Free No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon Page A

tightened her thighs around him. "You telling me you're at ready?"
                He kissed her lightly on the lips. "Baby, I'm ready to go until neither of us can walk."
                She sucked her breath in sharply as he teased her nipple with his tongue. Oh, he felt so good. That tongue of his should be bronzed. "I intend to hold you to that."
                "Then let the marathon begin...."
                Over the next few hours, he more than made good on that promise. Sam's head swam from exhaustion and endorphins.
                After starting in the foyer and working their way through the downstairs and staircase, they'd finally made it to her bedroom where they lay entwined in her light yellow silk sheets.
                She was so sated and sore, she didn't want to move at least for a week. "I think you've killed me."
                Dev laughed as he peeled the wax shell away from a mini Babybel piece of cheese--she didn't know why she'd bought them since she normally couldn't eat cheese without having farm flashbacks--which weren't bad, just annoying to listen to cows mooing while she ate. But it'd looked so good on the commercials and in the store that she hadn't been able to resist it. He offered her the first bite.
                She hesitated, but as she sank her teeth in, she realized that it, too, was safe. It amazed her that she could eat it. There was just something about Dev...if he touched it first, it was like he cleansed it and removed what ever funk would attack her.
                "You could have sent me away at any time," he said as he ate his own little Babybel.
                "True. But I'm just as bad and horny as you are."
                "Nah, you're not..." A wicked light came into his beautiful blue eyes. "You're worse."
                Laughing, she choked on the cheese.
                Dev quickly handed her his glass of wine so that she could clear her esophagus. "Sorry about that."
                Sam froze as the domesticity...the normality of this moment hit her hard. It was like the realization knocked her out of her body and she floated above them, looking down. Dev was lying on his back with the sheet pooled at his waist while she lay beside him on her stomach. They were relaxed and enjoying each other's company--like two old friends. She hadn't been this way with a man since the night Ioel died.
                Grief racked her entire being. How could I do this to him? How could I ever be so comfortable with another man after all he did for me? Gave me? Ioel had been loyal to her from the first moment they'd met. He'd never even looked at another woman. More than that, he'd almost caused a war within his own clan when he'd refused to marry the woman he was betrothed to so that he could marry Sam instead.
                And he'd died protecting her and their children.
                Images of that night ripped through her, shredding what little sanity she had as she saw him die in front of her eyes. Even after all these centuries, she still wanted him back. Still missed everything about him. The way he smelled. Felt. Kissed...
                Oh God, Ioel...
                How could he be gone?
                Dev frowned as he saw the terrified look in Sam's dark eyes. It was like she was reliving a nightmare. "You okay, baby?" He reached out to touch her.
                She pulled away instantly. "I need you to leave."
                "Yeah, but--"
                "Now!" she barked.
                Dev held his hands up in surrender. "Fine. But if you need me--"
                "I won't. Now get out."
                Her tone offended him to the core of his being and it took everything he had not to lash back at her. If it wasn't for the fact that he knew something