"Just a dream," he whispered, astonished to hear his name on her lips when he had used no vampire guile to place it there.
She sighed deeply, settling against him. "I knew you would come back."
"Did you?"
"Mm-hmm." It was a purr of sound in her throat, raspy and erotic. Her eyes remained closed, her mind still caught in the web of her dreams. "I wanted you to come back."
Lucan smiled at that, tracing his fingers over her placid brow. "You do not fear me, beauty?"
She gave a small shake of her head, nuzzling his palm against her cheek. Her lips were slightly parted, small white teeth gleaming in the scant light overhead. Her neck was graceful, proud, a regal column of alabaster above the fragile bones of her shoulders. How sweet she would taste, how soft against his tongue.
And her breasts... Lucan could not resist the peachy dark nipple that peeked out from under the sheet draped haphazardly across her torso. He teased the little bud between his fingers, tugging it gently and nearly growling with need as it puckered into a tight bead, hardening at his touch.
He was hardening as well. He licked his lips, growing hungry, eager to have her.
Gabrielle squirmed languidly beneath the tangled sheet. Lucan slowly drew the cotton coverlet away, baring her to him completely. She was exquisite, as he knew she would be. Petite, yet strong, her body was lithe with youth, supple and fair. Firm muscle shaped her elegant limbs; her artist's hands were slender and expressive, flexing mindlessly as Lucan trailed his fingers along her sternum and down to the concave dip of her belly. Her skin here was velvet and warm, too tempting to resist.
Lucan moved over her on the bed, and slid his palms beneath her. He lifted her to him, gently arching her up off the mattress. He kissed the sweet curve of her hip, then let his tongue play across the small valley of her navel. She gasped as he plumbed the shallow indentation, and the fragrance of her need wreathed his senses.
"Jasmine," he rasped against her heated skin, his teeth dragging lightly as his kiss ventured lower.
Her moan of pleasure as his mouth invaded her sex sent a violent jolt of lust through his veins. He was already stiff and erect; his cock throbbed beneath the constricting barrier of his clothes. She was wet and slick against his lips, her cleft a heated sheath against his questing tongue. Lucan suckled her as he would sweet nectar, until her body convulsed with the coming of her release. And still he lapped at her, bringing her to the crest of another climax, and then another.
She'd gone slack in his arms, boneless and trembling. Lucan trembled as well, his hands shaking as he carefully eased her back down onto the bed. He'd never wanted a woman so badly. He wanted something more, he realized, bemused by the impulse that he had to protect her. Gabrielle panted softly as her last climax subsided, and she curled onto her side, as innocent as a kitten.
Lucan stared down at her in silent fury, heaving with the force of his need. Dull pain tightened his mouth as his fangs stretched out from his gums. His tongue was dry. Hunger knotted in his gut. His vision sharpened as lust for blood and release slung its seductive coils around him, and his pupils elongated to catlike slivers in his pale eyes.
Take her, urged that part of him that was inhuman, unearthly.
She is yours. Take her.
Just a taste - that was what he had vowed. He would not harm her, only heighten her pleasure as he took a bit of his own. She wouldn't even remember this moment, come the dawn. As his blood Host, she would give him a sustaining sip of life, then awake later, drowsy and sated, but blissfully unaware of its cause.
It was a small mercy, he told himself, even as his body quickened with the urge to feed.
Lucan bent over Gabrielle's languid form, and tenderly swept aside the riot of ginger waves concealing her neck. His heart was hammering in his chest, urging him to slake his burning thirst. Just a taste, no more. Only pleasure. He came forward, his mouth open, his senses swamped with her intoxicating female scent. His lips pressed down against her warmth, settling over the delicate pulse that beat against his tongue. His fangs grazed the velvet softness of her throat, throbbing now, like another demanding part of his anatomy.
And in the instant before his sharp teeth penetrated her fragile skin, his keen vision lit on a tiny birthmark just behind Gabrielle's ear.
Nearly undetectable, the diminutive mark of a teardrop falling into the cradle of a crescent moon made Lucan rear back in shock. The symbol, so rare among human females, meant only one thing...
Breedmate.
He withdrew from the bed as though touched by fire, hissing a furious curse into the dark. Hunger for Gabrielle still pounded through him, even as he grappled with the ramifications of what he might have done to them both.
Gabrielle Maxwell was a Breedmate, a human gifted with unique blood and DNA properties that complemented those of his kind. She and the few numbers like her were queens among other human females. To Lucan's kind, a race comprised solely of males, this woman was a cherished goddess, giver of life, destined to bond in blood and bear the seed of a new vampire generation.
And in his reckless lust to taste her, Lucan had nearly claimed her for his own.
Chapter Four
Gabrielle could count on one hand the number of erotic dreams she'd had in her life, but never had she experienced anything as hot - not to mention, real - as the sexfest fantasy she had enjoyed the night before, courtesy of the virtual Lucan Thorne. His breath had been the night breeze, sifting through the open window of her bedroom loft. His hair was the obsidian darkness that filled the skylights over her bed, his silver eyes the pale glow of the moon. His hands were the silken bonds of her bedsheets, twined around her splayed wrists and ankles, spreading her open beneath him, holding her fast.
His mouth had been pure heat that seared every inch of her skin, licking her like an unseen flame. Jasmine, he had called her in the dream, and the soft hum of the word had vibrated against her damp flesh as his warm breath stirred the flossy curls between her legs.
She had writhed and whimpered under the skill of his tongue, submitting to a torment that she hoped might have no end. But it had ended, too soon. Gabrielle had awakened in her bed, alone in the dark, gasping Lucan's name, her body wrung out and listless, aching for more.
She still ached and that bothered her even more than the fact that the mysterious Detective Thorne had stood her up.