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it around the crown. He thought he might lose his mind. She took every last remaining drop from him before turning her head to look at him.
    “Stand up. Put your hands on my shoulders.” He made it a firm command because she didn’t seem to listen very well.
    The mage got to her feet in one very graceful move worthy of any of the dancers pleasing the husbands and husbands’ friends he’d watched in past centuries. He could imagine her with bells around her ankles and waist and hanging on a chain between her breasts. She would have been a husband’s most prized possession. He knew she was already his.
    Very slowly, almost as if she was a little afraid, she rested her hands on his shoulders. He slid his hands to the inside of her thighs and urged her closer until she was standing over him, straddling him, her legs wide. He felt her shiver and knew it wasn’t from the cold, crisp air. She had bathed in the river and he smelled the snowpack on her. The scent was fresh and mingled with her natural fragrance of peaches and cream, producing a potent aphrodisiac for him.
    Very gently he slid his hand up her left leg. Shaping her calf. Caressing behind her knees with the pads of his fingers. His tongue stroked little caresses over her right leg following his hand movements on the left. No matter how hard her fingers dug into his shoulders, and at one point she grabbed a fistful of hair and nearly shook his head off, he kept his movements slow.
    He blew warm air between her legs while she squirmed and made delicious little sounds that threatened to drive him mad. His palm caressed her left thigh and he did the same with his tongue on her right. Feeling her skin. Tasting her. She was more than exquisite. He didn’t deviate or go faster. He wasn’t about to shortchange her—or either of them. He wanted this slow, burning exploration as much as she did. Maybe more.
    In the centuries gone past, he’d had time to study every aspect of what a man and woman could do together to pleasure each other. Like his brethren, he wanted to be the best possible lover for his lifemate. He’d studied the erotic arts with the same diligence to detail that he’d studied spells, languages and new technology.
    Her fingers found the tattoos flowing over his shoulders and down his back. The tattoos had been made the old way, scarring the skin, but making his vows a part of his body, so that he would never forget. Never dishonor his lifemate or himself. She traced the letters, written in his ancient language to her. To his woman.
    He kissed his way up her inner left thigh and then kissed his way down on the right. Her breath hissed out. Her skin was cool to the touch but warming, growing hot under his mouth and fingers.
    When he finally reached her hot little spot, she was nearly crying,trying desperately to push her body onto his mouth, seeking relief. He worked her clit gently at first, lapping and flicking with his tongue. She tasted like a combination of peaches and cream, just like she smelled. He used a flattened tongue to stroke and slap, bringing all the nerve endings to life.
    Only when she was pleading did he add one finger, sliding it back and forth, collecting the liquid there and then pushing deep. She was tight. Tighter than he had thought possible. Her breath caught audibly when he invaded but she pushed back, impaling herself, seeking more.
    “I’m so close. You have to keep going. Don’t stop.”
    He took his finger and mouth away, running his face up the inside of her thigh, using the bristles on his jaw to stimulate her further. All the while colors burst behind his eyes, nearly blinding him. It was disorienting, and he wanted to tell her to stop talking. At the same time, he welcomed the disturbing sensations pouring over him. The colors confirmed she was his lifemate. Traitor or no, she was his.
    “What are you doing?” she wailed.
    “Starting over.” He kept his voice complacent. She would eventually learn what he was all