A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

she’d already fallen forward half on the bed, nearly asleep.
    He’d known she was tired, had reasoned driving was draining, but how could she be this bad off? Immortals were usually powerful, near inexhaustible. Was this the condition she spoke of? If she’d drunk Monday, and she had no discernible injuries, then what was it?
    Was it the shock of what he’d done to her? Perhaps she was as fragile inside as her appearance suggested . . . .
    He tugged her jacket off by the collar—easy to do, since her arms were limp—and found her neck and shoulders were knotted. Surely driving did that. Not sitting next to him for hours.
    When he felt her skin was chilled, he ran water in the bath, then returned to roll her over and pull off her shirt.
    She weakly slapped at his hands, but he ignored her protests. “I’ve drawn you a bath. It’s no’ good to sleep like this.”
    â€œLet me do it myself, then.” When he removed her boot, her eyes opened fully to meet his. “Please, I don’t want you to see me unclothed.”
    â€œWhy?” he asked as he stretched out beside her. He picked up the end of a curl to run it along the side of her chin as he gazed down into her eyes. The skin beneath her lashes was pale like the rest of her face, so pale it matched the whites of her eyes, with only the fringe of thick lashes sweeping between them. Fascinating to him.
    And looking down into them felt oddly familiar.
    *  *  *
    â€œWhy?” She frowned. “Because I’m shy about things like that.”
    â€œI’ll leave your undergarments on.”
    She did want a bath, desperately. It was the only thing that could possibly warm her.
    When she closed her eyes and shivered, he made the decision for her. Before she could even finish sputtering a protest, he’d stripped her to her underwear, then himself completely, and clasped her in his arms. He dropped them into the steaming oversize bathtub with her between his legs.
    In the warm water, his injured leg brushed her arm, and she stiffened. He was naked and aroused, and her underwear was no true barrier since he’d unerringly chosen a thong. He laid one heavy hand on her shoulder. A second later, she felt a finger from his other hand tracing the thong she wore. “This pleases me,” he growled.
    Just as she tensed to leap from the water, he brushed her hair over one shoulder, put both hands on her neck, then pressed down with his thumbs.
    To her morbid embarrassment, she moaned, loud.
    â€œRelax, creature.” Against her efforts, he pulled her back into him. When she lay fully on his erection, he hissed and shuddered, his reaction flooding her with heat. But she shot back up, fearing he would want to have sex with her. It didn’t take an anatomist to make a case that they wouldn’t fit like that.
    â€œEasy,” he said, continuing to work out the knots in her shoulders with an expert touch. As he drew her to him once more, the only struggle she could manage was internal, and she was glad no one could see that stumbling, pitiful attempt. Finally he forced her to relax against him completely, body gone limp.
    What no one knew about Emma was that she loved to be touched. Adored it. Even the more because it was utterly rare.
    While her family was affectionate in a spartan way, they wanted to toughen her up. Only one of her aunts, Daniela the Ice Maiden, seemed to understand her yearning, because she herself couldn’t touch or have her freezing skin touched without extreme pain. She understood it, but for some reason Daniela didn’t miss it, didn’t feel the same need, while Emma thought she’d slowly die without it.
    Creatures from the Lore who would be acceptable lovers for her, like good demons, were scarce in N.O.L.A., and most of those had been hanging around the manor since she’d been young. She saw them as nothing more than big brothers. With