Myka pressed her fist to her mouth, muffling the first noises. Hot craziness started at his tongue and fired through her body, until darkness and light were the same, and nothing existed but his scalding mouth, his fingers on her thighs.

His teeth scraped her flesh. “Let it go,” he growled. “Let it out.”

No, I can’t. Hold it in, never show weakness, never betray yourself.

He growled again, breath hot. “Come for me, Myka. I need you to come.”

He closed his mouth over her again, tongue working, licking, sexing her. He was beautiful and strong, and his voice, his mouth, lips, teeth, hands, were driving her insane.

“No. No!” Myka ripped her fist from her mouth as the last No turned into a wail, and her climax reached out and embraced her. Tears leaked from her eyes as she arched to his fabulous mouth.

“What are you doing to me?” she cried.

Spike dragged his tongue up to her navel, circled it, kissed it. The gorgeous heat went away, but then, he was lifting her, shoving the jeans off where they’d bunched around her feet.

“I was getting you ready,” he said. Myka felt his rough, blunt, fighter’s fingers between them, his jeans moving out of the way. “I needed you to come because Shifters are big, and I need you wet and open for me.”

Big? How big?

Oh.

That big.

His c**k bumped her, thick and wide. Spike opened her thighs around his hips, lifting her and holding her with perfect strength while he slid up and inside.

Myka’s eyes went wide. Hell, he couldn’t be that . . .

Oh, my God . . . it has to stop soon . . .

Oh, my God.

The ferocity drained from Spike’s face in one instant. He looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, the dark brown touched with gold. His lips parted, mouth softening.

“Myka . . .” The word came out of him on a grating exhale. “You’re tight. Damn, you’re tight.”

Sounds of ecstasy came out of Myka’s mouth and nothing else. Coherence had gone.

Spike leaned her back, and she found a cool wall behind her. Then she was aware of nothing but Spike holding her steady, hands protecting her from the hardness of the wall, his heat engulfing her. His body was so tight against hers that his strength became her strength too.

And his c**k . . . Reaching inside her, bigger and harder than anything had a right to be, spreading her, loving her.

She was going to die. No, she was going to live, and love every second of it.

Myka wrapped her arms around Spike’s beautiful body and kissed his lips. Spike smiled into the kiss, opening her mouth, slanting their lips together, deepening the kiss.

He thrust inside her in small pushes, the space too tight for much else. Each pulse made Myka moan, and Spike growled low in his throat.

Sweat dripped between them, Spike’s skin slick with it. Myka glided her hands over his tatts, leaning down to lick the swirl of dragon wings across his shoulders.

Naked, entwined, the ache between her legs both beautiful and agonizing, Myka kissed him, licked him, kneaded him. She loved Spike’s hair, the sharp stubble of it. She liked it against her fingertips, under her nuzzling her nose, against her lips and tongue.

She was coming again, Spike’s loving tearing her apart. Myka’s cries rang out into the quiet living room, his growls becoming sounds of need, then shouts.

Finally he was pumping up into her, she rising and falling against the wall, sheltered and protected by his arms.

“Feel my seed,” he almost snarled. “Take my seed. Myka. Mate.”

Myka’s answer was another cry, hoarse in her throat. Spike’s shout mingled with hers, then his eyes glowed golden, Shifter, and heat scalded her inside and out.

Then they were falling, down, down, the rug coming up at her, but Spike was holding her, shielding her from harm. She landed on top of him, he still inside her, his eyes that wild Shifter gold.

“Mate,” he said again, and he held her hard, arms across her back. “My mate. Myka.”

His voice caressed the name, his embrace not letting her go.

Myka collapsed, her heart beating swiftly, her body both pliant and tight. She knew she should worry about that word—mate—but right now, the world was bliss, and she surrendered.

*** *** ***

Morning came way too soon. Myka woke in her bed, facedown near the edge, her head hanging off the pillow. The muffled windows were dim, and rain, blessed rain—they hadn’t seen hardly any of it this year—pattered on the roof. Against Myka’s left side was the solid strength of a male body, warmth, the scent of lovemaking.

Spike had lifted her and carried her to into her bedroom after their descent to the living room floor. He’d laid her on her bed, slid himself over her, and showed he could sex her just as excitingly in the ordinary man-on-top position.

After that . . . ecstasy had spiraled into astonishing joy, which eased down into sleep and wicked dreams.

Myka turned over, Spike’s arm remaining possessively around her. She studied his face, relaxed in sleep, the lines of tension erased.

She had a naked Shifter in her bed. One of those frightening creatures that had to be controlled with Collars, who fought with gritty violence even when they played at fighting each other.

Then again, Spike was just a man, one who worried about his son and grieved the passing of his son’s mother, even though he’d barely known her. He’d sat with his grandmother watching television shows that probably hadn’t interested him to help her get well, and he’d followed Myka tonight when he worried that someone was trying to hurt her.