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Shaking my head, I slid my hand around to the back of her neck, snaking my other arm behind her back to pull her up to me. Freya—always so fucking responsive—sealed her thighs to my hips, crushing her mouth to mine. Not bothering to gather our clothes, I shifted us through shadows and back to our room.

“Tu me manqué,” I breathed in the closest fucking thing to worship that had ever dripped from my lips. My lips moved quickly to her throat as my dick slowly softened inside her. Even here, now, I wasn’t ready to be parted. Laying her across the bed, my hands raked over her sides, latching to the subtle hills of her perfect ass.

Something flickered in her eyes, something that stung like acid: pain. Did she feel this agony just as acutely? Had I done this to her for months? “You were missing from me, too.”

“Never again,” I panted, pressing my mouth to her freckled collarbone, the fluttering pulse in her throat, the almost imperceptible scar beside her lips, the cheekbone where we’d once shared proof of that fated night on the dock. I didn’t like that it was missing. Even as my hands roamed her ass and she moaned as I traced her cleft, I resented that it had been taken from us—missed seeing that history mirrored between us.

She’d collected fresh scars this year, but it wasn’t the same.

Wasn’t… us.

“You’re here,” I said, shaking my head as an uncomfortable ache formed deep in my chest. An ache that reached. Clawed. That pressed against my ribs as if seeking her touch.

“Always,” she agreed. But she hadn’t been. Not really. I’d shoved her away when I couldn’t process that fucking dumpster fire in my head.

I’d been the reason she suffered. The reason I suffered. And it had taken me nearly six goddamn months to process and catch up with what my soul knew the moment she’d taken that bullet.

My fault. My fault she was looking at me like she was two seconds from bursting into tears. My fault her lip wobbled, her chin trembled.

No.

No more.

Shaking my head, I slid out of her, eyes falling to her core, fingers gently brushing over the soft reddish-brown curls, sliding between her slit to part her perfect pink pussy. Primal satisfaction tugged at my lips as my release slowly dripped from her. Gently this time, I brushed my finger over her opening, pressed inside, like I could capture a piece of me in her perfect fucking body.

“Cyrus?” she breathed, an unspoken plea clinging to my name, but my gaze traced the constellations of freckles all the way up her lean torso to her nose, the tired lines beside her eyes.

I wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t need to say it. I was here. In this. Permanently now. I also needed to taste her more than I needed my next fucking breath. Leaning back just enough to drag my gaze down her compact little frame—over every mouthwatering dip and swell—I murmured, “You’re beautiful, ma moitié. You always have been.”

And suddenly we were back in that vault, and I was barred from reaching her by a ruthless pane of glass as my clock ticked down and she slammed her body against the barrier with enough violence to shatter a lesser female.

For me.

I remembered the agony on her face as she charged at me on Dr. Briar’s back deck. The fear vibrating off her, masked in fury.

For me.

I’d doubted her—her feelings for me, her loyalty to this—for months.

Dropping to my knees, I wrapped my hands around her thighs, spreading her wide as I swooped down and slid my tongue through her slick slit. Her sharp intake of breath had me licking up her center, earning a deeper gasp before I even hit her clit. Salty met tart, my own release mixing with hers in a mess of us.

“Cyrus,” she moaned. “I—you—fuck me, that’s hot.”

Smirking against her, I arched a brow, focusing on her face where she’d lifted onto her elbows to watch me. I speared my tongue inside her relentlessly, relishing the perfect O of her mouth as her eyes glazed over. My hands roamed the length of her torso. I slid one back down her side as the other kneaded her tight, perfect tit, tweaking her dusky nipple.

“Filthy—” lick, “—fucking—” swirl, “—man,” she gasped as I sucked her clit into my mouth, tugging hard enough it probably would’ve hurt if not for the finger I slipped inside her. With a simple curl, I had her spine arching, head falling back.

Different.

As her body convulsed, muscles trembling, I remembered how deeply different sex was with Freya. Like every pleasure-drenched tremble wrapped around my soul with some invisible thread, sewing us tighter together. Like every breathless moan fed something beyond the physical.

And goddamn if that wasn’t fucking terrifying as hell.

For a beat, my throat tightened. I’d memorized how to make a woman feel good—mastered finding that spot deep inside that made them tip over the edge with a curl of practiced fingers—and suddenly I felt inept. Inadequate. Like the same laws of physicality didn’t apply anymore.

Because this was more.

More confusing, more overwhelming, more important.