Tansy’s senses were overloaded and her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.

Burton gazed down at her, his eyes blazing with love and lust, his hard body pinning hers to the soft mossy bank. The evidence of his frantic need for her pulsed between them, hard and hot.

She felt her own sex, thrumming with desire, aching to feel him inside her, where he belonged.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured.

She felt him guide himself against her, and she forgot the words that would have told him he couldn’t hurt her, that nothing he could do could ever be wrong.

As he sank into her, she bit back a shriek. The pleasure far outpaced the pinching pain and when he was fully seated she felt herself throbbing and clenching helplessly around him.

“Tansy,” he groaned.

She would have moaned his name but the universe seemed to be turning inside out with her ecstasy. She could only cling to him, praying he would never stop.

Burton moved slowly at first, then faster, filling her with a steady rhythm that sent her further and further toward an edge that almost frightened her with the promise of its intensity.

There was nothing but the shiver of the leaves in the trees around them and the song of Burton’s panting and her moaning as he buried himself in her again and again.

“Please,” she managed when she felt she would die if he didn’t give her what she needed. “Please.”

Burton slid his hand between them, found her throbbing clitoris and rolled his thumb over it in slow circles.

Fireworks flashed behind Tansy’s eyes and when he filled her again the pleasure shattered her.

Burton groaned as she tightened around him, and she felt him swell inside her, then let go, accentuating her ecstasy until she couldn’t tell where hers ended and his began.

The light summer breeze seemed to frenzy around them for a moment, as if it too were overcome.

When it was over, he collapsed on top of her.

“Tansy, my mate, my beautiful mate,” he murmured, lifting himself up slightly to look at her.

She blinked and the world shifted on its axis.

Instead of looking up at him, she was gazing down at herself.

Her own eyes blinked back at her, astonished.

“Close your eyes and go back again,” Burton’s voice said gently inside her head.

She watched as the Tansy below closed her eyes.

She closed her eyes too.

There was a little ripple of awareness.

When she opened her eyes again she was looking up at Burton.

He eyed her warily, concern in his brown eyes.

“Wh-what happened?” she breathed.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. “But I think it’s because we are mated.”

“Is that… normal?” she asked.

“Hmm,” he said. He rolled off her and lay beside her, his free hand stroking her belly. “It is and it isn’t. What I mean is, this exact happening is not normal for men from Aerie, not at all. But it is common for mates to be able to share our gifts.”

“So, this is your gift?” she asked. “Swapping places?”

“It’s not swapping places, not really,” Burton said. “But it’s… borrowing someone else’s senses. I’ve never done it with a person before.”

“Is this how you keep overhearing things?” Tansy asked, beginning to put it all together.

“Yes, I was going to tell you, but I got distracted,” he said, looking a bit chagrined.

Tansy giggled.

He smiled back at her, looking more unbearably handsome than ever.

“So if you haven’t borrowed the senses of a person before, whose senses did you borrow?” she asked.

“Most times it was Cleo,” he said. “She’s very observant.”

“My little shadow,” Tansy shook her head in admiration of the clever animal. Then something occurred to her. “Do I want to know how many times you’ve spied on me?

“Never on purpose,” Burton said quickly. “Except…”

“Except?” she prodded.

“Except last night when you went to talk to Dolly,” he admitted, looking a little pained. “Cleo was moving so fast, I knew something was happening with you. I tried to keep up with her, but she lost me in the woods. I had to borrow her senses so that I would know what was happening and how I could help.”

And he had helped.

“So you saw everything?” Tansy asked. She felt a little ashamed that he had seen her try to willingly sell out her dreams.

He nodded, the intensity of his gaze making her squirm.

“And I knew why you were doing it.”

Oh. She had all but admitted to Dolly that she was in love with one of the farm hands.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” she admitted.

It was easy to admit her feelings now, in his arms, with everything resolved.

“You never will,” he told her.

She closed her eyes and felt his lips brush her forehead, heard the breeze rustling through the leaves, and the birds calling to each other over the berry fields.

Warmth filled her chest.

Home. She was home.