I swore I thought I heard her say she was sorry to the small patch of weeds we’d sat on and flattened. She had a heart, and almost every day since I’d known her, it showed in the little things. She said thank you to the servants when we ignored them. She handed them her teacup and her plate instead of making them bow down to retrieve them.

She smiled at everyone.

She apologized to weeds.

“Did I make the fish go away?” She looked around, twirling in a circle, trying to spot the magical beings.

“I think once people are in the water, they go away. Don’t worry, they’ll come back.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “The water feels amazing. I thought it would be cold, but it’s like the perfect warm bath.”

“We can come here anytime when you know who isn’t here.”

“That’s insane. You’re a grown man. Wait, I don’t know how old you are. How stupid is that?”

The tepid water sloshed around me as I took a few steps toward her. “Not stupid. I didn’t think to ask you, either. I’m twenty-five.”

“So am I.”

“Birthday?”

“June thirtieth. You?”

“December fourth, but we don’t really celebrate birthdays around the castle. Mom always brings a cupcake to my room at midnight. Has since I was a toddler.”

Sadness, or maybe pity, drew a frown on her face. “That’s awful.”

“It’s normal for me now.”

Her hands went directly to her hips, and she made fists with them. “No, I’m not putting up with that. I want a cake, mister, and I want you to sing happy birthday to me.”

Violently, I wrenched my hand through my wet hair. I couldn’t let myself believe that she would actually be around a day past the ninety day probation period, much less by the time her birthday came.

One day she would go.

Another male would put his mark over mine and cause it to go away like her memories of me. She would forget our time here at the falls.

It would all fade into something she faintly remembered when she was eighty.

I didn’t want to be that memory.

I wanted to make memories with her.

“I’ll give you whatever kind of birthday you want.”

With her gorgeous fiery brown eyes, she looked at me and smiled. Really smiled. Not the fake one she’d been giving me for the last several days, but a sincere gesture of joy.

Then her stomach rumbled. It sounded like she had the entire Kasun pack right there in her belly.

“Are you hungry, or are you carrying a triceratops in there?”

“I’m actually starving. Is there any chance we can go somewhere and get something to eat in the town? Maybe act like a normal couple for a while?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure that normal couples skinny dip, but sure. Do you want to go home and change first?”

Her blush grew more furious. “I think we’d better. Otherwise, people in town might think . . . I don’t know what they’d think.”

The humans were too clueless to know any better. They wouldn’t know who or what we were.

“Let’s stay here a few more minutes.”

My phone rang several times on the bank, but I ignored it. There were more important things to do here, like splashing my mate.

She turned to avoid the water, and I took the moment of weakness to do what I’d been craving to do for days. Damn it all if she didn’t lust after me like I did.

There was nothing I wanted more than what I was about to do.

My arms encircled her waist. A gasp broke from her mouth, but she made no move to get away from me.

“This might be my favorite place now.” I breathed into her ear.

She nodded. Even with the steady rhythm of the cascading water around us, her heartbeat fluttered out of control. Mine matched it beat for beat.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you all day,” I whispered before sucking at her tender lobe and swallowing the drop of magical water that hung there. A moan, low and slow, came from her throat. Atlas turned in the circle of my arms and wrapped hers around my neck.

“We shouldn’t get attached, Harrison.”

It was too late on my account. I already was. She was under my skin and pulsating through my veins.

I wanted it. All of it.

“I think I already am.”

Her words said she wanted to stay away, but with every breath, her mouth came closer to mine, until I couldn’t differentiate between the breaths she exhaled and the ones I inhaled.

The scent of desire filled the air around us. I was done for.

“One kiss can’t hurt.” She spoke to herself.

The kiss I’d intended to take from my mate began with her. She cut off my next thought by crashing her mouth down on mine. Lips that I thought would be soft surprised me by being strong and pliant at the same time. Her hands kneaded the back of my neck and pulled at the tender hairs. My only choice was to give in—give in to what she was giving me in that moment and give in to what she wanted to take from me.

I would’ve given her everything, surrounded by those enchanted waters with nothing between us but thin slips of material.

Frantic to get closer to her, I reached to cup the backs of her thighs and pulled her legs around my waist. As she deepened the kiss, plummeting her tongue into my mouth, her hips rocked into mine.

Atlas Xavier was everything.

Without warning, she jerked back. “That was . . .”

Fear crept into the moment. A mistake? Trouble? Fucking hot?

“It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced,” I said instead.

The coldness seeped in as she unwound her legs from my waist and lowered herself back into the water. “Weren’t we supposed to go somewhere?”

My eyebrows questioned how she could hop so quickly from a moment of passion to one of ice.

“I don’t trust myself here, Harrison. It’s not you. You’re absolutely right. That was incredible. If I stay . . . here . . . we might get lost. I would get lost.”

After taking a moment to calm down and collect myself, I realized that even though we’d stopped, there was something there. A passion between us that was reeling us both in minute by minute, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. “Okay. Let’s get my female some food. I know the best taco place.”

Her stomach agreed with my choice.

We dressed by the waterfalls in silence. There was too much to say, yet not enough words to express it all.

We were falling into a hole that we swore wasn’t there.