By the time she reached the edge of his silk boxers, she didn’t have a lot of teasing coyness left. Pulling aside the material, she grasped his penis at the root and took him into her mouth while his whole body went rigid.

His hands shook as he cupped her head.

They had to be quiet, so quiet. The others were just on the other side of the boxes and crates that made up her bedroom. It was torturously difficult to muffle the sound of pleasure she wanted to make as she suckled at the head of his cock.

He tasted earthy, delicious. Dizzy with enchantment, she licked down the side of his erection, relishing the velvet skin with the taut, hard flesh underneath. Cupping his sac, she molded and caressed him while she opened her throat to take him in all the way.

By then his whole body flowed like molten fire under her touch. He felt like he was burning up. She worked him, and worked him, drawing him in entirely before pulling back to the tip, while he swore an endless telepathic litany of profanities.

She had nowhere to put the noises she needed to make. It all had to go into his head. She crooned and sometimes laughed at his inventive swearing and told him how wonderful he felt and tasted, and how much she wanted to take him inside.

He reached down to circle her throat with one hand while he pumped, fiercely silent, between her parted lips. Your mouth is like fire and silk. He warned, I don’t think I can hold back.

Delighted, hungry for him, she gasped. Do it. I want you to come in my mouth.

Gods damn—here. Here it is.

He slammed one fist into the mattress as he convulsed, and his cock began to pulse, jetting semen into her mouth. She milked at him and took all of it while she ran one flattened hand up the tense, shaking muscles of his abdomen. When his climax appeared to ease, she lifted her head and wiped her mouth.

Come here, he growled. I’m not done yet.

It was the Wyr mating urge. He gripped her hips and lifted her over his body until she straddled him. Then he took hold of his erection and rubbed it against her hypersensitive, private flesh, making sure she was ready for him before he pushed upward.

She was so empty she ached with it and shaking so hard she could barely keep herself propped up. He felt bigger and harder than ever as he entered her. As he pushed in, and in, she stretched to accommodate him, twisting at the piercing pleasure of his penetration.

Her breath came in quiet sobs. He put a shaking hand over her mouth. Hush, he said fiercely. This is just ours. Just yours and mine.

Blocking everyone else out. Nothing else mattered. Pride, hurt feelings, expectations, they all burned away until only they were left.

Male. Female.

Nikolas. Sophie.

He thrust into her until he reached a hard, driving rhythm, and she rode him as best she could. Reaching between their bodies, he stroked her gently at the place where they were joined. When he found her clitoris with the ball of his thumb, she was so primed to come it punched through her like a storm with gale force winds.

Shaking all over, she whimpered into his muffling hand as she climaxed until the peak came at such a height, she couldn’t take any more of it, and she jerked his thumb away.

They held together, joined at the groin, in the great room’s chill silence. The only sound she could hear was the quiet seesaw of their ragged breathing.

Then he sat up, wrapped his arms around her, and flipped their positions so that she lay underneath him again. He clamped tight around her, one arm around her hip, the other at the base of her neck, holding her clenched against the entire length of his body. It was a taut, uncomfortable pose. She could barely move. All she could do was grip him around the hips with her legs and wrap her arms around his torso.

He was still inside her, still hard and big, and now she was so sensitized every slight movement sent shock waves through her body.

Then he began to move again, hard, quick jabs that rocked her to the core. She really, truly didn’t think she could take any more, but then she took it, still in that extreme silence until tears welled and flowed out the corners of her eyes.

She came again two more times before he was finally through. Toward the end, all she could do was hide her face in his neck and cling while the storm of his own making shuddered through them.

The Wyr mating urge might not force him to stay with her. He might still be able to walk away. But no matter how she tried to lie to herself, she was no longer certain she had that ability.

This isn’t a cold, she thought. This isn’t the flu. This is a soul-destroying illness that will tear me to pieces before it kills me.

Afterward, he gathered her against his chest, turning his head so that his cheek lay against the crown of her head. Resting against his shoulder, she fell into another black pit, only this one was without dreams. He had taken the scorched earth approach and blasted everything else out of her mind, leaving only him.

She slept long and hard, and when she woke up, she was alone in the bed. Her bladder was full and her stomach uncomfortably empty. Filtered sunlight from the iron-framed, antique glass windows at one end of the great hall cast an indirect, thin light over the top of the crates and boxes and created deep shadows in her tiny bedroom.

Sighing, she curled on her side and hugged a pillow to her chest. He could have stayed long enough to kiss her good-bye in the morning. They both might know what this is, but there were courtesies.

Finally her physical discomfort grew so much she was forced to dress. She dragged on the same jeans and sweater she had put on after the stormy battle last night and tried to fingercomb the tangles out of her hair. The curls sprang out everywhere in a mad, chaotic halo, but she felt too disheartened to dig for her comb and hair bands to force it into more order.