Page 52 of Maksym

Pleasure crested through me with a force that made my whole body lock. I released his wrist with a moan I could not stop. My fingers clawed into his shirt. My hips jerked once, twice, and then heat shattered low in my belly, rolling outward until my thighs trembled across his lap and my forehead fell against his shoulder.

For a few seconds, there was no law. No indictment. No monster. Only breath. Then I realized what had happened. Mortification arrived so fast it nearly made me sick. I went rigid.

Maksym did not smirk. He did not smile. Did not make some dark, satisfied male sound as if my body’s response belonged to him now because he had witnessed it. He only brushed my hair back from my face with his free hand, gentle and practical, as if he were moving it away so I could breathe.

“Close the wound,” he said, calm as if he were explaining where to place a signature. “Your saliva will seal it.”

I stared at him. Then at his wrist. The bite marks were red and open, though already healing. Shame burned through me, tangled with the lingering pleasure until I did not know which heat belonged to which cause.

“Grace,” he said quietly. “It is all right.”

It was not. But the wound was mine to tend. I bent and ran my tongue over his wrist. The punctures closed beneath my mouth. That, too, should have horrified me. It did. A little. But less than it should have, and that frightened me more than horror would have.

I pulled away abruptly. Maksym let me go.

I slid off his lap and stood, putting the edge of the bed between us like a lectern, a barrier, a line drawn in court. My knees were steadier now. My throat no longer burned. My body felt strong, warm, awake in every sense of the word.

Maksym swung his legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Soft amber light filled the room. I flinched from the sudden brightness, but my eyes adjusted almost instantly.

He held out both hands, palms up. I looked at them. Then at him. Somehow, after everything, I placed my hands in his. He closed his fingers around mine with careful pressure.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever beheld, Gracelyn Marlow,” he said.

My chest tightened. I tried to pull back. He did not hold me harder, but he did hold my gaze.

“Do not ever be ashamed of finding pleasure with me.”

The words struck too close. I looked away first.

He continued, voice low and steady. “You did not go into a frenzy. You did not take more than you needed. You stopped when your need was met. Most newly turned vampires cannot do that.”

“I had an orgasm on your lap.”

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes. “Please do not make that sound like a competency evaluation.”

“It is not only that.” His thumb moved once over my knuckles, then stopped. “It is proof. You were hungry, frightened, overwhelmed, and you still listened. You controlled your bite. You used venom. You stopped. You are not ordinary.”

A broken laugh escaped me. “I think that ship sailed sometime around dying.”

His mouth curved faintly. “Perhaps.”

The humor faded, and something more solemn took its place.

“We have a long night ahead,” he said.

I opened my eyes.

“You have much to learn,” he continued. “About your body. Your strength. Hunger. The laws of my world. The dangers. The protections. And today, we begin planning how we are going to bring down Lucian.”

The name moved through me like a blade drawn clean. Lucian. My hands tightened in Maksym’s. Not from fear this time. He felt it. I saw the recognition in his eyes.

“Together,” he said. “With you beside me every step of the way.”

Something in me steadied. I had been a prosecutor. Lucian Devereux had stolen two years of my life, and I was no longer the woman he had kept in chains. I looked down at Maksym’s hands holding mine, then back at his face.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll take him down together.”