Something flickered in his eyes, dark, hungry, suppressed. "You don't know what you're asking."
"Then show me."
He moved faster than I expected, faster than someone two weeks out of surgery should have been able to move. His lower arms tightened around my waist while his upper hands slid into my hair, tilting myhead back. When he kissed me this time, there was nothing careful about it.
I gasped against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound. His tongue swept against mine, tasting, claiming. Not demanding, Kaedren was never demanding, but thorough. Deliberate. Like he'd been starving for this and finally allowed himself to feast. Like he intended to kiss me until I forgot my own name.
Heat pooled low in my belly, liquid and urgent. I pressed closer, needing more contact, more of him, needing to feel every hard line of his body against mine.
My hands found the hem of his medical tunic and slipped beneath it. His skin was warm, the muscles of his abdomen taut and trembling under my fingertips. I traced the edge of a regeneration patch, the raised border where new tissue was still knitting together, and he hissed softly, his hips jerking beneath me.
I froze. "Did I—"
"Don't stop." His voice was low, rough, strained in a way that had nothing to do with pain. "It doesn't hurt. It's just—" He exhaled slowly, his grip tightening on my hips hard enough to bruise. "Sensitive. Everything is sensitive right now."
Good, I thought.I want you to feel everything.
I let my fingers continue their exploration, more carefully now, mapping the terrain of his healing. Here, the smooth expanse of undamaged skin that rippled under my touch. There, the slightly raised edge of a scar that hadn't entirely faded. And everywhere, the heat of him, the steady pulse of his blood beneath my hands, the way his muscles clenched and released as I discovered what made him react.
"Off," I murmured against his lips, tugging at his tunic. "I need to see you."
He complied, his four arms moving in coordination as he pulled the garment over his head. The sight of him, bare-chested, still markedwith the evidence of what he'd survived, all that strength barely contained, made something fierce and possessive curl in my stomach.
Mine, I thought.He's still here. He's still mine.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to the largest regeneration patch, a pale, shimmering square over his left ribs where the worst of the shrapnel had torn through. He shuddered beneath me, a low, broken sound escaping his throat. His hands fisted in the sheets.
"Kira." My name was a warning, a plea, and a prayer.
"I've got you." I kissed my way across his chest, my tongue tracing the lines of muscle, pausing at each mark, each scar, each piece of evidence that he'd chosen to stay. I scraped my teeth lightly over his collarbone, and his whole body arched off the bed. "I've got you."
His hands found the buttons of my shirt, and I sat back to let him work them open. His fingers trembled want so intense I could feel it radiating off him like heat. When the fabric finally fell away, sliding down my shoulders to pool at my elbows, his breath caught audibly.
"You're beautiful." The words were reverent, almost pained. His upper hands cupped my breasts, palms warm and slightly rough, thumbs brushing across the peaks until I whimpered and arched into his touch. His lower arms pulled me flush against him, bare chest to bare chest, and the sensation of skin against skin made us both shudder. "I thought about this. In the dark, when I couldn't sleep. I thought about touching you again. Tasting you. Being inside you. I wasn't sure you'd still want me to."
"I want you." I rolled my hips against him, slow and deliberate, grinding down against the hard length of him through the thin fabric still separating us. His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek, his eyes going dark and heavy-lidded. "I will always want you. Now stop wasting time."
The rest of our clothes disappeared in a tangle of urgent hands and impatient movements. When his skin finally pressed against mine with nothing between us, nothing but heat and want and need, I sighed intohis mouth. Relief and desire and homecoming all wrapped into one breathless sound.
We moved together slowly at first. Every touch deliberate. Every kiss lingering. His mouth found my throat, teeth grazing my pulse point before his tongue soothed the sting. His hands explored like he was relearning me, rediscovering every curve and hollow, every place that made me gasp. When his fingers finally slipped between my thighs, testing, stroking, I cried out against his shoulder.
"So ready for me," he breathed, something raw and reverent in his voice. "You're so—" He broke off, groaning, as I wrapped my hand around him and stroked.
When I finally positioned myself above him and sank down slowly, taking him in inch by inch, we both went still. The stretch of him, the fullness, the overwhelming intimacy of being joined. It stole the breath from my lungs. Our foreheads pressed together, breathing hard, neither of us moving.
"Okay?" I whispered.
"Yes." His voice was wrecked, barely more than a rasp. "More than okay. Don't move yet. Just, stay. Let me feel you."
I stayed. I let him feel me. And I felt him. The tension in his muscles, the hammering of his heart against my chest, the way his hands gripped my hips like I was the only thing anchoring him to the world.
When I finally began to move, we both moaned.
We found a rhythm that worked, careful of his injuries but not defined by them. Slow, deep movements that made my toes curl, and my breath come in gasps. I rose and fell above him, and his hips lifted to meet each movement, driving deeper, making me see stars.
His four hands were everywhere: gripping my hips to guide me, sliding up my sides to cup my breasts, palming my back to pull me down for hungry kisses, threading through my hair to tilt my head back so his mouth could find my throat. Like he couldn't decide what tohold onto, so he held onto everything. Like four hands still weren't enough to touch me the way he wanted.
I braced myself against his shoulders and rode him, watching his face, reading every flicker of pleasure. The way his eyes darkened when I clenched around him. The way his lips parted on a ragged groan when I changed the angle. The way his hands flexed against my skin like he was fighting a losing battle for control.
