I see my own end on the horizon and fist my hands in his hair, afraid I’ll collapse. My thighs flex and at that moment, he slides his fingers inside me. His thumb circles and presses hard on the center. It’s instant. The buildup of his words, the fingers and the aftershocks of the first orgasm peak again and I start convulsing. He doesn’t stop. His mouth joins his fingers. Around and around. Flicks, licks, blows, strokes. In. Out. Over and over again. I’m lost in my own body. It feels like my heart is between my legs and my lungs are in my mouth. I could be screaming or I could be crying. I have one orgasm. Two. Three. All mine. I don’t know from where. My last thought is that he still has not allowed himself release. Then I disappear.

When I resurface, I’m surprised to see that I’m still upright. Sort of. Somehow, my legs are both over his shoulders and he kisses the inside of my thigh. It twitches under his lips. He smiles, untangles himself from my legs and sets my feet on the floor. He rises with fluid grace and does not seem bothered at all by the fact that for the last—how long have we been doing this anyway?—he has supported my entire weight with his arms and shoulders. I ogle his muscles that twitch a little, no doubt because of the trouble in his trousers, which have expanded to unusual proportions.

He looks at me and loses all humor. One of his hands frames my face, the other trails to the small of my back and arches me against him until my belly meets his cock.

“Can you handle it?” His voice is hoarse. His desire is so primal, so vital that it feels like a third being around us. With a question like that, what girl could say no? I nod, blind and mute to anything else but him. He kisses me, walking us backward to my bed.

He takes off his trousers and boxers, and springs to life. At the sight, instinct takes over. My body—sated twice—jolts awake again, more in tune with his needs than with my own. It knows its master. More than his fingers, more than his mouth, more than his tongue, his cock reigns king. He turns my parents’ photo away from the bed. I laugh.

“Good idea.”

He chuckles with a lovely sound. “I don’t need a lightning bolt today. I barely made it alive through the last forty-eight hours.”

He props a pillow against the headboard and leans against it. Then he gazes at me and curls his forefinger. Come here. The moment I reach him, he rolls on a condom and lowers me on his lap so that I am straddling him. So close that my breasts brush against his chest. His arm wraps around my hips, and he guides himself inside me very slowly.

His eyes close and his jaw locks with every inch he conquers. I moan as he drives himself inside farther than he has ever been. At a new depth. He holds me there and rests. He is breathing hard. Eventually, his jaw unlocks and he opens his eyes. The sapphire depths are blazing. He grips my arms and throws them around his neck.

“You like holding me.” His voice is husky.

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

I feel the expanse of his shoulders under my arms and lean in slowly to kiss his scar. A gentle blow, a light kiss. He sighs so I pull away but his arms tighten around me.

“It doesn’t hurt. Just a gift from a rifle.”

I shiver despite his warmth around me, but he holds me tighter. I don’t know if it is for me or for himself, but I hold him back. His mouth presses on mine with a new urgency. I feel him inside me, hard, full, ponderous. He groans and pulls out slowly, then back again. One more time. Twice. I catch fire. I try to pick up speed but he restrains my hips. Instead of his punishing rhythm, he starts a dance. Some thrusts slow and deep. Some fast and shallow. I hold on to his neck, my eyes locked on his, as my body starts quivering.

Instantly, his rhythm picks up. He rolls his hips and mine turn frantic. They grind against him and break through the restraint of his hands. Finally free, I meet him thrust for thrust and set my own pace. Circles, shimmies, forward, backward.

“I love watching you dance, Elisa,” he whispers, his fingers digging into my thighs.

He meets me but lets me lead. My legs start to shake and my vision blurs. His name floods my lips. It’s the only word that matters. Aiden. Aiden. Aiden.

At the sound of his name, he takes over. Each thrust is harder than the one before. I hear my own cries begging him, for what I don’t know. But he knows because with every please, every Aiden, every God, every no, every yes, he responds with a different stroke, a different blow. I feel his hand between my legs. His thumb caresses me in circles. Then he presses it firmly down and thrusts once more, hard enough that his own hips leave the bed. I come with a scream that seems to rip my lungs apart. Convulsions crash against the confines of my body. I give out, and the last things I register are Aiden’s arms holding me against his chest, his forceful release and the sound of the bed scraping on the floor.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Of Dragons and Cats

After my two-hour postsex coma—during which Aiden apparently read all the books I own and started on Reagan’s—I amble to the kitchen in my lilac robe. Aiden follows me, wearing nothing but his trousers. My eyes refuse to leave him even for a second so I walk backward like I did at Powell’s, now finally understanding his physical space issues and why he insists on renting things like city blocks.

He snakes his arms around my waist, bending to kiss me. His lips are light, no doubt because now he is worried he bit mine too hard. The world starts vanishing again but then I remember.

“Do you really never kiss on the mouth?” I ask, keeping my lips on his.

He continues to kiss me. “Yes,” he says between each kiss, “just you.”

If he weren’t anchoring me against his body, I’d be the first human to defy gravity and float. “Why?”

“I told you…I already have to remember sight…sound…smell…touch. I wanted the taste of my own mouth to be mine.”

“But now it’s mine too?”

“Yes—yours too.”

“Why?”

“Your favorite question.”

“Yes.”

He kisses me forever in the middle of my kitchen. No sound except our kissing, now fierce, now gentle, and his cinnamon sigh every time he tastes me. I hang on to my unanswered question with only one brain cell. The rest are absorbed with him.

“I wanted all…the fantasy with you,” he finally answers. “And as you can see, I seem unable to stop.”

“Then don’t stop,” I whisper because his answer is so terminal still.

He stops. “Ah, Elisa.” He sighs, unraveling my arms from his neck and setting them to my sides. The light in his eyes dims. He backs into the chair by the kitchen table. The strain returns to his shoulders.

“Would you like a spot of lunch?” I ask to keep him from drifting into some noble scheme of giving me up. “You must be famished after your, umm, decathlon.”

He smiles. No dimple. “Yes, thank you. I need to regroup.”

His eyes become determined. Oh no! Ceasefire, he called it. My stomach starts twisting again. I pad to the fridge for the most soporific food I can find.

“Turkey sandwiches and soup?” I call over my shoulder. Tryptophan in turkey is nowhere enough to really cause drowsiness—contrary to common belief—but combined with other protein, large quantities of food and my calming effect, it might help.

“Sure,” he says absentmindedly. I turn to look at him. He is watching me carefully. There is calculation in his eyes—the way a chess player looks at the board, thinking a few moves ahead. I take out the turkey, veggies and chicken stock, and start chopping quickly by the sink under the window.

I peek outside, surprised that the world is still the same. Calico is lounging on his spot, flicking his tail every few moments. The blossoming cherry tree scrapes against the windowpane. The pink rhododendron blooms are buzzing with bees. So much life for anything to end today. I focus my eyes on Aiden’s reflection on the window.