“You’re so soft and warm, Tansy. I love the way your body responds to me.” His hand was well ahead of his mouth, moving down her soft body to the junction at her legs, testing her wetness, her desire for him.

Kadan wanted to take his time and feast, a leisurely exploration of shadows and hollows, finding every hidden sweet spot, every trigger. He wanted an intimate map he could use to pleasure her. And he wanted this for himself. This absolute giving to him, her body open to every sensual thing he wished to do, her giving herself to him without reservation. She trusted him; whether it was instinct or not, or the connection of their minds, he didn’t know, he didn’t care—he knew only that she put herself entirely into his hands and gave him her body.

He moved over her, taking in every inch of her with his hands and tongue, tasting and teasing, dancing his fingers across her body until she was rewarding him with shivers of pleasure and soft moans she couldn’t repress. He didn’t want her to be silent. He needed to hear every sound, see and feel every response. His teeth raked again at her nipple and she choked out a strangled cry. His tongue flicked and curled around the peak and then drew it into the hot depths of his mouth. Each hard flick of his tongue sent sensations crashing through her, rushing to her womb, where his hand lay over her lower stomach and he could feel heat and the bunching of her muscles, while his mind shared every pleasure.

He licked his way over the slope of her breast again, down through the valley, and tasted cinnamon. Sheer pleasure rocketed through him. There had to be some kind of aphrodisiac in the lotion she used on her satin-soft skin. His, all his. Every last inch of her. She arched into his mouth, pressing herself deeper. He slid his hand down lower, over her damp mound, his thumb sliding into slick heat, finding her hard bud and rasping over it with the bristles embedded in the pads of his fingers. Her breath came in ragged, breathy little moans, and her h*ps writhed and bucked in need.

He didn’t let the flames licking over his skin or the wild-fire burning along his shaft hurry him. He wanted to drive her into a frenzy. He wanted cinnamon candy for breakfast. Her scent called to him, and every nerve, every cell responded. He spread her thighs apart, and looked up at her. She looked sultry, face flushed, eyes glazed with a hot, desperate hunger. He lowered his head.

His tongue lashed at her, sending lightning whipping through her body, white-hot, threatening to consume her. Tansy nearly bucked from the bed, but his arms pinned her down and he continued his greedy feast. His teeth scraped and tugged, his tongue teased and probed, and then his fingers joined in.

She cried out, unable to stop the pulsing pleasure pounding through her. Lightning zinged from br**sts to womb, spilling more cinnamon candy into his marauding mouth. He took her up, winding her into a tight coil of desperate need, until there was only heat and fire and the sinful ecstasy of his tongue and teeth.

He pressed tight against her hard, aching bud, and the sensations heightened; flames flashed like a firestorm, and she lost her breath and most of her mind.

“I love the way you taste,” he murmured, licking at her hungrily.

His fingers plunged and curled, pressed deep and stroked, driving her wilder, pushing her to the very edge of the precipice, but never quite allowing her over it. She teetered there, reaching for the orgasm, but he refused to give it to her, drawing the pleasure out on a torturous rack until she shuddered and moaned and heard herself begging for release.

“What is it you want from me?” He breathed fire into her spasming womb.

“Please, Kadan . . . please.” All she could do was writhe under his wicked mouth.

“Is this what you want, baby?” He rewarded that breathy plea. His fingers pushed deep, right through the tight folds. She could feel her muscles grip desperately. And then his mouth was on her tight, hard bud, already inflamed with need, and he suckled while his fingers thrust deep. He used the velvet bristles on the pads of his fingers ruthlessly, twisting against her swollen, sensitive nerve endings, and she screamed, her body clamping down in a vicious spasm, again spilling cinnamon candy into his waiting mouth.

He kissed the insides of her thighs and her stomach, then leaned down to lick at the offering still spilling around her rippling sheath, before he came up onto his knees and pressed the broad, flared head of his shaft into her hot, slick entrance.

“Easy, baby,” he whispered when she arched into him, trying to impale herself on the thickness. “You’re so f**king tight. Let your body accept mine.” He worked his way through her soft folds while her muscles gripped and strangled, nearly milking him right then.

“I need . . .” She couldn’t get anything out. She just desperately needed to be filled.

“I know what you need.”

He sank deeper and deeper into her folds, until he was buried completely and his tight balls rocked against her bu**ocks. The sensation only added more flames, burning hotter, scorching them both. He blanketed her body, stretching out, wanting every inch of her skin against his. His lips found her throat, his hands her br**sts, fingers sliding possessively as he licked at her pulse and nibbled his way to her mouth.

He rocked his h*ps gently, pressing down, the thick length of him rubbing along her swollen, stretched muscles, sending more lightning shooting down her thighs and up her belly to her br**sts. His fingers pinched and tugged at her ni**les, so that the lightning forked out and shot back to her clenching, slick sheath. She shuddered beneath him. And then he filled her mind, flooding her with everything him.

She pulsed around him, her body relaxing a little as her muscles became used to the stretched, burning feeling of his penetration. He took a long, slow stroke, pulling back and driving through the tight folds. Instantly electricity sizzled and arced through her as his shaft rubbed against engorged flesh. She gripped his upper arms as he levered himself over her, keeping that slow, steady, torturous rhythm that brought her right to the edge again, but kept her from falling.

Kadan looked down into her face, into her eyes. She was his. It was there in the depths of her gaze. That unconditional giving of her body to him. More than her body. Each slow stroke of his shaft, driving through the stranglehold her muscles had on him, sent waves of pleasure rocking through him, but this was so much more. When she touched him, when she was with him like this, the cold of his soul was gone completely. She brought heat and fire and melted the ice, or at least pushed the monster in him so far down he couldn’t find it. She gave him her warmth, her heat, so that they burned together. So that he was alive.

Tell me you love me. Say it out loud. He kept the same torturous rhythm, while her body writhed under his and her h*ps bucked upward, desperate for relief. Say it, Tansy.

Her hands caught his face. Her gaze stayed locked on his. “I do love you. Every part of you. Can’t you feel it when I give myself to you? Feel me, the way I need you.”

She moved her body in little circles, squeezing her muscles, so that it felt like velvet fists massaging and kneading his sensitive shaft, suckling at him like a tight mouth, hotter than hell and just as sinful. He heard his own hoarse cry mingling with her ragged moan, and he gave up all pretense of control. He thrust hard and deep, over and over, his h*ps in a frenzy, reaching for the ecstasy, racing toward it. His head felt like it might explode, his blood boiled, his balls drew tight and hard, and still he pounded into her.

He drove deeper and harder, over and over, because she loved him and, God help him, he needed that love—was desperate for it, desperate to show her how he felt in return. He felt her tighten around him, and he gripped her harder, holding her helpless, pinned beneath him while he drove into her again and again. Her mouth opened wide and her eyes went opaque. She screamed and her body pulsed and clamped down, ripping his seed from him, suckling so strongly the sensation washed up his spine and nearly exploded out his skull. She drained him, taking every hot pulse of his body and milking him for more. Her body shuddered again and again in rhythm with the powerful jerking of his. Her womb rippled and convulsed around him, gradually lessening in strength and then fading as they lay together, gasping.

Kadan collapsed over her soft body, fighting for air. He nuzzled her throat as he rolled to the side, one arm still tight around her. He’d never come like that before in his life. He’d never felt that surge of love and emotion tied so tight with lust and desperate need. He’d never even imagined he could feel like that, and a part of him didn’t trust such good fortune. She’d said she loved him, but he was in her mind, and there was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on that shook him.

He kissed her again, wanting to be whole, wanting all doubts gone, and not certain how to achieve that when he couldn’t find the way through sex.

“When I can walk, I’m going to take a long, hot shower,” she announced.

He bent his head to her breast, pulling the soft mound into his mouth. He suckled for a moment and then bit down, needing to leave his mark. She gasped, a soft little cry of protest, her body arching closer to him, but she didn’t stop him, rather her hands caressed his hair while she held him to her as if she knew what he was doing.

Kadan, standing in the doorway of the living room, watched Tansy through half-closed eyes. She sat curled up on the couch, legs drawn under her, long hair sliding around her body like so much silk. As usual, she hadn’t bothered with makeup and she was barefoot. She wore his button-down-the-front shirt and he could just see the outline of her br**sts and the darker ni**les through the thin material. There was something very satisfying seeing her in his shirt and knowing she wore little beneath it but his mark.

If he crossed the room and took her to the floor, he had the feeling she’d be more than willing, even though she was exhausted. She sipped at her tea and flipped through a magazine, but her eyes, when she lifted them to his face, had more violet than blue in them, and he suspected her mind wasn’t on him—or the floor. Her brain was fitting pieces of the puzzle together. Or maybe it was on him and he was coming up short.

“You okay, baby? I ended up being a little rougher than I intended.” He rubbed his shadowed jaw and knew her thighs were chafed. He needed her back with him; he was not yet willing to have her go down that dangerous path again. Nor did he want her thinking she might do better than be with a man who had done nothing but bring chaos back into her life.

“I’m better than fine.” She smiled up at him, but there was something sad in her eyes and her smile was wistful.

His heart did a funny twist in his chest, and deep inside, everything stilled. Even the way she sipped at her tea was sexy to him, and yet she seemed so far away, as if she was distancing herself. The one thing he couldn’t have with her, the one thing he would never be able to live with—was distance.

He leaned one hip against the wall, his eyes never leaving her face. “I can’t remember ever having a home. I never expected to have my own woman or live in a house with her.” He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her without blinking, using his cool, catlike stare. “When this is over, are you going to marry me?”

He had her full attention now. She blinked rapidly and her lips parted slightly. He had the urge to kiss her, but he stayed where he was, never taking his eyes from her face.

“You already asked me that question and I said yes.”

“No, I told you we were going to get married. I bullied you until you said what I wanted to hear. I want to know if you’re really going to marry me.”

Her tongue touched her full lower lip, the pouty one he often found himself staring at. She remained silent, a little shell-shocked, and although he knew he shouldn’t, he touched her mind, needing to know what she was thinking.

She had been in a hospital for several months after a breakdown. It could happen again. What kind of genetics would she pass to her children—their children? Would he even want children with her? And her father, what about him? She had to wear gloves almost all the time, would that become an embarrassment? What about her work? She loved being far away from people, where she could just exist in peace. What about his work? He was a born warrior and would never be happy doing anything else. How much time would they have together?