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I pulled him down to me.

The kiss was deep and slow. A claiming and a surrender all at once. His weight settled over me, solid, grounding, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him closer.

He groaned against my mouth. The evidence of his want pressed hard against my thigh.

“I know.” I reached between us and found the fastenings of his trousers.

He helped me, impatient now, the last of his clothes disappearing along with my remaining layers until there was nothing between us. Skin against skin. Heat against heat.

For a moment, we simply looked at each other. The afternoon light gilded his body, the broad shoulders, the lean muscle, the scars I had traced once before in Oxford. He was beautiful. He had always been beautiful. But now, with the bond open between us, I knew how much he wanted me to see him. How vulnerable that wanting made him.

He settled between my thighs. His hand traced down my body, throat, breast, stomach, lower, until his fingers found me, and I arched off the bed.

“We have fifteen minutes,” I reminded him. Breathless.

“I remember. I shall simply have to be efficient,” he murmured. “All that teasing this morning. Did it affect you as much as it affected me?”

“You know it did.” I could barely get the words out. His fingers were moving in slow, devastating circles. “You can feel it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I spent the entire planning session thinking about your hands,” I admitted. “About what they could do. About what I wanted them to do.”

“This?” He slipped a finger inside me. Then another. His thumb continued its relentless attention.

I moaned. The sound embarrassingly loud in the quiet room.

“Yes,” I gasped. “Exactly that.”

“What else?” He curled his fingers, finding a spot that made me see stars. “What else did you imagine?”

“Your mouth.” The words came out in a rush. “Your mouth on me. Everywhere.”

A surge of satisfaction. Without a word, he shifted down my body, trailing kisses as he went, throat, breast, stomach, hip, until his mouth found where his fingers had been.

I cried out.

He was skilled. He had been skilled before, but now with the bond he knew exactly what made me gasp, what made me writhe, what pushed me closer to the edge. He used that knowledge ruthlessly, bringing me higher and higher until I was trembling, until I was begging, until⁠—

“Please,” I managed. “Please, I need⁠—“

“What do you need?” He lifted his head. His eyes were dark, his lips wet. “Tell me.”

“You. Now.”

He moved up my body. Settled his weight over me. Poised at my entrance, hot and hard, waiting.

“Look at me,” he said.

I opened my eyes and met his gaze.

He slid inside me.

We both stopped breathing.

The bond. God, the bond. Myself around him. Him inside me. His pleasure and mine crashing together, doubling, tripling, until I wasn't sure I could survive it. Every nerve ending alight. Every cell attuned to his. Through the bond, how tight I was around him. How hot. How perfect he found this. His awe bleeding into my chest. My pleasure ricocheting back into his. There was no him. No me. Just this. Just us. Endless and overwhelming and too much and not nearly enough.

“This.” The word tore out of him. “This is what he stole from me.” His hips pulled back then drove forward. Slow. Brutal. “I was dead, Lily. I was nothing. And now—“ His forehead dropped to mine. His breath ragged. “Now I would burn the world down before I let anyone take this from me again.”