When I wake to the first slant of late afternoon sunlight, there’s a moment of panic that I imagined everything from the night before. Even though Vane promised me it was real and he promised not to leave, my brain doesn’t want to believe it.

But then I inhale and my nose fills with his scent—summer nights and crushed amber with an edge of something distinctly masculine.

I feel his arm tight around my waist, his breath tickling the back of my neck, the line of all of him against me.

Tears burn in my eyes because I’m so overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed with relief and the realization that it was real.

All of him is mine.

I don’t dare move. I don’t want to wake him and feel him pulling away.

That knotting in my gut reminds me of the feeling I had the only Christmas where I woke up and found presents under the tree.

I just stared and stared at them, terrified of undoing the ribbons and peeling back the paper.

As long as they were still wrapped, I could suspend the joy.

Once they were opened, all of the magic would be gone.

So I lay here, wrapped in Vane’s arms, counting his soft breaths.

He wakes when the sunlight turns hazy, and he stretches against me, threads his fingers with mine.

That’s when the tears escape.

Fuck why am I so damn emotional about this?

I’m so happy.

I’m so deliriously happy when I’m with him even though he frustrates me to no end.

Vane is like a Christmas present, where every brush, every caress feels like it could be the last moment I’ll get to enjoy it.

The only Christmas where I had presents under the tree was the Christmas Starla put together.

It never happened again.

I know how it feels to lose the magic.

As Vane pulls away, I tangle my legs with his and hold him to me.

He sighs and the breath slides over my bare shoulder where his t-shirt has fallen away because it’s so big. “We have to get up eventually, Win.”

I close my eyes and try to suck the tears back in. God I love it when he calls me Win. It’s so intimate. Rarely do the others use my name, and even then, it’s usually Winnie, not Win.

I only want those three letters on Vane’s lips, the nickname on his tongue.

“Not yet,” I tell him and prepare for him to turn me down.

He doesn’t.

His body relaxes against mine and my face scrunches up as I fight more happy tears.

Goddammit. This is dumb.

“Are you crying?” he asks and jerks upright.

“What? No.”

Fuck.

He pulls my shoulder, forcing me to roll to my back. When he sees the glassiness of my eyes, he frowns. “Why are you crying?”

“You’ll think it’s dumb.”

“Trying to hide it from me is dumb,” he says, his voice hoarse with both sleep and frustration.

I exhale and swipe aside some of the dampness. “Where do we go from here? Do we go back to hating one another?”

“I don’t know. Tell me what you want.”

I frown and then pull myself up on my elbows. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“No trick.” He’s serious and stoic about it and that makes me think he’s telling the truth.

I collapse onto my back again and stare up at his ceiling. There are spiderweb cracks in the plaster. Just like me. Just like him.

I speak to the ceiling, afraid to look him in the eye. “I can’t go back to what we were.”

“There is no going back,” he says. “Not after what I did to you.”

My gaze darts to him. There’s a pinch of regret between his black eye, his violet one. “What you did to me? I was not a victim. Do not make me one.”

“I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I still could.”

I sense the Christmas wrapping peeling back, the joy about to be spent.

I turn in the bed, hook my leg over his waist and shove him down so I can straddle him.

A deep, guttural groan comes out of him as I sit on his cock. I have no panties on, but he’s still wearing his pants. I feel him starting to engorge beneath me.

His hands come to my hips, forcing me still.

“Don’t rock against me,” he orders.

“Why?”

His violet eye goes black.

“Because it drives me fucking wild,” he admits.

“I’m not a victim.”

“Fine.”

“Now your turn.”

“For what?” His voice is deep and resonate as the Dark Shadow struggles to take control.

“What do you want?”

His chest expands, his abs contracting. I put my hand on the flat plane of his stomach and relish the hard, compacted muscle beneath me.

He’s silent for a minute as he gets control of himself and finds his answer and when his eye returns to that bright violet, he says, “I want to fuck you without killing you. Every day. Several times a day. I want to bury myself all the way in until I can feel my balls pressed against your ass. I want you to squeal because it hurts and then I want to make you come so it doesn’t.”

He’s hard beneath me now, all of the considerable length of him.

I would definitely squirm with him buried all the way in, that’s how big he is.

My pussy tingles and without thinking about it, I rock against him and he groans again, the violet disappearing to black.

“Darling.”

“Then fuck me. We’ll find a way. Again and again. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

He shifts his hips so his cock rubs against me and he visibly trembles from it.

“There will be pain,” he warns. “And blood.”

“As if I don’t know how to bleed for love.”

“Don’t.”

I go cold, realizing what I’ve said. It’s too early for any of that, but I suppose when life and death are both on the line, it’s much easier to fall for the trap.

“Four letters with the power to move an army and start a war,” he goes on. “Don’t use them together. Not with me.”

“You don’t want to be loved?”

“I think you and I know nothing about love. The way it should be, the way it should be given.”

“Maybe not. Maybe not yet,” I amend.

I undo the button on his pants and he breathes out through his nose.

“Maybe we can learn together. Maybe that’s what I really want.”

The zipper rasps as I open it.

“Sometimes I want to believe that I even deserve it,” I admit and feel that familiar catch in my chest again. I won’t cry. But I do want to be honest. I think Vane, more than the others, will see through the bullshit and won’t hesitate to call me out on it, even when it’s something painful and intimate like this.

“You do,” he answers easily. “Of course you deserve to be loved.”

I hear what he’s implying in his words. “But you don’t and you refuse to give it.”

He doesn’t take the bait, says nothing.

When the zipper is undone, I open his pants and pull him out and his eyes roll back in his head and my chest fills with butterflies seeing what I can do to him.

The stoic, strong, cold and unnerving fine-as-hell Dark One is losing his mind for me.

I’m drunk on the power.

I stroke him from base to tip, then back down again and the head of his dick swells as he breathes out deeply.

When he opens his eyes again, they’ve gone black, but I can see the heaviness in his lids that tells me he’s enjoying it.

But I know I’m walking a fine line.

“There’s a knife on my mantle,” he says. “Get it. Hurry.”

I quickly scurry off of him and retrieve the knife. It’s a switchblade and when I hand it off to him, he opens it up with a quick flick of his wrist, the blade popping open with a snap.

“You can leave now,” he says. “I can handle you walking out the door if you do it now.”

As if I would.

I yank my dress off. “I’m not going anywhere. You can try and make me.”

He growls. “Get over here.”

I climb back on the bed. He yanks off his pants, then pulls me roughly into his lap again, this time with his cock hard between us so that the head nearly hits my belly button. His balls are taut beneath me and my wetness coats him.

“Give me your hand.” I dutifully open my fingers for him, baring my palm. “Last chance.”

His voice is rumbling now, the blackness of the Dark Shadow writhing around his eyes. His hair hasn’t gone white yet, which I now realize is the very last of the transition.

He cups my hand in his palm, then brings the blade up with his right hand. When the metal touches the tender flesh, I brace for the bite.

There is a second where he hesitates when I think he might actually try and make me leave. My heart thuds in my ears.

Just do it.

Don’t make me go.

He pulls the blade across my palm and the skin parts for him easily, blood welling in the cut.

The pain is sharp, but distant, as if my body is already full of adrenaline and the promise of the pleasure.

And then Vane brings my hand to his mouth and drags his tongue down the line of crimson.

I hiss out as my blood coats him, his black eyes glinting in the late sunlight.

“Fuck, Win,” he says. “Every part of you tastes sweet.”

“That shouldn’t be as hot as it is,” I admit, a little breathy.

When more blood rises to the surface, he puts my palm over my heart and leaves a wet line behind. Then he does the same on his chest.

Instantly it feels like a connection has been opened between us, as if my blood acts like a tether, helps him get control of who he is and who he isn’t.

My breathing is quicker now, my chest rising and falling with the rapid rate of my heartbeats.

I could fall for him.

I could so easily fall in love with him.

Oh fuck.

He snaps the blade closed and tosses it, and grabs me by the hips, suddenly impatient now.

I’m tingling like a live wire. Ready for all of him. Every inch.

But he doesn’t give it to me. Not yet.

He slides up and down my wet slit, priming me and him, the head of his cock a hard ridge against my clit.

“Oh god,” I pant out.

His hair goes white.

He pumps faster and leans forward, capturing my breast in his mouth. His tongue is a divine weapon, teasing and swirling around my nipple driving me mad.

I bring my hand up his neck, to the back of his head and thread my fingers through his hair.

His teeth graze the tender flesh of my nipple and I gasp out and sink forward, lifting my hips. When he drives up again, this time he sinks in.

We moan together. My fingers turn into claws in his hair, dragging against his scalp.

“Fuck, Darling.” He pumps faster. “Take all of me like a good girl. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He sinks me down the length of him so that his balls are at my ass, just like he promised and I hold my breath as I fight against the deep pain of being filled up by him.

Fingers rough at my hips, he pumps me up and down on him and I want to see. I want to see.

I lean back, brace myself on his muscular thighs so I can watch his thick cock stretch me wide. His shaft is wet and glistening, veins swollen around his length.

It’s so fucking hot.

He’s so fucking hot it makes me delirious.

Slowing his tempo, he lets us both linger in the feel of it, of being filled up, of filling me up.

“Show me how you pleasure yourself, Win,” he says. “Show me what you like.”

“Okay,” I say on a breath because I’ll do anything for him at this point.

I bring two fingers to my clit and swirl them around, slowly at first, then faster, shifting the rhythm between the two. The pressure builds. God not yet. Not yet. I hold my fingers steady as he rocks into me again, trying to stave off the orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he says.

“I don’t want to come yet.”

I never want the pleasure to end with these boys and especially not Vane.

“You’re holding out on me?”

My eyes are heavy as I try to focus on him. “Is that so wrong?” He pulls out of me and I’m left panting at the loss of him. “What are you doing?”

He lifts me off of him and sets me aside. “Put your hands on the headboard.”

“What?”

He comes behind me and guides my hands to the carved dips of the headboard. “Just like that.”

My back is slightly bent because of the height of the headboard, forcing my ass out to him as he lines himself up and when he drives back in from behind, the sound that comes out of me is embarrassingly high-pitched.

He pumps in.

I pant out.

The bed thuds against the wall as Vane fucks me faster and harder, pounding into me so deep, I can feel it in my belly.

He’s so thick, so hard, I really think he could split me in two if he wanted.

“Fuck yes,” I say. “That feels so fucking good.”

Then his hand snakes around to my center and he rubs my clit exactly the way I did earlier.

“No,” I moan as the pleasure builds again. I move to grip his wrist, but he comes to a halting stop.

“Did I tell you to take your hands off the headboard?” His voice is raw at my ear.

“Vane.”

“Hands on the bed, Win.”

I’m an electric ball of pleasure, so fucking close to crackling. I can barely think straight, let alone walk out that door. So I do as I’m told and return my hands to position. He’s going to make me come and if I want it, I’m going to have to take his orders.

Goddamn him.

When I’m back in place, he slides back in slowly. “You will not hold out on me,” he says. “And if I want to make you come, you’ll come.”

I groan as his fingers return to my clit.

I know how I like my own pleasure and now Vane does too.

I’ve given him the key to my kingdom, so to speak, and it’s only now that I realize he set the trap and I walked right into it.

He swirls his fingers against me as he pumps in again. Faster. Harder.

Oh god.

I’m pent up. So close to sailing over the edge. And there’s nothing I can do to prolong it.

My knuckles turn white as I grip the headboard and Vane takes command of my pleasure.

The wave builds.

The bed thuds loudly.

“Oh fuck oh god.”

“Come for me, Win. Let me feel that wet cunt tighten around me.”

His words are the final straw.

I come loudly. I can’t help it.

The wave crashes through me like a tsunami, every nerve burning brightly as I drive back against him and his balls hit snuggly against my ass.

I rock on his hand, take what he gives, every muscle constricting, pulling in on itself as he pounds into me.

And when he finds his own pleasure, he grabs my hips, buries himself to the base and growls deep in his chest as he fills me with his cum.

I breathe out heavily as he rides through me, my back pent low now as my body starts to give out.

His breath is hot against the back of my neck as his cock gives one final throb at my core.

When we collapse, we are a tangle of limbs, sticky with sweat and blood and cum.

I close my eyes and hold on to it a little longer as the muscles in my thighs quiver and my belly settles its wings.

“That was…amazing,” I say and I’m not even embarrassed if it sounds silly.

Vane is still breathing heavily beside me. “You might be my undoing.”

“I am already undone by you.”

He laughs. The cold, stoic Dark One laughs and it is the single greatest sound in the world.

I curl into his side, rest my ear over his heart and he looks down at me as the darkness recedes from his eyes and his hair returns to its inky black. “You will regret this one day, I’m sure of it.”

“Never,” I say and snuggle into him where my blood is starting to dry against his skin. “I will never regret you.”