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“And he’ll know several times more tonight,” he says with a sound that is half laughter and half groan. “Come closer. I want to see your face when you let go.” He pulls me down, pressing his teeth into my shoulder, buried to the hilt, and I stop trying to be gentle. I ride him as if he is here only for my pleasure, to use as I wish, and in seconds I feel it coming, my stomach tightening, my heart hammering.

“Yes,” he hisses. “That’s it.”

I gasp, my head going backward, eyes squeezed shut. His hips lift, chasing mine, and then his hands pull me hard against him as he comes with a low, sustained groan. I collapse on top of him, resting just for a moment before I start to pull away.

He grabs my hips once more. “Stay. Just for a moment. Stay.”

I lean over him, careful to avoid his side, and he presses his lips to my forehead. “My beautiful, insane girl,” he whispers. “Of everything I’ve suffered and witnessed over the past two months, being apart from you was the hardest.”

I listen to his steadily beating heart, torn between two contradictory emotions: so full of love for him I could weep, and so terrified of losing him that I feel violent and desperate in response. I need to tell him what I did. But not now, I think. Just let me enjoy this while I can.

I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until many hours later, when Henri shifts against me, hard as stone. “We’ll perhaps need to find you undergarments tomorrow,” he whispers. “It might help.”

I laugh. “Yes, our first job, before we find food.”

He rolls on top of me, pushing the sweater around my waist. “If you’re awake enough to make jokes,” he says, sliding inside me, “you’re awake enough for this.”

* * *

We rise at first light and begin moving north once more, following the road at a distance. My spine prickles and I look over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Henri asks.

“I…do you think someone could be following us?”

He gives a short laugh. “I think many someones are following us.”

“No,” I whisper. “One person, on foot. Watching us.”

He frowns. “It’s natural to feel that way, under the circumstances. But an armed person would already have acted. An unarmed person would die if he attempted anything.”

I know he’s right, but I still feel it for hours—that unsettling nudge at my back. It reminds me of the time traveler I encountered during those last visits to my own time, her eyes on me as if she was just waiting to strike.

The sensation abates after a few hours, and by the tail end of dusk, when we find another abandoned farm, I’ve almost forgotten it entirely.

We eat another insufficient meal, and then Henri goes to the woods to set traps while I enter the house, scouting for things we can take with us. The closet is full of dresses, but what I want most is the mattress—a week of sleeping on hay and the bare ground has taken its toll. I tug it down the stairs and drag it outside.

“That’s for the best,” says Quinn. He’s leaning against a wall, whittling. A useless endeavor if I’ve ever seen one. “If I have to spend one more night listening to the squeaking boards while you and Henri make whoopie I’m going to put a gun to my head.”

“Now there’s a thought,” I grunt, struggling with the weight. It’s filled with goose down and spectacularly heavy, but he doesn’t offer to help, naturally.

“You really don’t like me, do you?”

I let the mattress fall, suddenly exhausted. Within a day, we’ll have parted ways. Once we reach Clermont-Ferrand, Henri and I head north for Nanterre while Quinn will turn toward the Pyrenees. It can’t come soon enough. “I have no feelings about you either way, aside from the fact that you are one more mouth to feed and one more person to defend while I try to save my husband.”

He raises a brow. “You make me sound like a child who can’t take care of himself. Has it ever occurred to you I might be of some help if there’s a fight?”

“No,” I reply. “I can honestly say that’s never occurred to me. Which reminds me: Henri and I are staying here to rest an extra day, so if you want to head out on your own, feel free.”

We’re near the Occupied Zone, and once inside it, we will need to move fast. I want to be certain Henri is sufficiently recovered before we go, though if his stamina last night was any indication, he’ll be just fine.

Quinn shrugs. “Sure, I can rest,” he says. I roll my eyes as I turn away. I was really hoping we’d get a day here without him.

Henri is just returning from the woods, so I cross the yard to him. He nods at the mattress. “Are we moving in, then?”

“We could use a good night’s sleep.”

His eyes rake over me. “I’d like a soft mattress as much as you, though for very different reasons.”