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“How does that feel?” I say into her shoulder, my voice rough and unfamiliar.

“Full,” she gasps, the word cracking. “So deep—I can feel you⁠—”

“Where.” I roll my hips once, slow and exact, and feel the clench of her around me. Her breath hitches. “Tell me where.”

“Everywhere.” Her forehead drops against the wall. Muscles tense and release along her spine as she pushes back against me. Something hot and possessive tightens in my chest. “Inside—you’re hitting⁠—”

“Tell me, now.” I thrust deep again, and her palm slaps flat against the plaster.

“You’re hitting the spot—right there—don’t stop⁠—”

I wouldn’t dare.

I set a pace that’s relentless, watching the way her body yields and answers, the elegant curve of her spine, the roll of her hips meeting mine. I am memorizing it all—the smell of her skin, the sound of our bodies, the sight of candlelight moving over muscle—like a man trying to steal time. My other hand finds the dip of her lower back and presses. She tilts, the angle shifts, and she cries out—a raw, broken sound that is almost a sob.

“God, yes, right there, right⁠—”

“Again,” I say, and I press in exactly where she wants and her whole body tightens and I feel it in my teeth.

“Right there, you’re right there, don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop⁠—”

The sound of her cursing makes me laugh and I press my mouth to the back of her neck and feel the sweat there, taste it, and she shudders under me and I feel the shiver travel through her body into mine.

“Wasn’t planning to, witch.”

I reach around her again and find her with my fingers, slick and swollen and hot, and she cries out at the contact and I feel the sound in my chest like a hand closing. I work her in time with my thrusts and the way her body clenches around me when I hit the right spot, the way her hips buck into my hand, is going to finish me if I’m not careful.

And I am trying very hard to be careful.

It might be a fruitless cause.

“You’re so wet,” I tell her, and my voice is barely recognizable to me.

“Baz—” She says it like a warning, and I know what it means, and I feel it in my spine before she’s finished saying it.

I press two fingers firm and steady over her clit and she cries out and clenches around me and my vision goes briefly white at the edges. I come with my face pressed into her hair, my breathing shot completely, a deep guttural sound pulled out of me, her scent all through me and her name said once, rough and involuntary, against the back of her neck.

We stay like that for a moment, both of us breathing hard, neither of us moving.

Then I turn her back over and pull her against me and she comes easily, her head finding my chest, her hand placed over my heartbeat, which is still going considerably faster than usual. I stare at the ceiling, and the candle burns lower and I hold her and think about nothing at all, which is the first time in a very long time that has been possible. I simply…exist.

I stare at the flickering shadows on the ceiling as the candle burns lower.

“The bed is a lot more comfortable than a graveyard,” I muse.

She’s quiet for a long beat before she stiffens and whispers, “What did you just say?”

“The bed.” I hear it now, hear what I’ve said and what it implies. “It’s…the cemetery was cold. I just meant⁠—”

Oh fuck.

Oh no.

She sits up.

She’s looking at me with an expression I haven’t seen before, something going carefully still behind her eyes, and I watch her work it all out, my heart in my throat.

“You remember,” she states flatly. Her eyes are growing colder by the second.