A/N – Okay, hardcore lemon alert. I really tried to incorporate a lot of the characterizations and history of Zoey and Stark, rather than just have them go at it. It's my first lemon so I'm a little nervous about it; let me know what you think.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting to put a disclaimer – everything House of Night belongs to P.C. and Kristen Cast, I'm just playing in their playground.

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How on earth was I suppose to explain to Stark how confused I felt about Erik? How I really liked Erik and might actually love him, but hated his possessiveness and how it really seemed like he had been pressuring me for sex. How his current, careful, not pressuring me was almost as bad. Crap. I was actually considering asking for Stark's help with Erik.

Well, he was the one who brought it up…

I looked up, searching his face for some clue about how to ask him, some idea of where to start. Stark gazed back down at me, and his gorgeous brown eyes were filled with understanding. "It's okay, Zoey," he whispered, then bent his head closer and kissed me chastely. "You can say anything to me."

That look decided me. If he'd given me his cocky smile, maybe I could have laughed and asked for suggestions – hell, maybe even teased him about the whole situation. If he'd looked sad, maybe I could have stumbled through an explanation and begged for his help. But that look of just pure understanding, like he was ready for me to say anything and he'd accept it… like he'd had some kind of communion with the Goddess and was utterly at peace with whatever needed to be done to serve her…

As hard as it had to be for him to let me be with someone else – to encourage me to be with someone else – he was going to do it and not complain one bit. Well, he might complain a little (you know that if we were human I wouldn't put up with this shit for a second…), but when it really mattered he was one hundred percent on board. He was truly my warrior. He would absolutely die for me. And since dying wasn't required, he would do this instead. He would love me and let me love him and let me love another man, too. He would let me love two other men, because Nyx told him I needed them.

I was absolutely overcome with emotion. I tackled him.

What I mean is, I sat up a little, launched myself forward and grabbed his arms, grasping just below his shoulders. I let my momentum roll us both over on the tiny bed as I pulled him on top of me. I miscalculated a little, because the roll finished with us both knocking into the dorm room wall. I laughed, a little breathless, at the effort it had taken to pull him over. He recovered quickly and held himself over me, hovering a little so his full weight wasn't on me. He raised his eyebrows in a question and gave me that cocky smile I love so much. I didn't answer his unspoken question with words, instead I kept letting my actions show him what I couldn't even begin to explain – how amazing he was, how much I loved him, and how much of my heart he held.

I wove my fingers into his hair and pulled his face down to mine, and when I couldn't pull his face down all the way I lifted my head up to reach his lips, kissing him with all the passion I was feeling at that moment.

He moaned into my mouth, just a little, and dropped more of his weight on me as he deepened the kiss, pushing my head back into the pillow, accidentally pressing my back tighter against the wall. We were already french-kissing, but I pushed my tongue even deeper into his mouth, our tongues pressing hard and slick against the other. The sensation of his mouth on mine, how his opened to me, sparked a warmth inside me that spread out from my center to envelope my whole body.

I couldn't kiss him enough, couldn't get deep enough, couldn't get close enough to him. He pulled us away from the wall a little, taking his weight off me completely and deftly maneuvered us onto our sides. He pulled me to him, and the length of our bodies pressed together. I loved the feeling of having him so close to me. Our legs tangled together; he even managed to twist one of his feet around my ankle. Our thighs and hips and stomachs were so close that I felt like we had merged into one person, like some bad scifi channel movie where we could phase then sink into each other and end up connected like we sank a through a few layers of skin and ended up inside of each other. Okay, gross image, and yes, I'm a total geek, but it just felt so good to be so close to Stark, so right, and I just wanted to put words to the sensation so I could remember it even after we made love tonight.

His hardness pressed against my stomach, and I could feel the smoothness of him against my skin. I wanted to reach down and stroke him, but I didn't want to separate our bodies. I wanted to keep this feeling that we were already inside each other without even doing the actual act.

I settled for continuing to kiss him and letting my hands roam over his muscular back, tangling up into his hair, and wandering downward over his tight butt. His hands seemed to have similar ideas, and I couldn't get enough of him touching me. All too soon his hands stilled, then he raised up and cradled my face in his calloused hands. He broke our kiss to look into my eyes, our foreheads pressed together, his breath hot and fast against my face.

"You are… my goddess," he panted. Well, that was a little ridiculous, but my insides still warmed at his words and at his love and devotion that was so deep and genuine that it almost hurt to return it. "I will gladly spend my life serving you, my lady," he finished huskily.

"Just spend your life doing this and I will be blissfully happy," I whispered back, completely meaning it in the moment.

"Zoey, I want you," he whispered, sounding more like himself again, instead of sounding like he was worshipping me. I loved when he said things like that but it still made me a little uncomfortable. I wasn't a goddess, I wasn't even technically a priestess yet. I almost worried that he wasn't able to separate "Zoey" from the role the Goddess was grooming me to play. But when he said my name again, when he sounded like a man who wanted me, the woman I was becoming, my small doubts were easily pushed aside.

"Please, Zoey, let me be inside you," he almost begged. "Let me make love to you." Like I would ever refuse him.

I leaned away just a little so I could open myself up to him, but my back made contact with the wall again. My body mourned the loss of contact with his, even breaking apart for only a few moments. Stark immediately sensed my awkward position and swooped me up in his arms. He placed me down gently in the middle of the bed, hovering over me once again. He kissed me deeply, and I lost myself again in the explosion of sensation that came with his mouth moving with mine.

He reached down between us, his caressing fingers stroking between my thighs and along my core. He felt how wet I was for him, and I wasn't even embarrassed. The wetness was all about how amazing and good and loved he made me feel, and how ready my body was to accept him. He moaned in my mouth as his fingers plunged deeper between my folds.

I wanted to hear him moan again. We had to be quiet though, because, Hello, still in a fledgling dorm room; but I really wished that we could make love somewhere that we didn't have to be so careful. I wanted to hear him. That additional component of being able to hear his pleasure somehow sent shockwaves down to my toes, and I wanted to feel what it was like when he didn't have to hold himself back.

I reached down and stroked him, too, wrapping my hand around his thickness, feeling the smoothness of his skin over the hardness of his erection. I squirmed under him just a little, moving myself up slightly so I could position him to enter me.

The first time we'd made love I hadn't understood, having only my experience with Loren to compare. There's no other way to really say it – Loren had taken me on an exhilarating ride, but I really didn't do anything. He'd made love to me – well, lied that he loved me and taken my virginity – but all I did was pretty much drink his blood and get Imprinted under his false pretenses. I really wasn't that much of a participant – if I wanted to be crude I guess I could say that he'd "taken care of everything".

With Stark, we were truly making love together. But with Stark, there was the added component that he would never – well, penetrate me – without me guiding him into me. The first time we'd made love I'd thought he was just being careful and considerate, but as the pattern continued – though we've only actually made love a handful of times; I was just too nervous about getting caught in my dorm room – I realized that he was holding himself back. I'd tried to ask him, once, but I'd been so embarrassed to talk about it that he'd easily evaded the question. I'd thought about it for a quite a while, though, and I think I finally understood without him telling me.

Before he pledged himself to me and chose good over evil, he'd let the darkness take control of him. Just one of the horrible things he'd done while he was like that was to force himself on quite a few of the girls on campus (I didn't ever want to know how many). He drank from them and raped them, but mind controlled them so they went away thinking that they liked it. I was pretty sure that when we made love now that some of those memories came back to him, and that he didn't ever want to do anything like that again. So even though he would ask to make love to me and I was more than willing, it was almost like he… couldn't… unless I brought him into me myself.

It made my heart hurt to think of his continued pain and shame over that horrible time. It made me both scared of him and sad for him. Scared that he'd ever been that sadistic and awful - and if I was being really honest with myself, could be again. Sad because the darkness that caused him to be that way wasn't his fault at all. And even more sad because what he'd done under the influence of that darkness still haunted him, even in the most intimate and beautiful and wonderful moment of us making love together. But since he couldn't just take me, even when I was willingly giving myself to him, I did my best to show him how much I loved and trusted him by, well, telling him when I brought him inside me.

He continued to kiss me; deep, dizzyingly wonderful kisses, as I brought him to my entrance. I reached up to stroke his cheek, and reluctantly broke our kiss so I could look in his eyes. I pushed myself down on him just a little, feeling the fullness of him just barely inside me. "You feel amazing," I whispered, locking my eyes with his. He was breathing hard, but smiled a beautiful, genuine smile at my words. I lowered myself further, feeling my breath catch in my throat as I felt the toe-curling pleasure of him filling me. A little bit of sadness touched his eyes and I pretended not to see. I kissed him again and whispered, "I love feeling you inside me. It feels right."

He smiled again with just a hint of that cocky grin I loved, and I lowered myself even further, my eyes still locked with his as I sheathed him all the way inside me. He finally allowed himself to move, slowly withdrawing slightly then pushing back in, creating exquisite friction on places inside me that made me gasp at every stroke. "I love that it's … you… making me feel this way," I managed. I was already so… ready, that even though he'd barely gotten inside of me, he was already bringing me closer and closer to my release. I moved with him, increasing the sensations, feeling the delicious pleasure building.

He groaned and kissed me almost roughly and I returned the intensity. So quickly it nearly made my head spin, the combined sensations of him moving inside me, our mouths moving almost frantically together, and the amazing sounds he made brought me to my peak and rocked me over the edge. Exquisite pleasure, so intense it was almost pain, exploded from my center. Almost before I realized it I was clenching and pulsing around him, nearly thrashing under him, moaning in his mouth as he kissed me harder, trying to get as close to one another as we possibly could.

When I came down a few moments later he was still moving inside me, breathing hard as he kissed down my throat. I wrapped one hand into his hair and the other arm around his back to hold him close to me as I whispered, "I love you," in his ear. He found his own release almost immediately after that, his body tensing as he moaned into my neck and pulsed inside me. I was absolutely awestruck by how perfect it felt to share this with him. When he could move again, he picked me up off the bed a little to wrap his arms around me.

We lay there, wrapped up around and in each other for a long time. When he finally withdrew from me I felt a little bit sad, a little bit of loss. But then he laid back on the pillow and pulled me up to rest on his chest, wrapping his arms around me, and I felt better.

"Wow," he whispered, sounding a little shaky.

I giggled, surprised to hear that my giggle sounded a little shaky, too.

I snuggled into his chest, burrowing into his arms. He pulled the sheet over us and tucked it around me. I don't know which one of us fell asleep first.