“So are they gone?” he asked.

“Yes. They are.”

“Is there a security system herein? And are there any weapons in this house?”

“The security system control pad is up in the kitchen, and V told me how to engage it.”

“Did you do so?”

It wasn’t that he was being demanding, but he was incredibly intense, as if the only thing that separated them from … wolves, or something … was his ability to lock them down and gather armaments in the event of an attack.

“I did not.”

Xcor smiled as if he wanted to make an effort not to seem unpleasant, but his eyes were anything but relaxed. “How do you activate the alarm?”

“I, ah, I’ll show you.”

She had a feeling that he was not going to be satisfied until he understood the way the thing worked and operated it himself. And she was right. He insisted on running through the code and pushing the buttons.

Then, evidently, it was time to check every single door and window in the place.

Layla followed him as he went, one by one, through all the rooms and bathrooms, inspecting the locks on the windows and the stops that were on the sashes so that they couldn’t be lifted more than an inch or two. Then it was the dead-bolt review. And he even checked out the garage doors, though he insisted she stay inside for that because it was cold.

Reentering the kitchen, he nodded as he set the alarm. “This house is well secured.”

“Vishous takes care of these things.”

“He does a fit job.”

Xcor went across by the stove and began pulling open the drawers. “These will have to do.”

One by one, he laid out all the knives he could find: a cleaver, a serrated blade, two little paring types, and a carving one. Putting them on a dish towel, he rolled them up in a bundle and then held his hand out to her.

“We go downstairs.”

Layla approached him and shivered as their palms connected. And as the two of them descended, her body loosened.

When they got to the bottom of the steps, he stopped and stared at her.

She gave him a moment to speak. When he didn’t, she whispered, “Yes, please.”

He closed his eyes and swayed. Then he dropped his head. “Are you certain?”

“Never more than anything in my life.”

His lids lifted. “I shall be gentle with you.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him not to restrain himself: In truth, the last thing she wanted from him was to hold anything back because this could very well be the one and only time they were together.

But then her mind stopped functioning.

Because Xcor was drawing her against his body. With his free hand, the one that didn’t have all those knives in it, he stroked her cheek and then brushed her lower lip with his thumb.

The next thing she knew, his lips were on hers, stroking, pressing in, caressing.

The kiss was as soft as a breath, and that was frustrating. She wanted more—and yet as she strained to get it, he moved back subtly, keeping control.

When he finally broke the contact, he smoothed his palm down her hair. “May I enter your bedroom, female?”

His eyes were so beautiful, shining and hot, the deep navy blue nearly black from the lust he had for her. And to her, his face was handsome, everything that was strong and masculine and powerful, the defect in his upper lip not anything she noticed or dwelled on. In fact, it was the whole of him that appealed to her, his power and his vulnerability, his savage nature and the polite effort he was making, the warrior in him and the protector who came out for her.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I would carry you, but I am not that strong, the now.”

He took her hand and together they walked into the bedroom she had tried to sleep in during the day. And what do you know, in spite of the lack of rest, she felt vitally awake, almost painfully aware.

Xcor willed on the lamp at the bureau and shut the door. Then he led her over to the bed, bending to tuck the roll of knives right under the box spring.

As they sat down, she felt herself blushing.

He smiled. “Your shyness is my undoing, female. Regard my hands.”

As he held them out to her, the fine tremor was at odds with the heavy veins that ran down his forearms and into his wrists.

“I have dreamed of touching you,” he murmured. “So many times I have …”

“So touch me now.”

When he seemed frozen, she was the one who grabbed his shoulders and brought his mouth to hers—and oh, dearest Virgin Scribe, when she held nothing back, neither did he. Xcor tasted of sex and desperation, and it wasn’t long before his hands became rough and his growling permeated the quiet, dim bedroom. Indeed, he was no longer careful with her as he mounted her, his body pushing hers back into the pillows, his knee jutting between her legs and forcing them wide—

He stopped instantly, and yanked back. “Layla … my love, I’m on the edge of—”

“Take me. Hurry, oh, just have me … I’ve waited too long already.”

Xcor bared his fangs and hissed, his eyes flashing with a purpose that might have been unholy but, in her frame of mind, was exactly what she needed from him.

“Let me see you, I have to see your body,” he groaned as he swept a hand down to her waist.

Layla arched as he took the bottom of her casual shirt and began to pull it up her stomach to her—

Xcor gasped as her breasts were exposed. “Oh, sweetest female.”

Frozen as he became at the sight of her tight nipples, she finished the job, getting what had covered her torso over her head and pitching it she cared not where. As she resettled on the pillows, Xcor sat up into a kneeling position, straddling her hips with his bent legs.

His hands really shook now as he ran his fingertips over her collarbone and down onto her breasts. “You are more astounding than even my daydreams.”

As his rapt, reverent eyes passed over her bare skin, Layla realized that feeling beautiful had nothing to do with actual looks. It was a state of mind—and nothing put a female there faster than the male she wanted staring at her the way Xcor was now.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“’Tis I who should thank you for the gift of your flesh.”

Looming above her, Xcor seemed enormous even with the weight loss, his shoulders so broad, his arms so heavy in that sweatshirt. And as he bent down to put his mouth to the side of her throat, the seams of what he wore strained, a subtle tear happening somewhere.

Heart pounding, heat roaring through her veins, Layla arched again as he moved his lips back and forth, brushing at her skin. Meanwhile, his hands, those incredible hands, cupped the outsides of her breasts—and then he was at her nipples, kissing them, drawing first one and then the other into his mouth.

In response, her body ceded to him to the point of bonelessness, her first wave of urgency easing up a little as she became enthralled by sensation.

As he worshipped her breasts, she had a dim thought that, in a way, she had come full circle. Trained as an ehros, as a Chosen whose sole purpose was to pleasure the Primale and bear him young, she had arrived at her maturity and entered into service at a time when there was, in fact, no one to service: The previous Primale had suffered a tragic end and the new one had yet to be appointed. And so she had waited … until Phury had been elevated to the position. He, however, had taken but one mate, and would lie with no other. And so she had waited some more, life taking on different contours as Phury had freed her and her sisters from the Sanctuary, permitting the Chosen to come down to earth with an autonomy unparalleled.

But there had been no love for her. No sex, either.

Just a brief infatuation with Qhuinn that she had realized was a fiction compared to what that male shared with his true mate, Blay.

And yet the two males had not been together, had seemed doomed to lead separate lives. So, when she had gone into her needing, she had asked Qhuinn to ease her in her fertility, not because he loved her, but because he was, at that time, as lost as she was: During those horrible hours of her suffering, they had lain together only for the sake of conception and it had worked.

She had little memory of the acts themselves, nor did she want to recall them.