His voice flowed over her skin like honey, flooding her body with liquid heat and making her fingers dig into the hard muscles of his chest with a flare of aching desire.
“Yes,” she breathed, shuddering as his hands drifted over the curve of her hips.
With infinite care he explored the length of her thighs and then, with a small tug, he parted her legs until they fell on either side of his body. Juliet muttered her approval against his lips, but even prepared she gave a strangled cry when his clever fingers stroked through her damp heat.
“Sssh,” he soothed softly. “Soon we shall be one. One soul. One flesh.”
His low words seemed to echo deep inside her, but she ignored the dangerous warmth that settled in the center of her heart. Instead she concentrated on his finger that teased the tiny pulse of her pleasure.
“Not soon…now,” she muttered.
His low growl filled the air, his erection pressing eagerly against her damp heat.
“You are certain?”
Certain? Her nails dug into his chest until she drew blood. She had never been more certain of anything in her entire life.
“Please, Victor.”
“Yes.”
Victor’s hands were pressing at her lower back as his hips lifted and he was entering her in one sure stroke.
Her breath caught, but not from pain.
Searing pleasure rushed through her and she pressed her face onto his chest. She could feel him stroke into her before pulling out and returning with a slow, relentless pressure.
“Dear lord.”
“Mate,” he whispered as his hips lifted over and over. “My mate.”
“I did not know anything could feel so…”
“How does it feel, sweet Juliet?”
“Wondrous,” she breathed, her body moving in perfect rhythm with his.
His soft chuckle filled the air with a thick satisfaction.
“You are mine,” he vowed. “Mine for eternity.”
She moaned as her body began to tighten with a shimmering anticipation. His steady, relentless pace was building a fire deep within her that threatened to burst out of control.
“My mate,” he breathed, lifting his head to nuzzle at her neck.
His slight shift was enough to press him even deeper within her and with a force that caught her off guard the tension that coiled between her legs abruptly burst into a thousand pieces.
She cried out and squeezed shut her eyes, struggling not to swoon beneath the tide of sensations. It was overwhelming. A joy that edged perilously close to pain.
“Victor?”
With a moan, he laid his head on the pillows. For a moment she simply gazed into the beautiful countenance, telling herself that what had just occurred was no more than incredible sex. Victor had, after all, near a thousand years and countless women to perfect his expertise, but something deep in her heart refused to accept the lie.
Staring into the silver eyes she knew she was bound closer to him than any other person in the entire world.
They were one.
One soul.
One flesh.
Mates.
Chapter Six
Seated across the table from his mate, Victor ruefully accepted that any hope that Juliet would be more compliant now that she was his lover was doomed to abysmal failure. Polishing off the last of the roasted duck, potatoes stewed in a delicate mushroom sauce, and freshly baked bread, Juliet sat back in her chair and offered him a stubborn glare.
“You can roar and bellow all you wish. I am not going to change my mind.”
With an effort, Victor attempted to ignore the captivating sight of Juliet wearing nothing more than his brocade robe, her mane of fiery curls spilling down her back and her ivory features tinted with a delicate flush.
Not that he was particularly successful.
There would never be a moment that he would not desire his mate.
Even when she infuriated him.
“I do not comprehend why you must be so unreasonable.”
“Me?” She arched a brow. “It was your decision to go on the hunt for the Jinn.”
“Because he cannot be permitted to linger in London. Not only do his powers attract the attention of the humans, but his mere presence is a threat to my position among the demons.”
She appeared remarkably unimpressed with his logic.
“So you are allowed to risk your life to remain clan chief, but I am forbidden from rescuing a friend from potential death?”
He paused, his vast experience with women warning him this was a trap with no escape.
“I would not use the word ‘forbidden.’”
“Then what word would you use?”
“Strongly discouraged,” he suggested.
She snorted. “I do not consider a threat to tie me to the bed as strong discouragement.”
He growled, his fangs fully extended and aching with a hunger that would never be sated.
“Me either,” he husked, leaving his chair and rounding the table with a slow smile of anticipation. “I consider that an invitation to paradise.”
Juliet hastily rose to her feet, her expression stern although she could not disguise the heat simmering in her beautiful eyes as her gaze skimmed down his body, covered in nothing more than a loose pair of satin pants he had brought from his recent journey to China.
“Victor, you are not going to distract me.”
Easily scooping her off her feet, Victor headed directly for the nearby bed, tumbling them both onto the silken sheets. With a swift roll he managed to end up on top.
“I will admit that was my original intent,” he murmured, burying his face in the curve of her neck. “But I believe I have been hoisted on my own petard. You are delectable.”
Her arms circled his neck, her body instinctively arching beneath him.
“Victor.”
The intoxicating scent of peaches filled his senses. “Hmmm?”
“This changes nothing,” she muttered. “I am going with you to the docks.”
Victor pulled back at her stubborn insistence, an unfamiliar pang twisting his gut.
“Why does this Levet mean so much to you?”
She blinked. “Are you…jealous?”
“Of a stunted, outcast gargoyle? Do not be absurd.”
The emerald eyes narrowed. “Victor?”
“You belong here with me,” he said before he could halt the revealing words. “Not with Hawthorne and that creature.”
She studied him with an all too knowing gaze. “You believe if I rescue Levet I will return to Justin?”
Victor shied from the mere notion he was jealous of the mage, or the deformed gargoyle. He was a powerful vampire. A clan chief. The most honored creature in all the demon world.