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“You’ve never asked me!”

“But I knowyou.If you were planning on leaving this life on your twenty-seventh birthday, you would never allow yourself to conceive a child.”

Her hand came toward his cheek and he tensed, but she merely stroked him gently. “That’s pretty observant for a guy.”

“I’m your mate.” He caught her fingers in his and kissed them. “However, you should also know that I could make any method of birth control fail.”

She rolled away from him and sat up.“What the fuck?”

“Exactly.” He smiled. “I really can.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Her scowl was tremendous but not intimidating at all, because he was staring up at her heaving breasts and tight pink nipples. It was nice to occasionally get the upper hand with his female.

“Morosov, look at me. You have to swear that you will never do that, or else that is the last time I’ll ever let you make love to me.” She climbed off the bed and started looking for her clothes, which he had folded neatly on the chair beside the fire.

He smiled slowly and put his hands behind his head. They were making love now rather than just having casual sex? That was progress. She stomped into the bathroom and the shower went on. While she was occupied, he ordered room service and then rose from the bed and followed her into the bathroom.

* * *

“That’s my toothbrush!”

Ella glanced back over her shoulder to see Vadim in all his naked glory, glaring at her. She spat slowly into the bowl and rinsed.

“I’ve put it back. Keep your feathers on. After the Fae public-health service announcement you just gave me, I’m entitled to be fricking annoyed.”

She headed into the shower and allowed the steady drum of the water to soothe her tangled nerves. Her threat not to have sex with Vadim ever again was an empty one and he knew it. She could barely keep her hands off him at the best of times, and he wasn’t much better. That had surprised her. Under that calm exterior he was as wild about sex as she was, and easily the best lay she’d ever had.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t read my mind!” He stepped into the shower behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She tried to stick an elbow in his gut, but he simply laughed and held her slightly away from him. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Even here?”

She tried, but she couldn’t shut him out anymore. “You have to promise you won’t get me pregnant.”

He nuzzled her neck and then her throat, and her knees went to jelly. “Not even if you wanted me to?”

A vision of a mini-Morosov danced inside her lust-driven brain, and she wasn’t sure if he’d planted it there or it was coming from her. That was even more terrifying than the thought of being pregnant.

He bit down slowly on the tendon in her neck. “We would make beautiful babies.”

“Shut up! I’ve only just realized I’m going to live beyond the age of twenty-seven. I haven’t come to terms with having you around yet, let alone a kid!”

His chuckle reverberated against her wet skin, and his newly erect cock pressed against her ass. This time she did manage to get her elbow in his chest and spun around to face him. He looked quite breathtaking, his dark blue eyes narrowed in a combination of amusement and lust as water dripped down his perfect cheekbones to his perfect abs and his perfect…

She stuck a finger in his face. “You’re messing with my head, aren’t you?”

“I might be.”

“Can you really make me pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“But not without my consent.”

He nodded. “Naturally.”