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I paused only for a second. "You're not doing this because I'm leader, right? This isn't some kind of conjugal privilege or something–"

He leaned down and brushed his mouth over mine. "I have waited too long for this to answer such absurd questions," he whispered.

Okay, then.

I followed him upstairs, my heart beating so hard that I thought he'd feel the pulse of it in my hand. He led me into the room where I was staying and closed the door. There alone with him, I felt like that small room was getting smaller by the second. Are you sure about this? I asked myself, backing up into the room 181

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as he came toward me. Because I'm pretty certain there's no going back after this.

He paused in the middle of the room, a faint frown crossing his face. "This is uncomfortable for you." I hesitated, thought about lying but didn't. "Not uncomfortable exactly." I eased toward him a little. "But have you ever felt afraid of something and still wanted it almost as much as you feared it?"

"You do not have to be afraid of me." He stepped back as I came closer. "Perhaps I should go."

"No," I said quickly. "It's not you." I reached out and took his hand, feeling the weight and strength of it in my own. The long fingers, the warm spread of his palm. So many times, he'd picked me up, pushed me down, or shoved me out of the way with these hands.

"It's not you," I repeated. I drew closer until we stood toe to toe, his hand still clasped in mine and now between us. I pressed his open hand against my chest, over my heart so he could feel rapid rhythm there. "I'm just...a little afraid of what will happen." His mouth quirked in that familiar gentle smile. "It is no different than what you are accustomed to, I assure you." Heat rose in my face, but I smiled at him. "Not that. What I mean is how I feel." I looked down at his hand still over my heart, where I'd placed it. "I feel so much for you," I hesitated, swallowing hard over a lump in my throat, "more than I have for anyone. And, uh, frankly that scares me." I lifted my eyes to his, tears blurring my vision. "Because I've lost, in one form or another, almost everyone and everything I've ever cared about. I don't want you to be next."

He lifted his hands to my face, his thumbs drying my tears.

"So you think to avoid caring for someone will protect them." Put that way, it sounded sort of stupid. I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Sort of."

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He bent forward, touching his lips to my forehead. "You are An'Ashi, a gift, not a curse. As for protecting me," he brushed his mouth over mine, sending my hands clutching to his shoulders, "I will take the risk."

I pulled my head back a little bit then, just enough to clearly see him–the long, straight slope of his nose, the silver and brown eyes staring down at me so seriously, the hand that caressed the side of my face. Then I raised myself to my tiptoes, and closed the distance between us.

His mouth moved beneath mine, soft, warm, controlled, and his tongue brushed along my lower lip, coaxing, which surprised me but only for a second. Then I gave myself over to the sensation like a perpetual dieter being given permission to dive into a swimming pool of pie filling. His tongue moved in my mouth and I shuddered against him, feeling my body tighten in response. I slid my hands under his arms and to his back to help keep my balance. He lowered his hands to my waist, pulling me against him, trapping my arm further but helping me stay steady. I could feel him pressing hard and heavy against my lower stomach. Following instinct, I moved against him. His hands tightened on me, pulling me even closer against him, until my breath escaped in a little helpless cry.

My fingers scrabbled for the end of his sweater, desperate for the feel of his skin against my fingertips. I slid my hands beneath his clothing, delighting in the heat and smoothness of his back. When I reached the top of his shoulders or as I close as I was going to get, I pulled back from his mouth a bit and whispered,

"Off." I tugged at the material bunched around my arms. Obediently, he reached down for the hem and pulled the sweater and shirt off. For a moment, I stood in stunned silence, in awe of the view before me. The curve of his chest muscles pulled at the skin that lay flat down the center, like straining pleats. The whisper of goose bumps where my breath touched him. The fine, 183

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almost invisible hair on his chest and the same peaked, brown nipples that served no more purpose, at least as far as I knew, on him than they did on human males. The heat from his skin reached through both layers of my clothes to tighten my nipples. I ducked my head and laid a kiss against his neck at the open spot in his collarbone. My hands smoothed over his rib cage, feeling his breath coming in and out, faster with every touch. I slid my mouth down his chest, taking special time to lick around the curve of his pectoral muscles. But when I started to inch farther down, my eye on tight abdominal muscles waiting for the caress of my hands and mouth, he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back up.

His mouth moved along the side of my neck while his hand slid beneath my shirts to close over my waist. I felt him start when he encountered the tape that Namere had wrapped around me. He started to pull back.

I stopped him with a shake of my head. "It doesn't hurt." Then I slowly lifted my arms in the air, so he could take my shirts off, which he did, with agonizing slowness. I closed my eyes. The fabric rustled as it brushed past my ears, and the cooler air on my skin raised goosebumps of anticipation.

His hands slid down my arms, and I opened my eyes a little to find him kneeling on the floor in front of me. "What are you doing?" I whispered. But he didn't answer, just leaned forward to press his mouth against the edge of skin above the tape, an inch below my breasts. A heady laugh escaped me. "Don't get the tape wet. Namere will kill us." But then his cheek, rough with a day's stubble, brushed against the tender underside of my breasts, erasing all urges to laugh or think. His slow, yet inevitable progress above the line of my bandages pulled me as taut as a guitar string, each caress zinging through me, sending vibrations from head to toe.

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breastbone, and he lifted his eyes, only a tiny sliver of silver drowning in the brown, to meet mine. I could feel his warm breath against my skin, could see my body shaking in time to my galloping heart. I didn't have to say anything–he knew what I wanted.

He pulled away a little, watching me the whole time, and brushed his mouth across the tip of my breast. I gasped and clutched at his arms, probably hard enough to give him bruises. Then, never taking his eyes off of me, he opened his mouth and pulled that part of me into the hot wet inside. I started to sink down toward him, unable to keep my knees locked with the sensations spiraling through me. But he held me up. His tongue swirled over my nipple and I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak–I was all need. He closed his teeth around me carefully, dragging that rough edge over that tender bit of flesh until I threw back my head and cried out.

But still, he wouldn't stop, and he wouldn't let me sink into him. His tongue brushed against the underside of my breast again, then began to work in rhythm, pulling me deeper inside, suckling at me until each movement in his mouth pulsed in time with the throbbing between my legs.

"Caelan, please," I whispered. Fresh tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as my hips moved against him, synchronized with the pulling of his mouth.

He reached between us with one hand and freed the button and zipper of my jeans. The sound of those giving way and the cooler air skimming across the exposed skin at my hips only heated my blood further. He released my breast from his mouth with one last pull that curled my toes, then moved down to apply that same attention to my hip, teeth closing gently on the skin stretched tight over the bone.

I clutched and pulled at his shoulders, not sure whether I was trying to encourage him or telling him to stop torturing me. His 185

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mouth left my hip, leaving it cold and painfully sensitized, to drift down along the opening made by my zipper. His tongue slid along my skin until he stopped dead center, just a few inches north of where I needed him to be.

"Enough," I said hoarsely. With limbs that would barely cooperate, I tore off my shoes, then dropped my jeans to the floor and pushed them aside with my bare foot.

He reached for me; it seemed, with the intent of picking up right where he left off, which, God, the things he could do with his mouth. But no, I couldn't get distracted. I avoided his hands and knelt next to him. I dragged my mouth across his chest, landing at the point where his neck met his shoulder, and there, I gave in to temptation and closed my mouth over his skin, biting gently, until his hands came up to clutch at me.

I backed away, just far enough to keep him from distracting me too much, then reached with shaking hands for the waist of his jeans. The button came free and watching his face, I pressed the back of my hand against his stomach and dipped my fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. He was right there, hard and ready. I brushed my fingers over and around him, marveling at the soft skin, and wanting to touch more.

His eyes didn't quite roll back into his head, but he blinked so many times in rapid succession, it was hard to tell. Encouraged, I slid my hand to the front of him, protecting him while my free hand inched down the zipper. As soon as there was room, I closed my hand around him, squeezing gently, my thumb rubbing in a circle over the tip.

His whole body jerked, and he pulled my hand away. But before he could stop me, I bent forward and laid my tongue against the length of him, wringing out a cry from him before he pushed me backward.

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been. I sat back on my knees, just looking up at him for a second. He was beautiful. There was no other word for that kind of perfection–calves that flared out with muscle, knees unscarred by surgery or gravel road, thighs heavy with muscle and the male part of him jutting away from his body, longer and wider than I expected, though still in perfect proportion to the rest of his body. He wasn't circumcised, of course. He had narrow hips; tidy, even ridges of abdominal muscle; and an odd smooth place where no sign of an umbilical cord remained–I wasn't sure how I'd missed that before.

I laid my hand over that spot. Despite my questionable heritage, I still had a belly button. The lack of one on him should have bothered me, shown me how different we truly were, but it didn't. I was fascinated.

"Never, as far we remember," he answered my unspoken question in a not quite steady voice. "But our skin does not usually scar."

Equally intrigued by the tremor in his voice, I nodded, then slid my hand down to wrap around him again. It jolted him, and I heard him suck in a sharp breath. Then he was pulling me off the floor, lifting me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, gasping when our bodies touched with nothing between us. His hands, so warm against my skin, slid to my backside to support my weight.

He started heading toward the bed.

I pulled my mouth away from his neck. "No. Here, the floor." I didn't know how to explain it, but I needed the feeling of the hard floor pressing against my back when he pushed into my body. The bed was too soft, not real enough.

He nodded, his mouth dragging across mine, and knelt on the carpeting beside the bed, with me still clinging to him. He slid one hand beneath my head, protecting my first point of contact with the floor. Once there, I unwrapped my legs from his waist, leaving 187

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myself open and aching, but giving him room to maneuver. And he did, just not the way I expected. He knelt between my legs, but I felt only a whisper of a touch outside my body before his finger slid in, stroking just inside, making my hips arch in need. I'd expected him to plunge his body into mine, but somehow this light touch was harder to take. The pressure inside me built faster, crushing me, leaving only the desperation to take in and be filled. I plucked at his hand, trying to pull it away to make room for better things. But he kept going. The palm of his hand rubbed the tiny bit of sensitive skin, sending lightning through my veins and pulling my back up off the floor.

"Zara," he said. I could barely hear him over the roaring in my ears.

It took me a second try to speak. He slowed his movements inside me, enough so I could think but not enough to cool the fire.

"Uh-huh," was as coherent as I got.

"I must tell you something."

I managed to focus on his face, licked my dry lips to try to form actual words this time. "What?"

"When I am inside you..." He didn't get any farther than that. The words electrified me so that I pushed against his hand, pleading without words, and forgot to listen. He pulled his hand away, and I tried to pull myself together. He was serious about this, whatever it was. "What is it?"

"When I am inside you..."

I gritted my teeth but kept myself under control.

"...and the end is near, my shield will weaken and we will be connected. I will not be able to stop it." He watched my face closely as though he expected me to pull away from him. I touched his face, ran my thumb across his mouth, his full lower lip, then shook my head. "I don't care," I said. His brows drew together in a tiny furrow as though trying to assess the sincerity behind my words. It shouldn't have been hard–188

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I meant every single one of them. I didn't care. I was with him. I smoothed away the wrinkle in his forehead with my fingertips. "I don't care, Caelan. I mean it." I reached for his wrist, pressing his hand against me again until he began to respond, stroking and rubbing, tightening my body again. He centered his thumb over that sensitive nub again until tears were seeping from beneath my closed lids.