For the last time. She forced the thought from her head. It wasn’t welcome. Instead she focused on the feel of him, the taste of his smoky skin. On his hands tangling gently in her hair, the sound of his breath catching in his chest and his voice saying her name.

She was just getting lost in it when he pulled her up, flipped her back. Her panties disappeared with one quick slip. He nibbled the top of her right thigh, urged it to the side with gentle pressure.

Her back arched. Her entire body buzzed and spun, her head cleared of everything but fire and smoke. Smoke drifting from her mouth, fire burning everything inside her, all the sorrow and misery and fear. It all disappeared when his tongue found her most sensitive spot, when he used the tiny cleft at the tip to tease and shift it and make her scream.

Her second climax roared through her, leaving her shaking with tears in her eyes. He didn’t move away. Gave every impression of a man who intended to stay where he was for some time.

She grabbed him, twisting his hair in her fingers and urging him up. Enough. It was enough, it was too much, she couldn’t wait any longer.

His lips traveled over her stomach, up her ribcage, and were joined by his hands. She shivered when they slid over her nipples, when he took them each into the heat of his mouth with a deliberateness that threatened to make her lose the last vestiges of her sanity.

“Greyson. Greyson, please—”

His lifted his head. Their eyes met; it hit her like an explosion in her soul. She couldn’t look away, caught by him, held there as he rose and drove himself into her.

Her eyelids fluttered. She started to close them, to tilt her head back in a vain attempt to get more air. His hands stopped her, hard palms on each side of her face. She had no choice but to look at him, into his eyes, dark in the glowing gold of his skin.

One slow, careful thrust. Another. It was torture. She wriggled beneath him, trying to get him to speed up, she couldn’t handle it—

He kissed her again. With that kiss came more power, more than she’d ever felt before. She wasn’t just the flame. She was the only flame, burning, incandescent, swallowed by the heat, both of her hearts pounding frantically. It wasn’t just the tiny fires sparkling high on the walls lighting the room, wasn’t just the dull sunlight filtering in around the mostly closed curtains. She glowed. They glowed.

Maybe not for real, she couldn’t tell, but something inside her was lit up like fireworks, and he shone so bright she couldn’t look at him. Shone like the only light in a world gone cold and dark, and she was the moth desperately circling it, and somehow with that energy came a frantic, fluttering impression of his thoughts, and she realized he was thinking the same thing. Experiencing it the same way.

“Meg,” he whispered, kissing her again, nibbling her earlobe. “Meg . . .”

She responded by grasping him tighter and giving it back. All of it. Everything she felt, every bit of power she possibly could. All of her love and sorrow and passion. She held nothing back, and he shuddered beneath her palms and sped his pace.

Faster and harder. The bed shook. She shook, meeting his movements with her own. His arms circled her, slid beneath her, crushing her against him. Pressure built, the energy in her, the pleasure, the need—

His mouth took hers again, one final time. Power roared through her, a forest fire, filled with everything she’d given him and more that was just him. The same emotions, magnified, run through with helplessness and regret and desire and love like she’d never felt before, and she came, crying, opening her eyes in time to see him do the same thing.

His head fell to rest on her shoulder. She reached up, intending to touch his hair, to stroke his nape, but he lifted his head again. His dark eyes searched hers, as deep and sincere as she’d ever seen them, pink and slightly wet around the rims.

“Marry me.”

It would have been so easy to say yes. Easy because it was what she wanted. She wanted to, God how she did.

He must have seen her hesitation, her desire. “Megan, marry me. Please.”

What was her problem? Was her job really more important than spending the rest of her life with the man she loved?

But why couldn’t she have both, damn it? Why did she have to make this choice?

Not to mention giving up her humanity. That one she could have compromised on; she didn’t necessarily want to do the ritual, but she did want children, and if that was the way to get them, she’d do it. She didn’t even mind the idea of having them right away. The next day was her thirty-second birthday, and that seemed as good an age as any.

But why did she have to give up everything she’d worked for to be with him, in addition to her humanity? If she did that, she’d be . . . She didn’t know what she would be. She wouldn’t be equal anymore. She was proud of herself, of her achievements. Why did she have to give that up? If she did, what would be the point of having them to begin with, of all the work she’d done?

From the beginning she’d been aware of the disparity between them, the one thing she couldn’t get over or past. She’d stopped worrying that he didn’t really care about her, that she was just some infatuated girl, after the first few months. Once they’d both stopped seeing other people—or, rather, once he’d told her he wasn’t seeing anyone else, that he didn’t want to—she’d let that worry, that insecurity, go. At least as much as she could.

But she’d never wanted to have to depend on him in that way. Never wanted to find herself in such a position of weakness.

There were plenty of things she’d let him control. But her job shouldn’t have been one of them. It shouldn’t be a decision he made for her. If she let him do that, what was next? Would she have to ask for permission to go see Tera or Brian, to run out for an order of fries or something?

That was a bit ridiculous, she knew. But the principle was the same. She didn’t want to be his dependent, and she didn’t want him to think her life was his to control.

“I want to keep my job,” she said.

He sagged above her, then pulled away in one quick movement that left her cold and alone in the center of the bed. “I’m not enough, is what you’re saying.”

“No! No, I don’t mean it that way. Of course you’re—Greyson, I just want, I need to feel like I get a say in this too. Like I bring something to this, more than just being some kind of brood mare or something. I need to be your partner, not your employee, don’t you—”

“And you think that’s what you would be? This isn’t about— It’s too fucking dangerous. How many times do I have to say it?” He slipped off the bed, yanked his pants back on, and tossed her clothes to her. She was grateful too. The only thing worse than arguing was arguing naked. “I’m not taking any chances with your life.”

“But look at me now! I’m in danger because of my demons. Because of my position. It’s nothing to do with you, right? So couldn’t we—”

“Meg.” His shirt snapped as he pulled it back on, not bothering to button it. “Either you want to marry me or you don’t. If all these other things are so important to you that you’d rather have them than me, well, I guess that’s my answer, isn’t it?”

“I just want to be involved in the decision.”

“And it appears you are.” He covered his eyes with his right palm, rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger as if he was trying to crush his own skull. “It’s not a complex question. It’s nothing to do with equality, damn it. This is about your safety. It’s about the safety of our children, when they come, and about how they’ll be raised. I’m not going to keep asking over and over. Will you marry me or not?”

“I just want to have something for myself! Something I achieved on my own, something I can keep. Is that so hard for you to understand? You said last night we could work this out. Can’t we?”