The smile that twisted his lips was a brief acknowledgment that he was still following my thoughts.

“But,” he said softly, lightly pressing his palm against my cheek, “I can share what it is like to be with a reaper in human form. And perhaps in the end that will be less dangerous for us both.”

He didn’t mean physically dangerous. He meant emotionally. And he was wrong on both counts. He was breaking all reaper rules, and I was risking my heart yet again—how could any form of relationship between us not be considered dangerous?

And yet, as he’d noted earlier, sometimes the gain was worth the punishment—or the broken heart, as I suspected might be the case for me if I wasn’t very, very careful.

“I don’t care what form you’re in, Azriel,” I said, meeting his gaze steadily. “I just want you. Here. Now.”

His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, then gently tugged me closer.

“Well, then,” he said, his words a warm caress that made my lips tingle, “I guess I have no choice.”

And with that, he kissed me. Gently and sweetly, as if this moment was something so very rare and precious, and he was intent on enjoying it for as long as he could.

But it was also a whole lot more than just a kiss, because the minute our lips met, energy swept through me, until my nerve endings were more alive than they had ever been, and quivering with… with what? It wasn’t desire, not really. It was more than that. Bigger than that. It was as if I stood on the edge of a precipice reaching for something far beyond my understanding.

As the kiss deepened, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed against him, until the only thing separating us was the thin layers of our clothing. Yet it still felt like heated flesh against heated flesh, need against need. His hand slipped down my spine, his touch light but devastating, making me tremble in a way I’d never trembled before. Because it wasn’t just his touch—it was the press of his body against mine, the flow of energy around us, the gentle dance of awareness that seemed to ebb and flow with every breath, as if somehow more than just our physical selves was involved in this dance.

Then his lips left mine and lightly brushed my chin. I raised my face and sighed in pleasure as his kisses moved down my neck. When he reached the collar of my shirt, he pulled back slightly and undid the first button, then kissed the skin he’d exposed. I closed my eyes and shuddered in delight. He moved down to the next button, slowly undoing it, pressing the shirt farther apart, then kissing the newly exposed skin.

Too slow, I thought. Far too damn slow.

I raised my hands and ran them across the muscular planes of his chest. His breath hitched; then he caught my hands and pulled them away.

“This,” he said gently, though his gaze burned with determination and something else, something that made me quiver with expectation and just a tiny bit of fear, “is for you. I want to explore you, worship you. Just feel, Risa. Just enjoy.”

“I don’t—” know if I could survive that. Which was silly, and yet I couldn’t ignore that niggle of fear that continued to burn within the desire.

But I’d made the decision, taken the step, and I would not back out. I doubted I could have even if I’d wanted to—the connection between us was far too strong to ignore now.

“Please,” he said softly, “let me give you this, if nothing else.”

I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. Nothing else I could say.

He undid the next button, spreading the shirt wider and kissing the exposed skin. Then he repeated the process, one button at a time, down my body. I quivered every time his lips touched my flesh, until it felt like I was floating on a growing haze of desire, need, and expectation.

Finally, when all the buttons were undone, he trailed his kisses back up my body, then briefly claimed my lips as he slid the shirt from my shoulders. As it fell around my feet, he stepped back a little, his heated gaze roaming across my breasts and stomach as if he’d never seen me naked before. Then, with a slight groan, he bent and captured one hard nipple in his mouth. I gasped, gripping his shoulders as he licked, and nipped, and teased, my body so assaulted with sensation that my knees felt weak. When he moved to my other breast, I whimpered, unable to stand the torture of being touched and yet not being able to touch. God, I so wanted—

No. The soft word flowed into my mind, a command I could not disobey.

And he continued the sweet torture, until it was all I could do not to scream in pleasure and frustration.

Finally, he relented, and his kisses moved back down my belly again. He ran his tongue along the edge of my panty line and it felt like he was branding me. I shivered; then my breath caught somewhere in the back of my throat as he hooked his fingers under the top elastic and drew them down my legs. Once I’d stepped out of them, he tossed them to one side, then quickly rose, catching my hand and leading me to the bed.

Where, once I was lying down, he kissed me again, heated and hard, with all the desperation of a man at the edge of his tether. And the kiss… it was so much more. It was heat and desire and need, yes, but it was also a dance of beings, of souls, as if in this one moment, we were almost one, not two.

Almost.

He pulled back with a suddenness that had me gasping and, for a moment, simply stared at me. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if he were battling for control.

Once again, he began his slow and torturous journey down my stomach, assailing me with his kisses. As my body twitched and burned, I wondered how the hell I was going to stand much more without giving in to the need to take what I wanted—him. In me, loving me. Hard.

Then his tongue flicked over my clit and my breath escaped in a whoosh as delight exploded through me. I groaned, arching up against him, urging him on, wanting him to explore further, deeper. His tongue swirled around my outer lips as he gripped my hips, holding me steady as he tasted and teased, until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only feel. And I felt as if I were about to explode.

And then, as his tongue teased my clit yet again, I did explode, and I was little more than a whimpering, moaning mess as my body rocked and shook in pleasure.

“Risa,” he said softly, as the tremors began to ease. “Look at me.”

I opened my eyes. He was straddling me, his body quivering with need, his cock thick and hard and deliciously ready. And I was ready for him. Oh so ready.

But as my gaze met his, something within me stilled. Just for a moment, everything felt perfect, everything felt right.

And that scared the hell out of me.

But as much as I wanted to look away, I couldn’t. All I could do was stare into the turbulent, powerful blue depths as he slowly, carefully, entered me.

And then all I could do was groan in pleasure.

Because again, it wasn’t just our flesh connecting. It was deeper than that, richer than that. Scarier than that.

Then he began to move, and there was no thought, no fear, only sensation. Within and without, as if this moment, and this man, were everything that was ever meant to be. On and on it went, until it felt as if the threads of my being were unraveling.

And then everything did unravel, and I was shuddering, shaking, and screaming in pleasure as his body stiffened against mine and his essence filled me, body and soul.

For several minutes afterward, neither of us moved. When I could finally breathe—think—I cleared my throat and said, “Well, I’m kind of glad you could only make love to me as a reaper in human form.”

He shifted enough to transfer his weight from me onto his elbows, and stared down at me with an odd sort of half smile. “Why is that?”

“Because if that’s an indication of what it would be like to have sex with you in reaper form, I don’t actually think I could survive it.”

He laughed softly, then bent and kissed my lips. It was soft and gentle, but nevertheless the connection between us stirred to life, shivering through me like a curtain of silver. Part of me wanted to step through it and see what lay on the other side, but most of me simply wasn’t willing to take that risk. So I just kept on kissing him. Hunger stirred between us, gathering speed and strength.

“You know what else I think?” I said after a while. Then I scowled. “Well, of course you do.”

He smiled. “No, I don’t. I was occupied with your lips, not your thoughts.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So to stop your following every thought, I simply have to kiss you?”

“It does raise interesting possibilities.”

“That,” I murmured, as I tensed myself around his erection, “is certainly true.”

His smile grew as he began to move inside me. “And this thought you had?”

“Ah yes,” I said, running my fingers down his back, enjoying the reaction of his body, the slight hitching of his breath. “I was thinking that the woman you used to catch your friend’s killer was a very fine teacher when it came to the art of lovemaking.”

“As I said, it was very enlightening.”

I snorted softly. “Enlightening? That really doesn’t seem an adequate word.”

“For this, it isn’t,” he agreed.

“And what would you call this?”

“This,” he said softly, his gaze holding mine, burning with an intensity I didn’t quite understand, “is everything that matters, and I intend to enjoy every second of it while it lasts.”

Just for a moment, that silver curtain parted, and I knew exactly what he was thinking—that it wouldn’t last beyond this day. Because he was determined to control the uncontrollable. “Azriel—”

“Don’t,” he said.

So I didn’t. I just enjoyed.

The sharp ringing of the phone woke me many hours later. I groaned and groped the bedside table blindly, but couldn’t find the damn phone.

It said a lot about both my mental state and my overall tiredness that it took me several more minutes to remember I’d left it in the bathroom.

“Here,” Azriel said.

I opened one eye and looked at him, my vision rather bleary. He seemed disgustingly refreshed. “It’s totally unfair that you look like you can go another six rounds and I feel exhausted.”