Rachael felt his breath on the back of her neck and she stiffened, but didn’t turn around. His arms slipped around her body, his hands cupping the soft weight of her breasts, thumbs sliding over her aching nipples. His body, wet and naked, pressed against hers. She recognized the feel of him instantly, the hard frame, the thick, rigid erection pressing against her bare buttocks. Rachael closed her eyes and breathed his name with relief. “Rio.” She rubbed her bottom back and forth against him, nearly purring like a contented cat. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Rio kissed the nape of her neck, his teeth nipping her skin, teasing her senses. His hands stroked and car essed her breasts, while his mouth nudged the collar of the shirt aside. She allowed the shirt to slip from her arms, arcing into him, bending forward to push tightly against him. His hands left her breasts to explore her body and she almost sobbed with the intensity of pleasure. A single sound tore from her throat when his hand teased the curls at the junction of her legs, pressed into her heat.

There was a strange roaring in her ears, anxiety, hunger and need. His finger slipped inside her and at once her muscles clenched and gripped. She couldn’t help pushing back, riding his hand on the edge of control. She wanted him inside her, wanted him deep, thrusting with hard urgent strokes.

He pressed her forward to rest her hands against a shelf. She could barely breathe with wanting him,needing him inside of her. He pressed tightly against her entrance, his hands on her hips. Rachael couldn’t wait, wanting to take him deep, thrusting back as he surged forward. Her joyous cry of relief and welcome echoed through the cavern.

Rio tightened his hold on her, throwing his head back, desperate to hold on to control. She was hot velvet, gripping him as tightly as a fist, the friction fiery, sending flames along his nerve endings. The tango was wild and fast, a coming together so fast and hard it was feral, a ferocious joining neither could stop.

Rachael pushed back again and again, wanting more, always more, ravenously hungry for his body, a voracious sexual appetite that could only be assuaged by his deep, hard thrusts, creating fire. Creating heaven. She wept with the beauty of it, with the absolute perfection of their joining. He filled her as no other could, his body completing hers. Sharing hers. He rode her hard, thrusting deeper and deeper, but she still wanted more. Craved more. She felt her body tightening, heat rushing, gathering into a terrible force. He seemed to swell inside of her, thickening until she was exploding, imploding, fragmenting into a million pieces, and her body rippled with waves of pleasure. She heard her voice, his voice, husky growls of ecstasy ripping through a throat in a tone that was not hers, could never be hers, yet wasn’t his either. They blended together, united.

Rio bit her shoulder, a teasing bite he couldn’t help, kissing her skin, the line of her back. Anything he could reach. He wrapped her up in his arms, just held her while he tried to recover his ability to breathe. Every moment that he was with her made him feel more alive. He thought running in the forest was the most freeing feeling, but being with Rachael gave him something else, something he couldn’t quite put a name to, but he never wanted to do without. Slowly, reluctantly, he eased his body from the haven of hers, a wide smile on his face.

Rachael sagged to the floor of the cavern as if her legs simply collapsed. Rio eased her down onto the sleeping bag. To his horror she burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. He stared down at her helplessly, astonished that she would be sobbing as if he’d broken her heart.

“Rachael. Damn it. You didn’t even cry when Fritz nearly tore your leg off. What’s wrong with you?”

He sat down beside her and clumsily put his arm around her shaking shoulders. “Tell me.”

It was the first awkward movement Rachael had ever seen him make and it comforted her when she thought there could be no comfort. “I don’t know myself like this. It frightens me, the way I feel for you. The way I think about you. I don’t even know my own body anymore. I like sex, Rio, but I’m not driven by sex. I’m a thinking person. I like to think about things from every angle. When I’m with you, like this, I disappear completely and there’s only how it feels. How you feel.”

He pulled her to him, pillowing her head on his shoulder when she wanted to hold herself stiffly away.

“How we feeltogether, Rachael. It’s being one person, in the same skin, our minds in the same place.

It’s how we are together. Why would you be afraid of that?”

“I can’t fall in love with you, Rio, and you can’t love me. If we just wanted to have sex and it was pleasant or even fireworks, it would be fine, but this is different. It’s so much more. It’s like an addiction. Not to the sex, that’s only a small part of it. I feel like I have to be with you. That you’re in some way essential to my life, to my reason for existing.” She shoved her hand through her hair, lifted her head from his shoulder and glared at him. “I wish it was a past life that makes me want you so much, but I can’t even blame it on that. Love shouldn’t be so all-consuming. I’m not an all-consuming person. I’m not.”

“Are you tr ying to convince me or yourself? I never thought about loving someone, Rachael. I wish I could tell you how I know we’re destined to be together, it sounds so stupid even when I say it to myself, but I know we’re meant to be man and wife. I can’t imagine waking up in the morning and not having you beside me. Hell, I don’t even have all that much to offer you. I have a risky job, a people who won’t welcome me into their village, let alone their lives, and that would certainly spill over to you and our children, but it doesn’t matter. I know I have to find a way to make it worth it to you to stay with me.”