Was he removing his boots behind her? He was stripping!

Don’t turn around, don’t turn around. “What are the other ways you’ll make me talk?”

“They involve sexual torture.” His voice had grown huskier.

Huh? “Are you going to use whips and chains on me?”

“Only if I think you’d like that.” He was so matter-of-fact, as if her participation were a foregone conclusion. “More generally, I’ll use orgasm denial.”

Just as he’d done when manipulating that nymph. Once the blonde had agreed to do his bidding, he’d rewarded her with orgasms. Good girls get rewards?

“Until you give me information about Nïx, I’ll edge you for hours, for days even, if that’s what it takes.”

She frowned at the flames. He said that like it was a bad thing? Before last night, her hookups had always ended with her instructing her partner how to get her off, him failing, and her saying, “Oh, for fuck’s sake” and then doing it herself.

Taken all together, her sex life totaled about forty minutes, less than an episode of Walking Dead.

Three guys. Seven times. Afterward, she’d always wished she’d watched TV instead. A year or so ago she’d quit altogether.

Edging would mean Rune actually got her to edge. For hours.

And every second she was with him meant he wasn’t out hunting, wasn’t accidentally shooting innocent Valkyrie acquaintances.

Where do I sign? If she neared the brink, she could seduce him to finish her. She might not have tons of experience, but her shells had, and she watched people going at it all the time. If she factored in his thrilling reaction to her bite, Jo figured she could throw him for a loop.

The way she saw it, they were basically about to fight each other, scrapping for the upper hand—except it’d feel good.

She was amped! Her only worry was that Rune wouldn’t hold out long enough to make it interesting.

“Ah, your heart beats faster, female. You’re right to fear this. Your secrets’ lives are about to end.”

God, his voice. Husky but rumbling. Her breaths shallowed. Don’t look. . . .

Naturally she did. When had she ever not looked?

He stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. In the courtyard, she’d seen his mind-blowing ass and a side view of his dick. After her hook-up with him, he’d pulled up his pants so fast she’d gotten only a glimpse of the full package. But she’d never seen his chest.

His shirt gaped open, revealing tattooed runes. One circled his navel, another stretching across his collar bone. As her gaze swept over his chest and rigid pecs, her nipples stiffened, straining against the material of her robe.

In the firelight, his skin was tan, except for a few lighter-colored scars over his chest and abs. Those marks—taken together with his tattoos—just made him look like more of a badass.

His jeans were low-slung, revealing the trail of black hair leading down from his navel.

“My heart’s beating faster because I’m ready to get busy,” she said, removing her necklace and setting it on the table. The only thing she could tell him about Nïx was that she couldn’t tell him anything about Nïx. Yet Jo liked all the focus on the Valkyrie and not Thad. She’d keep it that way. “But if you want to keep talking instead of doing?”

Surprise crossed his expression. “And of course I’ll deny you my blood.”

Oh. Not so good. If anything else were at stake, she’d sing like a canary for his blood.

But more was at stake.

She would be winning tonight. And when she did, maybe she could score her freedom as well. If she could just get him to accept a wager. . . .

“Come to bed, Josephine. We’re both adults. We both know what’s about to happen. I haven’t even nicked my skin.” When he shrugged from his shirt, his torso flexed in a drool-worthy display, every sinew contracting. His shoulders were broad, his arms long and strong—

Her eyes widened at his right arm. A tattooed sleeve of intertwined runes covered his skin from his shoulder to his wrist.

Red hot, Rune. Red. Hot. His generous biceps bunched when he tossed the shirt away. As his dick hardened, his jeans forced his erection to grow toward the side; it stretched to his hip.

He knew the effect he was having on her, and his lips curved into that slanted half grin/half smirk, the diabolically sexy one that made her pant—the one that said, I’m about to do filthy things to every inch of you.

Just to stoke her need, he daubed the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth. That tiny movement made her thoughts seize on his mouth—which he’d no doubt intended.

What would he do with that tongue? Those lips? Would he give her a blood kiss?

His eyes darkened to the deepest magenta as he raked his gaze over her body, as if plotting all the places he was about to sample.

She was getting a taste of the smoldering sensuality of his fey half. Jo like. She found herself grinning back.

Before she got too caught up in things, she should pitch her wager. “You wanna make a bet?”

“About what, dove?” He started on the bulging fly of his jeans.

“You’re going to try to get answers from me. And I’m going to resist you. We should wager who’ll win.”

“I have thousands of years of experience with this. And no one has ever resisted me—even when I had one hand tied behind my back. Now? There’s no chance of it.”

“So you’ve been a sexual torturer for thousands of years?”