her before.

Her head dropped to his shoulder, those soft, full lips seeking out his flesh. A tremor went through him as her tongue flicked out, teasing and stroking his skin from his shoulder to the hollow of his throat.

Ah, gods, if only things were different.

"Kira. We must stop."

Mencheres forced himself to sit up, to set her back until her lovely face was staring at him in confusion instead of being pressed to his flesh.

"What's wrong?"

Everything about her was an enticement for him to forget his principles. Her breasts strained against her bra, her lace underwear was more all uring than concealing, and her lemony scent was both sweeter and muskier with her lust. He closed his eyes. If he even allowed himself to imagine that she tasted as good as she smelled . . .

"We cannot do this. You are impaired from your new senses. Later, you would rightly be angry at me for exploiting your condition if I took you."

Kira let out a sound between a scoff and a disbelieving laugh. "You're just intending to stop because you think I don't know what I want?"

He tried to remember the things he'd said to other people he'd sired when he was in a similar scenario, but he'd never wanted them with the same fierce need that clawed at him now. It was hard to form logical words when his attention kept being distracted by Kira's scent on his skin, how near she was to him, and how ravishing she looked in her miniscule undergarments.

"This isn't what you would choose of your own uninfluenced will," he managed to grit out. If this were any more difficult, he'd call it torture.

Kira jumped up in a single leap, grabbing her pants and sweater from the ground nearby.

"Unbelievable. Do you always do other people's thinking for them? Or is this something you've reserved just for me?"

The acid in her tone was unexpected. Did she believe that he refused her out of lack of desire? The notion would have been laughable if he wasn't suffering so strongly at the moment.

"I've had experience with new vampires. Right now, your new senses are directing your actions instead of your will. To assume you mean what you say under these circumstances is tantamount to - "

"You really do just make up other people's minds for them," Kira interrupted, yanking on her pants. "Wow, that must piss them off. It's got me infuriated, too. Congratulations, you win. Now I don't want you anymore."

"You never offered yourself to me before this," Mencheres snapped, his controlled fa?ade cracking under the weight of his frustration. "You stayed under my roof for a week when we met, yet all that time, you only spoke of your desire to leave. Not of any longing for my attentions."

She strode over, her jeans not all the way closed because she'd ripped them when she pulled them on.

"When we first met, I thought you were going to kill me, then, when I knew you weren't, you were still holding me captive. I wasn't about to indulge in a smutty case of Stockholm syndrome by telling my captor how hot he made me - although if you remember, I did tell you something to that effect one day. Then when you let me go, which was the one thing that made it possible for me to act on what I felt toward you, you just vanished. I thought you could care less about me. If not for what you did with my boss, I never would have even gone looking for you . . ."

Kira stopped abruptly, turning away and yanking on her sweater next. It, too, ripped beneath her strength, hanging on her like a poncho from the tears. Mencheres leapt up, grasping her arm and spinning her back around. Something twisted inside his chest.

What was this?

"You came looking for me? When?"

A harsh laugh escaped her. "The very next night after you mesmerized my boss. I went to all the places in my old case files that might have a paranormal association. You know why I was in the strip club that night? I wasn't there investigating a missing person's case; finding Jennifer was an accident. I was there looking for a connection to you because I wanted to see you again without that whole captor/captive thing between us." For several moments, Mencheres could not speak. She'd been at the club that night searching for him? Spent other nights seeking him out as well? Could Kira truly have felt the same inexplicable, insistent draw to him that he'd felt for her? It defied reason that she would have sought him out for any other purpose. Her personality wasn't compatible with humans who flocked to the undead merely to seek the sometimes dangerous thril of a vampire's company, and she hadn't needed him for anything else. He'd made sure of that when he gave her all the blood she would require for her sister before he'd left her.

She stared at him, moonlight reflecting in her green eyes. "Say something. Even if it's to tell me I was an idiot for chasing after you and I deserved to end up as a vampire over it. At least that's better than silence."

Her naked honesty was so unlike his normal, guarded speech. Reason warned him to tell Kira she was right. That a human plunging herself into the vampire world without a protector usually did end up suffering serious consequences, but he couldn't utter that statement. Nor could he tell Kira the other thing that would be better for her to believe, even though it was a lie: that he cared no more for her than any of his other property.

Under the weight of her gaze, however, all of his cool logic crumbled and he found himself responding with the same raw honesty she'd shown him.

"I am Master of a large line of vampires and humans, and yes, I often do people's thinking for them. Moreover, I have betrayed almost everyone I've loved, including participating in my wife's murder and withholding important information from my co-ruler.

My other sins are too numerous to list, and I have certain death looming in my future, so as soon as you are able to control your condition, Kira, you would do well to forget me." She kept looking at him with that level, penetrating stare, no disgust or shock on her face. Mencheres waited, expecting any moment for his words to sink in and her reaction to change, but the minutes ticked away, and still her expression didn't alter from thoughtful contemplation.

"I'm getting hungry," she said at last, turning away and starting back through the woods toward his house.

He gazed at her retreating back in astonishment. Where were her reprimands? The castigation of his character that so many others would be quick to oblige him with were he to have said the same to them? Furthermore, he didn't sense an oncoming attack of hunger from Kira, but perhaps she was shielding it. Or learning to anticipate her cravings.

He gave his head a slight shake and followed after her, leaving his shirt behind on the ground. He'd already have too many memories of tonight without a tangible memento to torment himself with.

Despite that, he licked his lips one more time, absorbing Kira's taste and remembering the feel of her shuddering in pleasure on top of him. If he'd known she'd searched for him, that her desire was not wholly based on her new, uncontrollable senses, would he have had the strength to refuse her before?

No. The answer reverberated all through him, followed immediately by another taunting question.

Now that he knew these things, would he have the strength to stay away from her?