I didn’t have to ask twice. Before I could so much as blink, I was on the bed, splayed out on my side, a suddenly naked Gabriel half covering me.

‘‘I will give you foreplay when this is over,’’ he said, his breath hot on the back of my neck as he slid one arm underneath my waist, pulling my upper leg back over his thigh. ‘‘I will arouse you then, but first, I must join with you.’’

I wanted to point out that any such activity would technically be afterplay, not foreplay, but my brain was too overloaded with the sensations he was generating to form words. The position was a little awkward, leaving me to clutch the sheets as he searched for entrance, and then found it, his body hard behind and in me, muscle and tissue parting to allow him access to areas that went beyond a mere physical body. Gabriel had used the word ‘‘joining,’’ and as his hips flexed, making long, slow strokes into me, his mouth hot on my neck while his hands found my breasts, I understood just what he meant by it. I arched backward, tilting my hips back to take in more of him in a wordless demand. He growled against my neck, the long, tanned fingers tightening on my breasts.

I sucked in my breath not only at the sensation of his hands, but at the feeling of fullness deep within me. Gone were the long, slow movements meant to arouse-his body pistoned into me in an act of possession, my body welcoming each blow with a thousand little jolts of pleasure. I gasped again, a tight ball forming that seemed to draw in every nerve in my body.

Gabriel’s breath was harsh, coming in primitive little groans as he sucked the skin of my neck, his tongue leaving long, wet streaks.

One hand slid off my breast, down to my belly, probing and parting delicate flesh to find the center of my pleasure.

‘‘Mayling, I cannot wait,’’ he moaned.

I tightened every muscle I had around him, arching my back, my hands clawing at the sheets as the ball of passion deep inside me threatened to explode. ‘‘Fire,’’ I gasped, barely able to form a coherent sentence. ‘‘I want your fire. I need your fire.’’

He gave it to me then, fed me his dragon fire until it washed over us in a blaze of ecstasy. He was the dragon fire, surrounding me, on me, inside me, every inch of my being bound so tightly with his, we were the flames, dancing higher and higher until we burst into a million little sparks, separate, but whole.

Pain, sharp and hot, lit the back of my shoulder, but it faded almost instantly as I let myself go, drifting slowly back down into my body as an ember from a bonfire lazily wafts it way back to earth.

The bed was not on fire, I was pleased to note. Neither were the curtains, chair, or wardrobe.

Flames licked down the length of Gabriel’s body as he collapsed onto his back, the fine sheen of sweat that covered him instantly vaporizing.

My body felt heavy and dull as compared to the bright phoenix we had been together, even as little tremors of pleasure, orgasmic aftershocks, made me cognizant of the truth of Gabriel’s warnings of rough lovemaking.

‘‘You’re on fire,’’ I said, rolling onto my other side in order to face him.

His eyes were closed, his chest heaving as he sucked in huge quantities of air. He cracked one eye open to look at me, his dimples popping into life as he closed it again. ‘‘Thank you. I endeavor to please you, little bird, although you are a demanding woman. It takes my full energy to sate your many desires.’’

I rolled my eyes at that gross exaggeration, stroking my hand down his still-burning chest. ‘‘I meant literally.’’

He opened an eye again, this time to glance down at himself. ‘‘Am I? How very curious. It must have something to do with you.’’

I patted out the flames on his chest and belly, the rest of the fire dying out. ‘‘Me? I don’t see how. You’re the dragon-you’re the one who has dragon fire.’’

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me up close to his body, arranging me so that I lay draped over him before closing his eyes again, sighing in happiness. ‘‘This has never happened to me with another woman. It must be because you are my mate. When you give the fire back to me, it’s more than what it started out as.’’

‘‘More?’’ I drew a lazy circle around the pert brown nipple that lay next to my mouth, considering whether or not I had the energy to taste it.

‘‘More.’’ One hand lifted and made a vague gesture. ‘‘It’s… purer. More powerful. Something more than what it starts out as. I can’t really explain it. It’s just… more.’’

‘‘Ah.’’ I smiled at his nipple, oddly proud.

‘‘What are you doing?’’ he asked suspiciously, lifting his head to peer down at me.

‘‘Smiling at your nipple. I was wondering what you taste like.’’

His eyes, a sleepy, slumbering silver, sparked with interest. ‘‘Foreplay?’’

‘‘This, my dragon, is afterplay,’’ I said, moving so that I straddled his thighs. I leaned down to lick his nipple, but before I could capture it, a familiar tingling started up my back. Dread swept over me as I swore, threw myself over the edge of the bed, blindly grabbing for the blankets we’d pushed off the bed during our lovemaking.

‘‘May? What’s the-’’

The tingling increased to a painful pitch as the world seemed to give a shudder, then twisted into a gut-wrenching parody of reality. I was jerked out of the room at Drake’s house, and deposited naked, clutching a blanket, onto a cool tile floor.

‘‘I see you’ve changed your mind about me. I’m delighted, although I would have preferred a little warning of your intentions,’’ a smooth, suave voice spoke.

The chill from it caused my skin to prickle as I twisted the blanket around me toga-style. My dignity was shredded, but I managed to get off the floor with the blanket intact. I glared at the man who stood in front of me, his hair slicked back from his forehead, his dark, deep-lidded eyes promising all sorts of carnal pleasures.

I said the first thing that came to mind. ‘‘I never liked you in that movie about the Arab chieftain, you know. You were bearable in the sequel, but the first one? The word ‘ham’ comes to mind.’’

Magoth bristled, the air cooling at least ten degrees. ‘‘That was my greatest picture!’’ he said in a near hiss. ‘‘It made my career!’’

‘‘I thought your depiction was clumsy, brutal, and extremely heavy-handed.’’

He did hiss this time, his face hard. ‘‘Women the world over swooned whenever I was on the screen. Swooned! Several committed suicide because of me!’’

‘‘That was just the Hollywood hype,’’ I said nonchalantly, aware that I was playing with fire (so to speak), but unable to express my fury in any other way at the untimely summons. ‘‘You had a very good manager, as I recall. I always did think he was smart to have you pretend to die just when you did. I doubt if you’d have kept your precious mystique if you’d been around much longer.’’

Magoth’s face worked for a moment before he regained control. I knew I was perilously close to being punished for my flip comments, but they served their purposes: they distracted him from thoughts of seduction of my nearly naked self, and they gave vent to my much-aggrieved spleen.

He strolled over to a bar, pouring himself a glass of sangria. I took the wicker seat across from him, ignoring the fact that two demons were also present in the pretty courtyard of what I assumed was his villa in Spain. ‘‘I find myself wondering if there is a purpose in your slanderous comments about my brief movie career,’’ he said with perfect suavity.

‘‘Just an idle thought. You haven’t worn your hair slicked back like that for a number of decades-it reminded me of when I first saw you.’’

He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to behold. ‘‘I have toyed with the thought of returning to the screen, but alas, my schedule allows me little free time. Which brings me to an interesting bit of gossip I have heard.’’ His gaze dropped to the top of the blanket, the edge of which was tucked securely under my arm. ‘‘The word on the street is that you have mated with a dragon. A wyvern, to be exact.’’