“You’ll have to stop me.”

His jaw trembled and he moved kinda slow so she kept rubbing. It felt good.

“You like your hand there?”

“Sometimes my hand is my best friend.”

“Not tonight.” But he leaned down and kissed the back of her hand and nuzzled her, pushing at her so that together they were giving her a thrill.

She liked José. She liked his style. Thorne would have done something like this. Thorne would have loved how bare she was.

Thorne again … and yet she didn’t feel quite so guilt-stricken. He’d probably taken off, at last, and now she was free.

She felt free.

José finally seemed to reach his limit with her self-ministrations. He pulled her hand away and slid her thong off, taking his time, but his gaze was fixed on the full lips of her lower body and again his tongue made an appearance. She leaned back on the bed, stretching out. She pulled her knees up but kept them spread wide.

He took a good long minute to look at her. She could hear him breathing. He sounded a little strangled.

She took the opportunity to let her gaze drift down his body. The sight of his broad chest and muscular pecs, his abs rolling down and down, caused her body to give one full undulating roll that ended with a strong tug deep inside. “I could come just looking at you,” she said.

He smiled. He unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down. But unlike her, he caught his briefs at the same time so that his package sprang free and now it was her turn to lick her lips. Yep, almost as big as Thorne.

Funny how she kept thinking about Thorne and yet it no longer bothered her. Guess she was making progress.

About time.

José grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the edge of the bed. He knelt, then he got busy.

“Muy bueno,” she murmured.

Obsidian flame, above all else, requires surrender.

And surrender is never for the faint of heart.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 2

Sweat popped all across Thorne’s forehead, but he wasn’t sure of the cause—whether it was the energy required to sustain the man he’d morphed into, or the sight of his woman bare, completely bare.

Oh … God.

His pulse throbbed in his neck. He wanted to sink his fangs and give her the potion she loved, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t even sure if in this form he could use his fangs.

Pity.

God, the things he wanted to do to Marguerite. Now that the breh-hedden had slammed him hard, all the usual desire he felt for her had about tripled so that he wept from his erection and his pulse pounded at every hinge of his body.

He lowered to her mons and swept his cheeks over the smooth soft skin. He kissed her repeatedly, savoring all that bareness as well as her familiar whimpers of pleasure. In the Convent, where he’d made love to her just about every morning at dawn, he’d cast a tent of mist over them both to keep the noisiness of their lovemaking from reaching other parts of the building.

He didn’t have to do that now.

He trembled as he slid his arms under her knees. Her deep red-rose scent perfumed the air and worked him up. He was hard as a rock.

He didn’t know what to do first—kiss her or lick her or just stare at what was to his eyes so beautiful, a perfect work of art.

He kissed her some more, his lips against her moist, swollen lips, plucking, adding a little nip then a suck. He kissed her in a line all the way to her opening … but that’s when things went a little haywire because she was already thrashing on the bed and he was working to hold her tight but dammit, his tongue decided he had to have her.

He thrust his tongue in and out of her hard, like he was fucking her, like he couldn’t get deep enough. She came rising up off the bed but he kept her hips pinned down. Was she aware that she was using her preternatural strength and that only with a matching power did he keep her from flying off the bed?

Probably not, because as he thrust into her and thrust and thrust, she screamed her orgasm. But he kept it up, looking up at her when he could, watching the ecstasy on her face, savoring the pleasure she felt. He brought her a second time and a third.

He was in trouble now, though. He could feel the vibrations in his body and had to work to keep from changing back.

At the same time, he had to have her.

He rose up and while she was still caught in the remnants of an orgasm, he shoved himself deep inside, which sent her once more flying up. He landed on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, grounding her.

He fucked her, hard. Shoving into her, pulling back, shoving in, watching her thrash some more beneath him. Her moans had turned into wild grunts and cries.

He was two men now, one in the throes of sex, the other struggling to hold his shape as José. His lower back tightened, his balls ready to fire off.

When the orgasm came, when he began to jerk, he lifted off her, supporting himself with his arms, his hips bucking into her. He looked down at her. “Look at me,” he commanded.

She opened her eyes, which were wild with passion. She could hardly focus. He kept pumping as he held her gaze. This was his woman and he loved her. This was his woman, Marguerite, and he had a drive toward her now like nothing he had ever known. He had loved her for a long time in the Convent, but not like this. He spent every last drop his body had made for her, the body pretending to be José, but his seed belonged to him, couldn’t belong to anyone else, and that’s what he put inside her.

The vibrations were getting stronger now. Despite the fact that he had a powerful desire, even a need to remain connected to her, he had to get away. Now. Or he’d morph back.

And like hell was he going to reveal this little secret. It might just be the only way he’d keep from killing her lovers if she continued down this path.

He pulled out. He didn’t like abandoning her like this, but he had to keep up his ruse.

He grabbed his jeans from the floor and went into the bathroom. He counted to ten. “My brother just left a text,” he called out. “He needs a ride. I gotta go.”

He dressed in rapid movements. When he reached the door he looked back at her. She looked so beautiful sprawled as she was. She looked confused as well, but he couldn’t help himself as he said, “You know the way out. Call a cab. Just don’t be here when I get back. My brother has a temper and besides, I don’t like women in mi casa in the morning.”

Okay, maybe that was mean, but she shouldn’t have been bonking José.

He saw her eyes flash and knew her temper wouldn’t be far behind, so he hightailed it. He ran out to the truck, and because he wasn’t sure if Marguerite would cheat and use her folding skills to reach the front door, he got into the vehicle the old-fashioned way by opening the door and sliding in. He did, however, ignore the key as he touched the ignition to start the truck. He wasn’t surprised that just as he started backing out she opened the front door.

He almost stalled out, his foot jerking away from the accelerator, because there she was, buck naked, and flipping him off.

There was so much he enjoyed about Marguerite, but it was her spirit that got him. She stood in the doorway, facing the front yard, without a stitch on and not caring who saw her. She was the kind of woman that would go down battling, nothing less.

“Asshole,” she shouted.

He almost put on the brakes. He wanted to head straight back into the house, carry her into José’s bedroom, and do her all over again. But the vibrations were getting stronger and he was sweating into his jeans.

He looked away and gathered his wits. He pointed the truck in the direction of the bar. When he was at last in a different part of town, and several miles away, he pulled the truck over, morphed back into himself, then released a long deep breath.

He was covered in sweat and gave one full-body shiver. Well, that was fucking weird.

He jumped into the back of the truck, woke José up, handed him the keys, and wiped his memory. He folded back to Marguerite’s hotel room and heard the shower running.

He stretched out on the bed and waited.

He smelled roses and what do you know, he was smiling.

Okay, was it wrong to be enjoying himself?

The truth was, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled like this. Maybe a century ago, before his sister Grace had sequestered herself in the Convent, and before her twin, Patience, had been killed by death vampires. Yeah, maybe that far back.

* * *

Owen Stannett had everything set up, ready and waiting, candles lit, incense burning, shutters drawn to dampen the noise of Mexico City nightlife. He’d even had a new red leather chaise-longue made up for his favorite activity. This would be his first venture into the future streams since leaving Second Earth.

He’d spent the last three weeks hunting for Seers through all the known rogue colonies on Mortal Earth and hadn’t found a single one. However, since these colonies weren’t in any way hidden from Second Earth, they were accessible to Greaves. The Commander had probably already done his own reconnaissance and removed any Seers he found to his favorite Second Earth Fortresses in Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Bogatá.

Both Endelle’s administration and COPASS knew where these rogue colonies were and kept track of all movements in and out of them. Designated liaison officers from Second Earth interfaced with the local governing entities to make sure that everyone was behaving and not alerting Mortal Earth to the presence of either the dimensional world of ascension or the inflammatory nature of vampire biology.

His search had been a huge disappointment given his plans to create his own Fortress in Mexico City One. However, he was convinced there had to be a conclave of Seers somewhere, maybe someplace secret, maybe heavily misted by an unknown entity.

So tonight he would begin searching in the future streams, something he’d been avoiding. One of the drawbacks of future stream work was that any Seer’s activity could be detected by other powerful Seers. Granted, there were only a handful on Second Earth who had that level of power, but it sure as hell only took one, and the one he was avoiding was Marguerite Dresner.

Essentially, his activities in the future streams were only as successful as his ability to remain undetected. What he had going for him, however, was fairly substantial, since Marguerite hated being a Seer and avoided the future streams. So despite a certain vulnerability, he’d made the decision to launch his new life on Mortal Earth, which meant he needed to round up a batch of Seers, lock them up, and put them to work on his behalf.