“Fallen,” Arawn said, watching her reaction closely, his magic on a tight leash. “But yes, cut from the same cloth as those whom witchkind calls the Powers That Be.”

Her breathing flattened out, and her eyes glazed over. Not a full-on panic attack from what he could tell—at least not like those brought on by her trauma—but enough of a visible rush of uncontrollable emotions, among them likely shock, that she swayed in his hold.

“I kissed a god,” she rasped.

“And you ground on his lap as well.” He gave her a smile intended to distract her with sensual promise. “That was…divine.”

She blinked, shook her head as if coming to, her eyes turning sharp again, flicking to his face.

“Having you warm and loose and willing on top of me,” he said with calculated precision underneath his intimate murmur, “felt heavenly.”

She closed her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching up. “Stop it.”

“Tasting you,” he continued, a wicked sense of play infusing his blood, “was like paradise.”

Her shoulders shook as she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, gods.”

“Just one. Me.”

Her laughter, when it broke from her, stole his breath. Light and lovely and daringly infectious in its mirth, it dispelled all his thoughts save one—

“I did not know,” he said quietly, his heart gone still, “how much I needed your laughter until I heard it.”

On a gasp, she met his eyes, hers grown wide, liquid amber striated by gray.

He traced her lips with his thumb. “I would rend the world to keep your laughter in my life.” Dark, dark conviction behind every word. “To keep you safe enough to laugh.”

“I’d rather,” she whispered, “you keep the world to keep me.”

He studied her face for a moment, the solemn fire in her eyes, the determined set of her brows. Nodding once, he said, “As you wish.”

She swallowed, and he allowed himself the luxury of tracing the movement of her muscles with his fingers.

“I want to lick you here,” he muttered, his attention on the creamy skin of her neck. Catching her gaze, he clarified, “For starters.”

She inhaled sharply, but her scent stayed free of fear—instead it was drenched in the musk of her arousal. “So do it.”

Body tightening, he bent down—the difference in their heights making this an interesting exercise—and kept his senses aware of her tells as he kissed the curve of the neck she bared to him, her head tilted to the side. Her breathing sped up, but he didn’t sense her mind slipping into her past. He licked a slow path up her throat, and she shivered, her lips parting on a soft sound of pleasure.

Lips he was going to taste again. Power curling underneath his skin, he kissed his way to her chin, paused briefly to let her catch her breath, gather her senses, and then indicate she was ready to take more.

“Stay here,” he murmured before he gently cupped the back of her head with one hand and took her mouth in a kiss that was but a sample of the wildness lurking behind his calm.

She grabbed his shirt again, melted against him—and stayed, indeed, in the here and now, with him. He rewarded her with a curling caress of his powers…over her breasts.

Gasping, she broke the kiss, only to look at him out of heavy-lidded eyes, her cheeks dusted rose. “Do that again.”

So he did…with his hand.

* * *

Electric shocks of pleasure arced through her body at his touch, her nipples tightening under her sweater and bra. His eyes riveted on her face, he ran the back of his hand over her other breast too, the intensity of his attention nearly as intoxicating as his caress.

The desire to feel his hand on her bare skin instead of through layers of clothes was a full-body ache, yet she had to pace herself. The specter of her nightmares loomed just behind a thin barrier of sheer will and grit, its strength still untested. Every second she remained in control of her body and her mind was a hard-won victory over the terror meant to break her.

Closing her eyes, she curled her hands, still holding his shirt. She wanted to enjoy this with him, wanted to relish his touch and trust him with her body without always waiting for the other shoe to drop, without having to keep one eye open and her senses alert so as not trip and tumble into the pitfalls of her mind. Dammit, she wanted her untroubled sex life back!

He clucked his tongue. “While I do want you to tremble at my touch, I was hoping you would do so for a reason other than anger.”

She focused back on him. “Not at you. I’m not angry at you.”

“I know.” He stroked a finger along the neckline of her sweater. “In general, anger is good, but not when you direct it at yourself.” Eyes that were far too perceptive studied her face. “Not in this.”

Grinding her teeth, she looked away, blew out a breath, and nodded. “I just want myself back.”

“It will happen—in time.”

Amusement bubbled in her chest at his play on their shared promise. “I feel like we should start a list.”

“I already have one.”

She raised her brows.

An insouciant shrug. “Or two.”

Her quiet amusement broke free when she gave him a wink. “Then I guess I better catch up.”

“We should compare notes when you are done.”

Such dry humor in his tone, and yet…something dark lurked behind his voice, his eyes, and without knowing how, she sensed it had nothing to do with her. This was something else, well hidden except for that knowing inside her…as if their bond, maybe, clued her in to another layer of his emotions.

“What’s troubling you?” she asked.

Surprise flashed over his face for a millisecond, before he was in full control again.

When he opened his mouth to give her an undoubtedly evasive answer, she grabbed his shirt tighter, pulled herself up on her toes and said, “Tell me.”

He looked down at her hands, then met her eyes again, a smirk playing about his mouth. “Do I have to worry about scorch marks on my favorite shirt, Wildfire?”

“Only if you keep being evasive.”

Pure appreciation glinted in his eyes before his expression sobered. “There have been a series of attacks on my territory.”

She blinked, smoothed her hands out over his shirt, over the taut muscles beneath. “And it’s serious.” It wouldn’t upset him like this if it was a run-of-the-mill border issue.

“It is also curious.”

She gave him a look.

“In a deranged sort of way,” he amended.

“How so?”

What he told her next, of piles of butchered humans with a strange pattern of displaced organs—the latest of which he’d apparently found just this morning—turned her stomach, but she held it in. He trusted her with this information, even the gruesome details, displaying a belief in her strength to take it in, and she wouldn’t dishonor that belief by puking on his shoes.

“I suspect,” he said, “this is the work of one of us who fell.”

Her heart stumbled. “Another god?”

He nodded, old memories shifting in the shadowed green of his eyes. “In all the millennia since the fall, I have never encountered one of the others. We were likely spread too far, the world hard to travel until more recent times. It is possible, however, that they have been gathering their powers back as I have, and one of them managed to find me.”

“And you think they’re a threat?”

“We did not all see eye to eye.” He shrugged. “Some of us disliked each other as much as the Powers That Be. And if the one here was friendly toward me, they could have simply come to see me.”

She frowned, tapped her fingers on his chest. “But you said it was weird they would kill humans to threaten you.”

He inclined his head, conceding her point.

“What if those kills aren’t meant as a threat?”

His look sharpened. “Elaborate.”

“Well,” she said, feeling a bit silly to bring it up, “this morning when I opened the door, there was a dead rabbit on the veranda.”

Narrowing his eyes, he grew preternaturally still.

“Relax.” She stroked down his sides. “It turned out the bobcat put it there—it caught and killed it for me.”

“As a gift,” he murmured.

“Yeah. Cats pull that sort of thing all the time. A gruesome way to show appreciation, I guess, but it makes sense for predators. And you guys…you’re like…”

“…the apex predators of the world.”

She nodded. “I’d say there’s a good chance someone is trying to say hello in a super-creepy godlike way.”