It still sounded to me like he didn’t really want me, that some cosmic jester was playing a game with him, tying him to me when he would rather have been with someone else.

“No,” he said, reading me again. “You’re missing the point. I didn’t want to care about anyone this way, ever again. The loss is too hard. If I think about losing you, it makes me crazy with grief and pain. I can’t lose you.”

“Just because someone put a whammy on you—” I began, prepared to argue my point.

“No one put a ‘whammy’ on me, whatever the hell that is. We were destined, and I was a fool to try to fight it. If I hadn’t been so determined to stay alone, I would have saved us both a lot of trouble. Look into my eyes, Allie. Look deeply. You know me.”

He was making me nervous, and I skittered away from the memories I was afraid to face.

“You know me,” he said again, and I looked deep into his black, striated eyes, and remembered.

Sitting alone in the yard, listening to my mother scream at me from the living room, hugging myself, and he was there, and I didn’t feel alone. And later, when my mother dragged me from the drugstore where I’d been looking at makeup, I saw him again. And remembered him, even when he wasn’t there, and somehow I managed to withstand the rage and the lectures, knowing he was there. And my throat burned.

“I should have come for you sooner, Allie,” he said gently. “If I hadn’t been fighting it so hard, I would have been there. As it was, I didn’t even recognize you.”

I wasn’t going to cry. “But you still want to escape,” I said. “You still want to break this . . . connection.”

He hesitated, and that hesitation was enough to tell me I was right. “It’s not that simple,” he said finally. “You’ve been through a lot. I don’t think you’re ready.”

“Don’t tell me what I’m ready for,” I said. “I know what I feel. And all I want to feel is you.” And I moved up and put my hand on his chest, pushing him back on the bed.

He was warm, almost hot, and his skin was smooth and taut. I leaned over and kissed him, just the briefest brush of my lips against his mouth, and when he would have deepened it I moved away, letting my mouth trail down the side of his neck, kissing him where he’d tasted me, where he would have bitten me if he’d really wanted me forever.

But he wasn’t going to sense that. I kept my mind filled with images of him and me, images and words and all the reactions of the senses, taste, touch, smell as well as sight and sound. I could hear his heart pounding, the blood pouring through his body, and there was something unbearably erotic about it.

I moved my mouth down, down, not quite sure how to go about it. I’d seen porn at Jason’s insistence, so I knew the mechanics, but I didn’t want to follow that energetic example. Instead I wanted to explore him, carefully, using my tongue, tracing the blue veins, the thick, hard weight of him, closing my mouth around the head and sucking it gently, until I heard his moan of such blind surrender that waves of sexual delight danced through me, and I wanted more of him, wanted to pull and suck on him, wanted all of him in my mouth, and his groan sent shivers of pleasure through me.

He pulled me away, breathless, hauling me up to look at him. “Not that way,” he said. “Not this time.” And he pulled me under him, his mouth closing over mine.

I was shaking again by the time he moved his mouth. Could I come just from kissing him? Could I come from simply putting my mouth on him? Climaxes were there, just out of reach, almost ready, and my hands were trembling. It was too much. Panic was suddenly beating around me, and I tried to scramble away from him.

“I can’t,” I said in sudden fear. “I really can’t.” And I tried to get off the bed.

He caught me at the edge, pulling me back underneath him so that I was facedown on the bed, my mouth against the linen sheets that smelled of lavender and spice and something even more elemental. “Yes you can,” he said with simple truth, and he slid his arm under my stomach, pulling me up to my hands and knees.

I knew what he was going to do, and I was past the point of having expectations. I wanted whatever he wanted, and if he was going to take me this way I would revel in it. I could feel him against my sex, hot and solid and still wet from my mouth, and even at that angle he slid in smoothly, filling me, and I let out a strangled cry at the thick invasion that twisted at my heart. The different angle made it feel new, strange, incredibly powerful, and almost more than I could bear.

He took one of my hands and pulled it behind me, placing it on his cock, and I realized to my dismay that even though I felt completely filled, there was a goodly amount still waiting. I let my fingers wrap around him, and I wanted more. I wanted all of it. All of him. Everything.

“Allie,” he breathed, a sound of regret and longing. “I don’t think I can stop if you need me to.”

“I don’t need you to,” I said, trying to push back at him, trying to get more of him. “I won’t break, you know. I just need you.”

He groaned, and pushed in, deeper, harder, and he felt huge, almost more than I could handle. Almost.

“More,” I whispered, and he thrust.

I let out a little cry, a mixture of pain and surprise, as he somehow managed to sheath himself all the way inside me, and I could feel him against my womb, and I wanted his child in there, wanted it so desperately.

But I could never have it. No children, no family, no cottage with a white picket fence.

But I could have him, all of him, and I let out a soft grunt of satisfaction as I took him. He was mine, I reminded myself. Even if he was looking for an escape clause, I had taken him, everything, inside me. He was mine.

He pounded into me, a heavy dark rhythm that was like drumbeats from the heart of Africa. The drums of the gods. And I couldn’t stop the shudders rushing through me, mini-climaxes that were building, and his hand went between my legs, his fingers touching me, and I screamed, putting my head down, my face into the sheets as I gave in to the wildness and power, the animal need washing through me. I gave myself to him with complete trust, no longer thinking, no longer doubting. He would keep me safe, he would stop when I had more than I could handle, he would know.

Again. And again. And again, he thrust into me, and each hard push made me shatter, over and over, until I couldn’t think, couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, I was nothing but a seething mass of sensation.

He pulled out and I raised my head and cried out from the loss of him, but he simply turned me underneath him, pushing inside me again, deep, so deep. “I want to look at you when I come,” he said, his voice a low growl, holding very still inside me.

My voice had vanished. I couldn’t think, couldn’t doubt; all I could do was feel. I was his completely, but he was holding back. “Take me,” I whispered.