“I don’t deserve this,” I whispered. I lifted my hands so that I could cup her face. “Not after what I’ve done with my life.”

“I told you before: That chapter’s done and gone,” she said. “We aren’t the same people. We’re always changing, always becoming better. What you did with the pills . . . well, it’s not just about what they can do. It’s about the courage it took to take that step. I always believed in you, but . . .”

“I made you cry,” I said. That memory would always be a wound in my heart.

“I cried because I loved you, and I didn’t know how to fix you.” She reached up and brushed my lips with her fingertips. The world swayed around me. “And that was my mistake. You fixed yourself. You didn’t need me.”

“No, Sydney.” My voice was ragged. “I do need you. You have no idea how much I need you.”

I brought my lips down to hers, and it was like everything that had ever happened to me had simply been a warm‑up for this moment, that this was where my life truly began. I pulled her to me, and if she’d ever had any doubts about whether I wanted to taste her blood, I knew they vanished then and there. It was the taste of her mouth, the taste of her skin . . . those were what I craved, the things that drove me wild. Her hands caught the edge of my shirt, and we broke the kiss briefly so that she could pull it over my head. She splayed her fingers on my chest, and this time, she was the one who shook. I looked into her eyes, and although they burned with passion and longing and that primal need that had fueled both our races since the beginning of time, I could see nervousness in them too.

She had no experience with this, and that wasn’t a situation she found herself in very often. It was up to me to lead this, but the thing was, I was inexperienced here too: I’d never been with a virgin. I’d never had that pressure on me before. It had been mindless with other girls, but I knew with Sydney, whether we were together forever or ended up parting ways, this would be the time she judged all others by.

But as I guided her to my belt and then laid her down on the bed, I knew which way our path would go. We would  be together forever. We had to be. There was no way that all these feelings between us could ever dim or be defeated. Her breath came fast, and she tangled her hands in my hair as I kissed her neck and then began moving down to her chest. I could tell that she expected us to just jump right into it, into something fast and furious, but I’d waited too long to have full access to her body and wasn’t about to take it for granted by rushing forward. And so I took my time, exploring all that beauty she didn’t even know she had. It was agonizing for me but also sweet, and for the first time in my life, I was thinking more about the person I was with than myself.

When I brought my mouth back to hers, my body lying over hers, she clung to me with an urgency that held no more fear. And then it happened, what I’d dreamed of for so long. I lost myself in her arms, in her touch, in everything. Sonya often said she didn’t believe in soul mates, but in that union, I believed there was something in my soul that spoke to Sydney’s, that this connection between our bodies called to something greater than us, something preordained.

And when it was over, I was reluctant to let her go. I looked down at her face, with her flushed cheeks and damp strands of hair, and thought, Whether it’s simply some fierce animal joining of mates or a sublime merging of souls, she is mine, and I am hers.

We curled up on our sides, arms still tightly around each other, and there was so much emotion building inside me, I thought I would burst. I wanted to tell her a hundred times that I loved her, but when I looked in her eyes, I knew I didn’t have to.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“That we should’ve been doing this a long time ago.”

I brushed my lips over her forehead. “No, this was the moment. The moment it was meant to be.” I knew how she felt about destiny and fate, and under other circumstances, she probably would’ve given me a lecture about free will. Instead, she trailed her fingers along my neck and smiled.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“About Rudyard Kipling.”

Her hand froze. “Are you serious?”

“What, you don’t think I’m capable of poetry after sex?”

That made her laugh. “Adrian, I learned a long time ago that you’re capable of anything. I just would’ve expected Keats or Shakespeare.”

“I like the book of poems you got me. They’re short, and the crazier ones sort of speak to me.” I rolled to my back, throwing an arm over my head and gazing up at the gauzy canopy. “I was thinking about ‘The Female of the Species.’”

“Okay, I really  didn’t expect that.”

“It’s not about cruel women, even though it sounds like it.”

“I know.” Of course she did.

“‘She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail, That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.’” I closed my eyes for a moment, adrift on love and exhaustion and bodily bliss. “We’re suckers for this, Sydney. Men. You’ve got me completely helpless right now. You’re so beautiful and alluring, and we guys can’t help ourselves. We fight wars for you, cajole you . . . and you put up with us. We have it easy here in bed.”

She turned my face toward hers. “This wasn’t exactly difficult for me.”

“But we still have it easy. You’re the strength, the pillars . . . our defenders, our children’s defenders.”

“You’re selling yourself short,” she said. “You’re just as strong. I wouldn’t be with you otherwise. We’re equals in this, in whatever comes.”

I didn’t feel equal. I still had that dizzying sense that she was some goddess come to earth whom I wasn’t worthy of. At the same time, I didn’t want to depend solely on her strength or use it to hold my life together. I didn’t want a mother–well, not for me. I wanted a partnership, a union just like we’d had, except spreading to every part of our lives. We would march forward, hand and hand, and I would spend the rest of my days making our love greater and greater.

“I’m messing this up,” I told her. “I should’ve stuck to Keats.”

“No, it’s nice to know that pensive, metaphysical Adrian is still around.”

“He’s hard to get rid of, even with pills.”

Her expression softened. “Is it terrible? Being cut off from spirit’s high?”

“No, because being with you is a greater high than spirit, drinking, or anything else could ever conjure.”

Her eyes glistened, and she blinked rapidly to clear them. “You didn’t mess it up–the Kipling. I know what you meant. And I hope you know I feel exactly the same way about you. I feel weak around you. But strong at the same time.”

I had no more doubts about being worthy. We were each other’s strength but still possessed our own. I sighed and gathered her to me. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express enough how much I love you.”

“Well,” she said, with a heated look I knew well, “you can certainly try.”

So, I did, for a lot of the night. And as we’d often pointed out, she was a quick study.

I woke in the morning, happier than I’d been in a long time, and saw she was standing at the window in nothing but my T‑shirt. It was so mind‑blowingly sexy that all coherent thought stopped for a moment. Finally, I managed to drag myself up. I walked over to join her, standing behind her and wrapping my arms around her. She leaned into me.

“Look at it out there,” she breathed.

I only wanted to look at her, but I lifted my gaze to the window. Everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Fences, cars, anything else . . . it was all hidden. The tree branches were coated in ice. Pale winter sunlight shone down on it all, turning everything into a glittering array.

“It’s unreal,” she said. “Like everything’s been carved out of diamonds. It’s hard to believe the world can ever go back to normal after this.”