Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender by Kate Pearce, Portia Da Costa, Opal Carew, Marie Harte, Jennifer Leeland, Madelynne Ellis, Emily Ryan-Davis, Carrie Ann Ryan, Joey Hill, T. J. Michaels, Sasha White

feedback from her. Sometimes he just put his hands on her shoulders, kneaded the tight muscles there and in her neck. The sexual undercurrent was there, but it was fueled by the intimacy, rather than him actively trying to arouse her.
    When he asked her to get them a candy bar at ten, he took a bite of the snack from her fingertips, nipping them lightly. After she took the candy back to her desk, she had a couple more bites, but left half of it for later, because he called her back over to him. It wasn’t work-related, however, at least not immediately. He brought her close, inhaled her breath, licked a bit of the sugar off her lips.
    “You have a sweet tooth, my—Master.”
    “I do. I should indulge it more often.” As he delved deeper, his tongue tasting the chocolate flavor that lingered in her mouth, he leaned against the counter, his arm banded around her waist to keep her steady. When he raised his head, her knees were quivering at the look in his eyes.
    “You’ll get sick,” she managed.
    “Maybe. Lady Helga thinks we should assign a much higher priority to vampire digestive issues, especially when it comes to chocolate.”
    “Of course.” Trying to appear casual about all of it, she straightened as he let her go, adjusted her lab coat under his amused gaze. “Coming up with the vampire version of Tums is far more critical than resolving the fertility limitations that could result in species extinction.”
    His grin warmed her from head to toe. Then he glanced back down at what he was doing. “Can you put that equation up on the board so we can both look at it? Something’s not coming out right.”
    She complied, and he shifted to stand by her side. Her brow creased, the variables arranging themselves in her mind. She could see what concerned him. As he hooked a thumb in her back waistband, hip comfortable against hers, he opened his mind to hers.
    “What about that value there?” He pointed. “If we switch that out, replace it as an unknown…”
    They sorted and rearranged. At a certain point she couldn’t tell which of them was working which part of the problem, but then she stepped forward, using her fingers on the touch screen to eliminate one part and add in other variables as they’d done in their minds.
    “Yes.” His eyes lighted up. “That’s it.”
    She nodded. “That will remove one of the limiting assumptions. It will make the calculations more complex, but then we’ll definitely have better control of the overall study.”
    “Excellent. We might just have time left over for that Tums development after all.”
    She chuckled at that, shook her head, and went to attend to the change in her files. As confused as she was, it was the best day she’d spent with him in a while. She felt in sync on every level, not just in the research they were doing.
    Then she realized the rest of her candy bar had vanished off the counter. Quick as a shot, she ducked under her desk and caught the small fist about to jam the rest of the candy into an open mouth. “Kane, no,” she said sharply.
    The born vampire, not much more than a toddler in age, gave her his mother’s jade you-will-die-puny-mortal stare. Ignoring that, she nevertheless had difficulty wresting it from him. Fortunately, Brian came to her aid. “You are getting to be a strong little cuss,” he said, but took the candy out of range. “How many times do we have to tell you that chocolate will make you sick?”
    “You ate,” Kane said sullenly.
    “Yes, a bite. You were about to swallow half of it whole. John?”
    As Brian raised his voice, the young man appeared outside the lab door. He’d no doubt followed Kane, but had hung back when he realized Brian was present. When it was just Debra, he usually came right in. She had a great fondness for John. The young man was in lanky adolescence, but he had a maturity and patience far exceeding his age, likely a genetic boon from his grandfather. Elijah Ingram had the patient steadiness