“They don’t work, do they?”
He smiled. “Just be thankful they ate guinea pigs and not people. It’s not as though they’re incapable. These are vampires, like me, who simply want to live out their years without the demon bloodlust.”
“Some, but not all?”
“Not all, but enough.”
She appeared to digest this. “Jaden, if I agree to the ceremony…”
“Yes?”
“What would happen if I couldn’t go through with it? All those men. I’ve never been with anyone I didn’t know well.”
With effort, he banked down the flare of jealousy and sexual possessiveness. “You’ll have to let go of the idea of being a ‘good girl’. You’ll have to give in to your purely animal nature. To bring you to that level of sexual ecstasy, they’ll need to do things to you that you’ve never done before, not even in your dreams. No part of your body will be off limits. They must work you into such a sexual frenzy, you don’t care who does what so long as they bring you to your next orgasm, and the one after that.”
He saw, and understood, the fear in her eyes. Saw too that beneath that fear lay a flicker of curiosity.
“I’m not… I’m not used to it. To sex… Up here, all I do is work. There hasn’t been time for anything else.”
“If you decide to go through with it, you’ll need to prepare. Physically.”
“How?”
She’d asked it so innocently, her lips slightly parted, her hair streaming over her shoulders, as dark as the velvet inside a jeweler’s box. He was all too ready to show her. Even now, his cock was hardening, but he didn’t want to scare her off or rush her into something she wasn’t prepared to handle.
“Let’s not talk about it now,” he said. “There’s plenty of time.”
Her gaze dropped to the bulge in his jeans. “Does it turn you on, the thought of doing those things to me?”
He didn’t move but could feel the blood thickening. “Yes.”
Her smile, while coquettish, was not without gravity. “Will you show me a little of…what to expect? If I go through with it?”
“What if it hurts?”
“A lot of things do at first.”
He reached for her. There was no telling what would happen once he breached certain pleasure centers, certain thresholds. Some women hated it. But some women weren’t Delaney.
“You must understand a few things,” he whispered into her ear. “You must understand that when a man who loves you takes you in a way that hurts, he does it only to heighten the pleasure that will eventually come.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Yes.”
“You’ll have to trust me,” he said, slowly drawing her T-shirt over her head, getting her out of her shorts, and then feasting his eyes on her soft breasts and puckered nipples. “You must learn to surrender, to accept, to allow me in places I’ve never been inside before. Do you understand?”
She nodded and then watched as he peeled down his zipper and kicked his jeans away. He stood in front of her, fully rampant, and guided himself slowly inside her mouth. She looked up at him meekly. Instinctively, she used her tongue to lick the head while her long, cool fingers stroked and massaged his balls. He let her have her way for a minute, but then grabbed a handful of her thick hair, pushing himself deeper.
“That’s it,” he said. “Relax your throat.”
He felt her gag a little on his size, but could tell by how eagerly she returned to sucking it that it turned her on. This was just the beginning, he reminded himself. He had to teach her how to completely let go of thought and let sensation take over. But then, Delaney had always been an excellent student.
“Turn around and get on your hands and knees,” he said sternly. He recognized the flicker in her eyes. Obediently, she did as she was told, and he let his gaze travel over the curves of her body before resting on her wet, pink opening. In one forceful thrust, he sheathed himself, feeling her slick walls close around him. The