“See?” he says, voice deliciously clinical even as his eyes burn. “Physics. Biology. A little… applied anatomy.”
“Dayn—” I don’t know if I’m begging or scolding, only that his name feels like the only word left in the world.
“Shh. Participation points.” He kisses my neck. “Recite after me: I am not vanishing. I am here.”
I swallow, shake my head, but the denial dissolves under his next maneuver. “Say it, Esme.” A nip at my lowerlip. “Or I stop.”
The threat is a velvet knife. I want to snarl, but I want his heat more. “I’m here,” I whisper.
“Louder.”
“I’m here!” It tears free, raw, startling us both.
“Good.” Something in his eyes flickers. “Now the next theorem… How loud can a witch scream before the cave answers back?”
Heat floods my cheeks. “You plan to test acoustics?”
“Extensively. Lab work is mandatory.”
“You’re… impossible.”
“And you’re beautiful when you forget to be lethal.”
The words puncture something tender behind my ribs. I crush my mouth to his to shut us both up. I close the last gap between us, lips colliding, and the kiss burns away every rational objection. The cave walls echo with our breathing like some primordial heartbeat. I feel him take my weight, his hands sliding beneath my thighs as he carries me deeper into the pool, water rising to my ribs, then my chest, then cascading over my shoulders in slow, warm waves.
The fatigues he still wears rasp against my bare skin as I pull his mouth back to mine, desperation humming in every nerve. His palm finds the small of my back; the other cups the base of my skull—I’m tilted against him, floating, anchored only by his grip. My nails drag down his spine, making him shudder, the dragon under the man flickering against my palms.
He turns us so a smooth stone bench along the pool’s edge catches the bend of my waist. The water steams between us, faintly jasmine and mineral heat. I feel the buckle of his belt finally give under my fumbling fingers; the fabric slides away like a shed skin. There is no embarrassment left, only desperate need, and the distant drip of water is the only clock that remains. Here, nothing exists except my yes and the low, feral sound in his throat.
“Slow,” he breathes into my skin, but his hips press against me, belying the word. I feel the final layer of cloth between us, soft and impossibly thin. My legs lock around his waist; trembling. He takes his time, kissing me reverent between each stroke of tongue and palm—each touch asking and answering permission until my breath is only please and his is always yes.
I feel the first, careful pressure—not invasion, yet, just the promise of it. The cave light glows turquoise across the wet sheen of his shoulders as he waits, every muscle rigid, gaze so intent it carves through me. I nod. I can’t speak. My body answers for me, adjusting, yielding in small increments, and for a heartbeat there is only wonder: that this joining, this possibility, this—us—is mine to choose.
The tips of our noses brush. His hand slips between us, guiding, coaxing my body to welcome him as he sheds his last layer. My head falls back against the stone; the stars inside the ceiling moss seem to flare in sympathy. I taste the tang of smoke on his skin—and heat, hunger, possession—everything that is him, as he moves again, deeper now, slow and inexorable, stretching, filling. My gasp echoes off the vaulted rock. The sheer… magnitude of him. He’s too much. His size, his heat, the blunt pressure of him splitting me open inch by trembling inch. Panic spikes. I’m too small, too new; he’ll tear me in half and I’ll shatter like wet glass.
“Dayn—” I choke, nails gouging his shoulders.
“Breathe, Esme.” His voice is earthquake-rough, but his hands are feather-steady, cradling my hips so I don’t impale myself in one reckless slide. “Eyes on me. Only me.”
I force air past the burn, focus on the gold blaze inches from mine. He rocks, withdraws a fraction, returns with a slow roll that lights every nerve. Pleasure drowns the sting; heat pools so deep I feel dragon-fire in my womb. Anothercareful advance—stretch, sting, dazzle—until tears blur the cave and I’m panting his name like the only spell I know.
“Almost there,” he murmurs, kissing the salt from my lashes. “Give me the pain, I’ll turn it to power.”
He shifts angle; the next thrust grazes something exquisite inside me and the world detonates—white, soundless, endless. I clench around him, shocked by the ripples that keep coming, each aftershock softer, sweeter. When vision returns I’m full of him, trembling, but the burn has melted into a molten throb that begs for motion.
I experiment—move my hips fractionally. His answering snarl is worship and warning combined. My body feels stretched around him, a live wire humming with every heartbeat. The water laps at my waist, cool marble beneath my spine, while Dayn burns inside me, a forge I shaped myself.
His thumb sweeps over my lip, smearing the salt of tears I’d cried. “Still with me, witch?”
I nod, incapable of words. My hips shift experimentally and pleasure coils low—dangerous, addictive. His answering groan rumbles straight through my bones. We stay there, locked, learning to breathe together, learning the shape of this surrender.
Then he moves, slow, turning the burn into friction, into glittering heat that winds up my spine like ribbon fire. I wrap my arms around his neck, nails against the wet skin of his back, feel the twitch of wings that aren’t there, power straining at the seams of his human skin. The air tastes of dragon—ozone and fire and something scorchingly wild, a scent I never want to be rid of.
The pool swallows sound; nothing exists but the slide of our mouths and bodies. He draws back, looks at me—really looks—amber eyes wide and almost startled, as if he hadn’t expected to find me still here. Still willing.
I touch his cheek, trembling, and realize the ring on myfinger is warm as live coal. Twin to his; heat to heat, a gold thread drawn taut between our heartbeats.
“Move,” I whisper. “Please.”
