By salt. Damn it.

Not that there was going to be anything in there she’d want. For fuck’s sake, the place was no doubt home to fifteen-year-old couches, carpets she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, and faded flocked wallpaper that had been bought at Sears back when Jimmy Carter had been the president and Taxi had been on prime time.

But sometimes you just wanted to get into a place you weren’t allowed to go.

You just wanted the things you weren’t given.

You just wanted to fuck shit up and walk away with the mushroom cloud behind you, feeling like you owned the world because you were able to destroy it.

Devina stopped turning.

Enough with this bullshit. Time to pick her fun for the rest of the night—because if she didn’t get a shot of enjoyment soon? She was going to lose her motherfucking mind.

Oh, and that vampire? With the salt?

It was going to be good to eat his heart. Because whether he knew it or not—whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not—he was totally in love with that female and her dumbass ponytail. And just as pathetic? She was in love with him. It was obvious in the way they’d communicated with each other, no words necessary to make meaning clear, their bodies turned to each other’s, their connection tangible.

Fine. Whatever. Those two lovebirds might be able to keep a demon out of that house.

But they weren’t going to stop her from kicking down their goddamn sandcastle.

As Sahvage heard the word that Mae spoke, the three-lettered door opener went into his ears and throughout his whole body. Yes.

Yet she stopped him as he moved in toward her lips. “I don’t know . . . how far this is going to go.”

“I do.” He brushed her cheek. “It’s going as far as you want it to. And no further.”

The tension left her body and she eased toward him. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I’d ask you why, but I don’t have to.”

There were too many reasons, for both of them, not to complicate things even more. But clearly, neither of them was going to stop the inevitable . . . so those were the last syllables they spoke before their mouths met—and what a kiss it was. He’d thought he was prepared for the sensation of her softness and warmth, but just because you wanted something didn’t mean you could handle it.

Mae melted him.

And he only wanted more. Keeping his touch gentle, he moved his hand up to the side of her neck to draw her even closer—and when she came willingly, he groaned and tilted his head. Deeper, the kiss now. Even deeper still. Until his tongue entered her.

He wished they had a big bed, with plenty of privacy.

But he needed her so badly, he would have done this in the middle of a war zone.

The chair she was on creaked softly, and the next thing he knew, he was in between her knees, cradling her face, learning about what she liked as he took it slow, took it easy, everything drifting away for him—

Well, not everything. His threat instincts remained on alert—but at the moment, there was nothing wrong inside or outside the cottage.

And his guns were on him.

God, he shouldn’t be doing this. She was a civilian; he was a bloodthirsty rogue fighter with no home, no bloodline, and no identity anymore. And yet he needed this like he was suffocating and she was his air.

They kept kissing, and even though his lust began to choke him, he wasn’t going to rush her—and wasn’t that a serious change of pace for him. For all his post-transition life, when the mood struck him and the female or woman was willing, he took care of business and then headed out.

With Mae? He wasn’t interested in this being over anytime soon—and even if he could have left the cottage, he was so very content to stay with her.

When she eased back, he hid his disappointment.

Except then she took things in a direction that was very appointment’ing.

If that was even a word.

With her soft, small hand, she took his palm from the side of her neck . . . and placed it on her breast.

• • •

Sahvage was the best kisser Mae had ever known. Which, considering she hadn’t kissed more than two males in her fifty years of life, probably didn’t sound like much. But holy . . . well, shit, honestly . . .

Was there really anything better than this?

The problem? For all his obvious arousal, he seemed to be stuck in a delicious neutral.

As their lips met and clung, and his tongue was a stunning penetration, as her body roared with heat, and so did his own, she sensed his powerful restraint . . . and waited for him to get exploring. Waited to do some exploring herself. And yet he stayed with the kissing.

So, yup, in a surge of uncharacteristic self-determination, she solved the issue of how far things were going to go by taking his palm and putting it where there was an ache she needed him to caress away. Kiss away. Suck away.

Mae gasped as the warmth of his hand transmitted through her fleece, her shirt, her bra. Sure as if she were naked.

“Is this okay?” he asked as he pulled back.

When she went to answer, he swept his thumb over her nipple—and didn’t that make her brain stop working right. In lieu of answering verbally, she arched forward and retook his lips as she pushed herself into his palm—and he got the point. He treated her to a stroking that made her pant into his mouth, and then he was slipping under things and finding her skin. As he went upward and stroked her ribs, she grabbed on to his shoulders.

Which were so big, she felt like she was trying to grip an oak trunk.

“Please,” she begged.

“What do you want?”

“Touch me . . .”

“Where.” He kissed up the side of her throat. “I want to hear you say it.”

“My . . . nipple . . . again . . .”

Now he was groaning, and with a surge, he pushed both of her bra cups up, her layers of clothing wedging under her arms. When one of his thumbs went exactly where she’d told him to go, she gasped again and needed to know what his mouth would be like there, his dark head down at her breasts, tasting her, marking her—

Sahvage pulled back so fast, her hands fell off of his shoulders and slapped into her lap. Confused, she looked down at her messed-up tops, the erect pink tips of her breasts peeking out from under the rolls of cotton and fleece.

Just as she was going to ask him what she’d done wrong, how she’d turned him off, he yanked her tops back into place and leaped away from her. Like maybe she’d become radioactive.

“What did I do?” she said in a voice that cracked.

The cellar door opened wide, and Tallah’s wrinkled face peered around the jamb. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Mae blinked. The old female had changed out of her housecoat, trading the blue and yellow flowers for a long red dress made of a lustrous material that was likely pure silk, given her background. She had also put on makeup, a subtle pink blush tinting her cheeks, her eyes emphasized with tasteful shadow, a red outline and gloss on her lips.

And her hair was down, the waves of white and gray flowing around her shoulders like a cape of sterling silver.

“No,” Sahvage said smoothly. “Not at all. Mae was just telling me how long you’ve been here and how often she’s come out to keep you company.”