She watched him watching her, and the thrill of his attention toasted her insides. She loved that burn. It meant there would be more than enough heat between them, if he pushed all the right buttons. If he knew what to say, what to do, how to be with her. His lips kicked up in a wicked grin, as though he knew what she was thinking.

She didn't know what he was, if he was more than the human male he appeared to be. Her special talent was wholly tactile, and she would give him more pleasure than he could ever imagine, if First Touch showed him worthy. She knew he wasn't Vampir. And yet, his blood called to her, singing a melody only she apparently could hear, as none of her sister Vampyrs even noticed him sitting there.

She quirked a brow at him, and asked, "Am I amusing to you?" She tried to sound outraged, but could only manage faint surprise. The thought that she was not in control with him startled her, unnerved her, and aroused her bloodlust and desire. He must be magical, if he could so disrupt her normal emotional controls. His reply was as unexpected, and as delightful, as he was.

"I find you enthralling. You are a flame to me."

She leaned forward, knowing the neckline would sag just enough to tease his eyes with the vision of her full caramel breasts, and then she added fangs. Just a hint of them, as she felt her lusts rising inside her like wildfire. Would he cringe at this rather public display of her "Otherness", or would he be drawn to her hungers?

His eyes slid slowly down from hers to take in the diamond-sharp tips of her fangs, just visible inside her parted lips. He licked his own, and heat swelled her pussy lips with fiery blood. The heated warmth of her breasts caught his eyes next, and he leaned forward and said,

"I love that rosy flush beneath your skin." His hot breath fanned her lips, and her fangs elongated further without thought or consent on her part. He trailed a finger down the side of her flushed cheek and stopped at the juncture between her lips, where her fang glinted invitingly.

"What impressive incisors, my dear!" He pulled her bottom lip down, leaned all the way forward, and licked her fang.

She gasped. How did he know, she wondered, that her fangs were a strong and powerful erogenous zone? She inhaled sharply, but was still out of breath at the end of her exhale. She needed to slow her breathing, to calm down before she ravaged him without finesse. She wanted this man ... this whatever he was ... and she had no plans for releasing him, ever. He was her trigger, her synthrophos ... her mate.

"All the better to taste you with, my dear!" She wanted as him off balance as he had made her, and she watched his expression as she slowly regained control of her breathing. Nothing changed, except that now his eyes glowed. What was he? He licked her fang again, turning her face fully to his, and kissing her deeply, before she had breath to speak, or will to resist. His mouth was hot, and she lost herself in its depths, letting him take what it seemed he needed. Because she needed it, too.

"How much longer are you going to make me wait?" he demanded suddenly, his voice growly, like a grumbling lion.

"Wait?" she inquired innocently, knowing instinctively what he was demanding. If she had needed any further indication that this one was hers, his question made it abundantly clear. And it raised her already raging blood pressure to the danger zone. If she were pitched any higher, she could kill him in the taking. That thought sobered her. She found herself reluctant to let this one go as easily as she had her first mate.

Her kind mated often, as their lovers were almost always human, and could not be turned, by law. Very few found the One True, what humans called their Soul Mates. Those mated pairs lived eternally, almost. She had long since given up on finding her own One True, but she preferred not to have too many new bed partners. She was a conservative among her sisters.

"I am not patient by nature." His voice, hungry and hard, broke into her musings. "Take what we both want, and begin the ritual. You know who I am to you now. I have always known. It is time."

She opened her mouth to speak, to question his words, his knowledge, but he raised one finger to her lips, and stopped her before she began.

"I burn for you, mo stór!" His voice was gravelly with hunger now, and her limbs trembled with need. She could hear his blood coursing though his veins.

"Come with me!" She could say no more, so she stood, and took the hand he touched her with. And suddenly she knew what he was, and she trembled even more. His thoughts slammed into her as she held him, and she stumbled. Before she could right herself, he was there ... and they were in a space she did not recognize.

"When I am on this side, this is my home," he said, answering her thought. Another thought, and they were both naked and lying on his enormous bed. He was much larger than she had realized. Everything on him was oversized, not just his truly impressive erection. It seemed normal for a male as large as he to have a tool like that hanging between his thighs. Anything less would have been an anti-climax, a cosmic joke, a punishment.

"You are beautiful, too, mo stór!"

His words and his hand pulled her into his long body. She could hold out no longer when he reached down and licked her fangs, one after the other, moaning as he did so. As though his actions were arousing for him, too. She groaned and turned her mouth into his pulsing vein, latching on like a newborn at the breast and suckling. He arched into her mouth, and while she took his vein greedily, she was dimly aware of his hands moving her.

The fire that lit in her core snapped her out of her haze, and when he pushed her face back against his neck and thrust into her, she screamed in orgasmic bliss, her body trembling uncontrollably. She could feel his own orgasm seeding her womb as she drank from him. Each time she went to pull away, to stop the taking, he groaned and pushed her back into place.

"I will kill you!" she whispered. "I must stop!"

"You will kill me if you stop before I am full!" he replied. "Drink!"

As she sucked from him, he took her, his big body thrusting up into her, slamming into her core over and over, sliding over the nerves that kept her coming as he rocked into her. She had never been with someone like him before. He gave and he took, though what he was getting in exchange for the pleasure of his blood and his seed, she could not say.

Finally, with a fierce roar, he froze inside her, his cock throbbing so hard she felt it, adding licks of flame and small bursts of orgasms to her exhausted body. She slid her tongue over the puncture wounds, which disappeared immediately. She lay atop his big, broad frame, panting and shivering with the aftershocks, his cock still erect inside her, his arms tight around her, his breathing as erratic as her own. She was replete, and she sensed that he was too, at least for the time being.

"You are unlike anyone I have ever been with before," she murmured. "I'm happy that you are an Immortal."

She felt the light kiss he dropped on her hair. "I am happy that you finally saw me. It has been a long, long wait, mo stór. Too long!"

She raised her head, puzzled. "Finally saw you? We've never met before tonight!"

His smile was indulgent, his eyes knowing and at peace. "I have always been here, mo stór."

When she raised her head to ask, he smiled again and quieted her. "Later. Now we need sleep. The ritual will not be complete until the seventh taking. We have less than twenty-four hours to complete it. Rest. I'll need you again very soon!"

She didn't know she had fallen asleep until she awoke from a dream that had left her wet with unmatched lust. And he was there, as though he knew her need, filling her, and drawing her to his vein. She bit down, hard, more hungry, it felt, than before, and she fed from him as he filled her with his seed. He stayed inside her, hard, though his come oozed from her sex after each orgasm. How he managed it she did not know. And where he found the strength to bear her feedings was an equal mystery. But really, what did she care? He did not seem affected, only ravenous for whatever it was he was receiving from what she saw as a very one-sided bargain. She would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

After the fifth taking, he spirited her to his enormous bathroom. The tub was a whirlpool, scented with her favorite flavors, hot, and steaming.

"How did you know?" she asked as he lowered her into the tub and onto his lap.

"I told you. I have always been here. I know everything about you. And you have always known me."

She had to protest that. "I have not! We didn't meet before yesterday at that party."

She turned her head to gaze into his eyes, almost as though he had compelled her to do so.

"Think about your dreams, mo stór. Remember them, from the very first one, when you attained your majority. Think about who was there with you."

He stroked her hair as he spoke, soothing her, and she let herself drift in memory. Her dreams had begun when she turned twenty-five, the age all Vampyrs came into their full seductive powers, and were inducted into the Sisterhood. She was always alone, but for a presence she felt that somehow made her feel safe. and even though each dream presented a new danger for her to overcome, the presence was always there to guide her, to comfort her, to calm her. And when, at the end of the dream sequence, she found her completion, that presence was the heat between her thighs, the breath in her mouth, the warmth that cocooned her, and made her blood flow.