“Wrong,” she said breathlessly, her hands reaching below his waist, one gripping at his belt, the other stroking boldly along the length of his zipper. “I’m having you. We’re having you. It’s going to be a freaking ménage á everybody.”

And then she took a hard breath in, held it, and let the surprising feel of him radiate into her fingers and palm, the message ticking up like a lightning telegraph into her brain.

“Jesus, you have no idea how good that really feels,” he ejected on a hot gust of breath, his h*ps moving into her touch. “Everything about you, even the simplest things … like that ridiculously adorable mole. On your foot. I’m going to lick and fondle that thing at some point because it turns me on … just like everything else about you. And I wish I could explain how painful this is.…”

He put his hand over hers so she wouldn’t pull away from him.

“In a good way,” he breathed against her ear in assurance. “Painful in a good way. Both physically and mentally, because even the lightest touches of Ram being present makes him fight what he feels is a disloyal act, and it translates inside of me in the most unbelievable haze of pain and passion, need and dread. But in no way does the lying bastard want to leave you. No more than I do.”

That made her smile, a quick, sly little expression that touched her eyes so wickedly that Vincent felt the other soul inside of him shudder in apprehension and delight. He let Docia push him over onto his back, watched as she threw her leg astride him and unzipped her dress. How amazingly beautiful she was in that moment. More so because of the lack of symmetry of her hair and such. It was nothing for a woman to portray beauty when she was simply beautiful. It was breathtaking to see an imperfect woman become stunning just because she willed it into being from the inside out. Over time she would heal, her hair would grow, and the Bodywalker within her would resonate until she was blindingly beautiful; but he didn’t think it would ever compare with what he was seeing right then.

She pulled the gown, which had become lank throughout their ordeals, over her head and threw it a little too close to the nearby fire. That left her in a lacy pair of boy shorts and matching bra, both in midnight blue. The bra was clearly bust enhancing, not that she needed any enhancements. She reached behind herself and popped the clasp, then, with an almost shy little wriggle, she let it slide forward down her arms.

And that wrote the end to Ram’s attempts to gainsay the situation. Vincent felt it in a chasing rush of heat and blood, blood trying to fill flesh already pretty heavily engorged. She was sitting directly on him, so she felt it almost the same instant he did. It was no wonder. He could have broken bricks with the thing at that point. The smile of delight, the sense of triumph that lit her face, was like nothing he’d ever seen before. And she should be delighted, he thought. She should feel her victory down to her very core. She deserved it. And they both knew … they all knew … it was a victory a long time coming in her life.

“Oh my!” She giggled, leaning forward over him so her hair curtained off his vision on one side and her br**sts radiated warmth against him but did not yet come into contact with him. “So sorry, Ram,” she said, exaggerating a pout with absolutely no remorse in it. “It seems you’ve lost.”

“Oh, I think there’s victory enough to placate all involved,” Vincent assured her with a chuckle. He lifted a hand to the bare expanse of her breastbone, turning his knuckles against her and running them down the length of it. “But you’re right, aren’t you? This is rather a ménage á everybody. It feels very naughty, doesn’t it?”

“Kinky,” she agreed, licking her lips as though the idea appealed to her very, very much.

“It’s always the shy ones.” He chuckled, turning his hand to slide over her left breast, feeling the fantastic weight of it, the softness of it, against the contrasting hardness of his calloused fingers. “Now move up, sweetness. I’m going to taste you.”

She did as requested, scooting just far enough forward to help him bring the tip of her breast against his lips. More a forward rolling of her h*ps and a lengthening of her spine, he noted. She wasn’t eager to leave her seat now that she had him, and her little shifts against him were blindingly arousing … no doubt for both of them.

He kissed her first, a sweet sort of homage rather than just devouring her with lust, and it threw her off a little. She was still trying to redefine things, and she didn’t know how to settle into a gray area between all-out sexual vixen and quirky shy girl. But as she watched him take a deep breath against her, watched him nuzzle her with what could be defined only as affection, she realized that she had to stop making definitions and just start living in the moment. This whole experience had been nothing but a long act of redefinition, and it wasn’t likely to end anytime soon. Who knew how long it would truly take before the Blending finished successfully? Who knew what the outcome would be? But she knew one thing with utter determination, and that was that she wasn’t going to let this slip away from her. She wasn’t going to let him slip away from her.

By the time he finally touched his tongue to her and drew the rigid point of her nipple between his lips, she was squirming with impatience and need. His hands were running slowly down the length of her back, the warmth and strength of them seeping into her, making her feel, for the first time in days, as though she were utterly safe and secure. Not that she doubted his skills after all this time he had spent saving her life, but this was something far more essential than that, something that reached into a primal place inside of her that reassured her on levels she might never truly understand. If she stopped for a moment to think, she would realize that on many conscious levels she didn’t understand. But there was a soul-assuring energy to her connection with him that outvoted the conscious questions just about every time as far as he was concerned. As far as this physicality was concerned.

She was running her hands up and over his chest, feeling the topography of muscles with excited fascination. She let her fingers crawl over pecs and abdominals, dragging the edges of her nails through the dampness of sweat his arousal and the nearness of the fire had wrought. His hands burrowed into her panties in the back, grabbing hold of her by both cheeks and encouraging her to ride harder against him, making her suddenly aware that she had already been doing so.

As his mouth swarmed over her chest, throat, and lips, she struggled to understand the depth of what she was feeling, because nothing in her life had even come close to it. Every touch was like a dance of fire moving fluidly between them. She knew it wasn’t one-sided because she tested him a little, touched him complexly and simply, and watched how both types of contact stoked his need to a point where she suspected it was becoming an effort on his part to rein himself in.

It was perhaps the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for her. She looked into the gold of his eyes, saw the molten wash of lust, saw how primal and male he could truly be if he let himself go … and perhaps she would want that one day. But he knew on an inexplicable level that she was still too fragile in some ways and that there were still too many unknown variables. He was afraid of frightening her or hurting her. Scaring her off. He desperately didn’t want to scare her off.

Who knew such a strong, confident creature would be so capable of so much self-sacrifice just to protect another? Or that he could have such vulnerabilities? As he rolled with her, pushed her under his body after stripping her of her underwear, he made a fierce sound that echoed the fury of restraint he was using. For her. Just for her.

“Look at you. Just look at you,” he ground out as he did exactly that, lifting himself enough so he could stare at the landscape of her body. The intensity of his appraisal triggered something both shy and arousing inside of her, her hands flitting in a weak attempt to divert his attention or protect herself from the starkness of his inspection, she wasn’t sure which. He grabbed them and pinned them to the mattress at the level of her shoulders. By not holding them over her head, he deprived her of being able to hide her face within the shelter of her arms. And therefore she felt even more exposed than ever. She had no doubt that he was aware of this. Aware of all of it.

“You have nothing to hide. Nothing to feel inadequate about,” he whispered against her ear before lifting to look at her yet again. “There is nothing here that is less than perfect to me. Your left breast is slightly larger than the right, no doubt to try and win my attention.… I suspect she’s jealous of her twin. I find that precocious of her, don’t you? Your navel tips a little, the coy thing, tempting me to do this.…” He moved down and dipped his tongue inside her sensitive belly button, the stroke of it long and lazy. “And the soft rounding of your belly is quite fortunate, because you are going to need the cushioning to protect you from the power of my thrusts. And I am going to take great delight in watching the impact shimmer through you. And here … oh, here …” His mouth drifted over the trim hair framing her nether regions. The hair she had needed to wax before her accident and hadn’t had the chance to manage since. Still, it wasn’t as though it were a wild Amazonian forest or anything. Just … more than she preferred. Especially when being intimate. “Pretty to see, warm to touch …” He stroked thick fingers over her, then down between waiting lips. “Wet. The smell of ambrosia, the whole of it like an oasis. My oasis, Docia. Where I will rest, and drink and dine on the fruits available to me.”

“Holy smokes!” she gasped as his mouth fell on her most intimate flesh and his tongue worked an insane kind of magic against her. And that touch, his tongue to her most intimate places, was no different from any other touch they had ever shared. It was fiery and fierce, an instant resonating burn that burrowed deep and fast and left ferocious echoes of itself everywhere at once. He danced attendance all around her clit, his perfect avoidance of it telling her he knew exactly where it was and exactly how to let the nuanced nerves around it bleed flushed arousal into it until she was ready to scream.

“You’re killing me,” she growled at him impatiently, her knees squeezing at his shoulders where they framed him on either side. “You just wait till it’s your turn. See how mean I am to you!”

He chuckled, the vibration of it dancing across her hypersensitive flesh.

“Why are you in such a rush?” he asked her, the expression in his eyes so smug and confident that she wanted to kick him in the head. How was it that men never had any doubts about themselves? Or perhaps they did but had learned to make it appear otherwise. And why was that so damn sexy?

“See how you feel when you haven’t had sex with another human being in three years,” she muttered.

Ah, crud. Wrong thing to say. He was stopping. Stopping was so not welcome right then.

He looked as if he were going to say something and then seemed to think better of it. Instead, a peculiar smile drifted across his lips.

“You’re right,” he said, his fingers stroking through her wet flesh from the niche at the very front to well past her vaginal entrance. “Now is hardly the time for deep seductions and extended foreplay.”

“Too late,” she muttered.

That made the most incredibly mischievous smile light his features as he rose to his knees and began to unfasten his trousers. Before she knew it, he had shucked them off and kicked them aside and was right back up the center of her body, his h*ps settling deeply against her, his aroused flesh hard and hot as it slid and stroked against her. She tried to gasp, but for some reason she couldn’t. Her eyes fluttered closed and she fell back into the sensation of him. Her hands, unconciously, turned into ridged little claws, her nails sinking into the flesh of his shoulders. She was trying to grasp him, to manipulate him, her whole body rising as her h*ps shifted mindlessly for a better angle to welcome him.

All amusement and teasing had been sucked out of Vincent the moment they came into contact sex to sex. He had been lit on fire, that heat and electrical effect she had on him exploding through him. Again, nothing in his life or Ram’s lives— any of them— compared with what she was making him feel. He craved her mouth just then as much as he craved to be inside of her. One would not do without the other. It was a need he’d never required before. Certainly not so adamantly. He set himself to enter her but paused until her lips were touching his, her sweet tongue twisting together with his so he could savor the flavor of her just as his entire being was savoring the intensity she caused to vibrate throughout his body.

Then with a pair of fervent thrusts they claimed these women for themselves like explorers stabbing a flag into the precious territory of the North Pole and claiming it for all those they represented. They settled deeply inside, thrilling in the dominance of it, knowing there would never be anything better, that nothing would ever have more value than that moment. They knew what they were now a part of was the most precious thing the universe could ever give to them. The feeling was so overwhelming, so shocking and obliterating, that there was no movement for the longest time. There couldn’t be while there was so much to process. So much unexpectedness. So much craving on the heels of so much satisfaction.