Is that it, then? Am I afraid of the span between now and “Do you take this man”?

His thumb gently brushes my lower lip, and I see the knowing glint in his eyes. “Tell me,” he says, in the kind of voice that allows no refusal.

“Maybe they’re portents,” I whisper. “The dreams, I mean.” The words feel foolish on my lips, but I must say them. I can’t hold the fear inside. Not when I’m certain that Damien can turn it around.

“Portents?” he repeats. “Like a bad omen?”

I nod.

“Of what?” His brow rises. “That we shouldn’t get married?”

I hear the tease in his voice, but even so, my response is both violent and firm. “God no!”

“That I will hurt you?”

“You could never hurt me,” I say. “Not the way you mean.” We both know that there have been times when I have needed the pain—when I would have once again taken a blade to my flesh if Damien had not been there. But he is here, and he is all that I need now.

“Then what?” he asks as he gently lifts our joined hands to his lips. Softly, he dots kisses along my knuckles, and the sweet sensation distracts me.

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” he says, and there is such certainty in his voice that I feel calmer. “You’re a bride, Nikki. You’re nervous.” He presses a playful kiss to the end of my nose. “I think you’re supposed to be.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, that’s not—” But I go no further. Because the truth is that he may be right. Bridal jitters? Could it really be as simple as that?

“But there’s nothing to be nervous about,” he says, even as his hands go to my shoulders, even as he gently slides his palms down my arms, making the thin sheet drop away.

I am naked, and I shiver. Not from the slight chill in the air, but from the longing in Damien’s eyes. A longing to which I so willingly surrender.

“What is it they say about marriage? That the bride and the groom are becoming one?” He trails a fingertip lightly over my collarbone, then down slowly, the touch butterfly soft, until he reaches my breast. “That isn’t true for us, baby. It’s not true because we already are one, you and I, and this wedding is just a formality.”

“Yes,” I say, my voice little more than breath.

His hand cups my breast as his thumb rubs idly over my hard, tight nipple. The touch is so soft, and yet I feel its echo throughout the whole of my body. Just one simple brush of flesh against flesh, but it is not simple at all, because it holds the power to destroy me. To rip me apart and put me back together.

I close my eyes in surrender and in welcome, then lie back as Damien guides me down onto the bed. He pulls the sheet away, leaving me exposed, and then I feel the bed shift as he moves to straddle me. He is naked and the hard steel of his erection presses against my thighs, hot and needy. I reach for him and cup my hands on his tight, firm ass. He is not inside me—he is not even stroking my sex—and yet I am awash in awareness, my muscles clenching with desire for him, my hips writhing in wanton, unashamed need.

“Damien,” I murmur, then open my eyes to see him above me, his eyes soft as he gazes upon my face.

“No,” he says. “Close your eyes. Let me give this to you. Let me show you just how well I know you. How intimately I know your body. Because it’s not just yours—it’s mine, too. And I intend to show you how very well—and how very thoroughly—I take care of what is mine.”

“Do you think I don’t already know that?”

He doesn’t answer with words, but the soft brush of his lips over mine is all the response I need. Slowly, he trails gentle kisses down the arch of my neck, then lower still until his mouth closes roughly over my breast. My nipple is already tight and hard and so very sensitive, and he drags his teeth over it.

I arch up as little shock waves shoot through me to pool like warm liquid in my womb. The muscles of my sex clench with longing. I want him inside me—I want it desperately. But he is not even touching me there. He’s not touching me anywhere except on my breast, where he is suckling and biting, tasting and teasing. He is erasing everything—thought, worries, fears—until I am reduced to that one point of pleasure that seems to fill me, dazzling me from the inside, sparking and singing until I am certain that I am going to come simply from the sensation of his mouth upon my breast.

Slowly—so painfully slowly—he moves his mouth away from my breast and then kisses his way down my midline. He pauses at my navel, his tongue teasing me, the touch almost a tickle, but far more sensual. He slides a hand under my lower back, and I arch up as he nips at me, tiny bites and the scrape of teeth against the soft skin of my belly.

He has moved down the bed, and my legs are spread wide. He is between them, but he is not touching my sex. He’s not even stroking my thighs. He has one hand beneath my back and the other on the mattress beside my hip for balance. But there is heat coming off of him, and the triangle made up of my thighs and sex seems on fire. I am alive with need, with desire, with want.

And yet Damien makes no move to satisfy me. He is content to tease and torment, and as he slowly traces the shape of my navel with the tip of his tongue, I moan in both pleasure and frustration.

“You like that?” he asks.

“Yes,” I murmur.

“So do I.” His voice is low and reverent. “You taste like candy.”

“Candy is bad for you,” I tease.

“In that case,” he says with a low growl, “I like being bad.”

“Me, too,” I whisper, even as my hips rise in unspoken demand. “But, Damien—”

“You want more,” he says, finishing my thought. He kisses the top of my pubic bone, then trails his lips over the bone of my hip, following it down to the juncture of my thigh.

“Yes, oh, God, yes.”

“And if I’m not done tasting you? If I want to kiss and suck and tease every inch of your body? If I want to have my fill of you before I thrust myself deep inside of you? Before we get lost together? Before I let you come?”

He lifts himself up, then bends over me, so close that I am certain he will kiss me, so near that we are breathing the same air.

Then he shifts away, moving his mouth to my temple. His lips brush lightly over my skin before he whispers, “I will always give you more, baby, but first I want you ready, I want you hot, I want you desperate.”

“I am.” The words are wrenched from me, and as Damien pulls away, I see the smug smile pull at his mouth.

“You are,” he says. “But you also asked for more. And that, my darling Nikki, is a demand I’m always happy to satisfy. The question is, more what?” His mouth closes over my breast, and I cry out as he bites my nipple. “More pain?”

I cannot answer, my body is reeling from the erotic storm he is conjuring inside me.

“More pleasure?” he asks. He slides farther down my body, and this time skin does touch skin, the contact making the embers within me burst into raging flames. His lips move down between my breasts, then lower and lower until he reaches my clit. He blows gently on my sex even as he places his palms firmly on my inner thighs, spreading me wide. He takes one hand away, then strokes his finger gently over my slick, hot sex. I tremble, so close I think that if he breathes on my clit, I will come.

“More anticipation?” And then his mouth is moving again, tracing down my leg, over the scars on my inner thigh, to that sensitive spot behind my knee. I am lost, melting. I am his to control, to command, and I can do nothing but absorb the pleasure with which he is bombarding me.

He continues on, lower still, until he reaches my ankle, then the sole of my foot. He drags the tip of his finger from heel to toe, and my foot arches in response, along with my back. My sex clenches greedily, and I am astounded at the reaction from a simple touch upon my foot. Then again, how can I be astounded by my reaction to any touch rendered by Damien? I can’t. I can only surrender, which was of course Damien’s plan all along. To take me away from myself and bring me to this place that we share, a place where there is only Nikki and Damien and the pleasure we find in each other.

He is not done with me, and he slowly trails kisses up my leg until I am squirming, my hips gyrating in both pleasure and need. I want more. I want it all. And, miracle of miracles, Damien finally gives it to me. His tongue flicks gently over my clit, just the tiniest of touches, but he has primed me so thoroughly that I explode, shock waves shooting out to my fingers and toes, pleasure spiraling through me.

A tiny touch, yes, but also just the beginning. He closes his mouth over my sex, sucking and teasing. He holds my legs wide so that I cannot shift or move. He doesn’t relent, making my orgasm grow and grow until there is torment behind the pleasure, until I am ripped open and needy, desperate for him to come to this place with me, to find me in the stars.

“Now, Damien. I need you inside me now.”

This time, thank God, he doesn’t hesitate, but neither is he gentle. He is on his knees, and he turns me onto my side. He straddles one of my legs, but hooks my other over his opposite hip, then holds me steady with his palm on my outer thigh. His other hand is cupped on my ass, but he slips down so that he teases the rim of my anus even as he thrusts deep inside my cunt.

This is not a position he’s taken me in before, and the sensation of my legs being scissored, of his hand and cock so intimately on me, of the way he is kneeling against me, his body as erect as his cock while I lie prone like a vestal offering, is astoundingly exciting, and as he moves inside me, I feel the orgasm rise within me again.