When Maeve finally recovered her ability to speak, her muscles still loose, her bones fluid, she rasped, “I didn’t know how much I needed this.”

Dark power caressed her senses, the heat of Arawn’s hand like a brand as it rested on her thigh. It was a familiar touch by now, her nerves no longer alarmed by it. Arawn, a knowing assurance whispered inside her. Safe.

For the first time since her rescue, she felt completely at ease, all tension drained out of her. Relaxed and satisfied, floating on the high of sexual bliss.

“I’ve missed this,” she whispered.

“You got it back.”

Always distilled things to their most salient point, didn’t he? Helping her move forward instead of getting stuck looking back.

“Speaking of moving forward,” he said, his hand stroking with lazy intent up her thigh.

“Plucking thoughts again?”

“Catching them,” he corrected, a sly smile in his voice.

She might have tossed him a thought that started with Catch this, and his laughter rippled through her like a kiss to her senses.

“Come back here.” A rumbling murmur of silken seduction she was powerless to resist.

She let him pull her on top of him again, shivered with delight as he wrapped his arms around her. The steady thump of his heart a beacon to her soul, she buried her face in his neck, breathed him in.

“You didn’t even break a sweat.” A grumbling complaint, her own skin slicked with the evidence of her exertion.

“Is that your way of asking for more?” His hand gliding over her butt, squeezing the curves in sinuous moves, clearly said he was up for it.

Was she?

She pondered that for a minute, her lips pressed to his neck. As sated as she was, as mind-blowing as her orgasms had been, a sense of…emptiness pulsed within her. When she’d come, her inner muscles had clenched around nothing, and—another first since her rescue—she’d craved to be filled.

Still craved it, judging by that steady throb of longing between her legs.

And yet, the thought of penetration sent fear slithering down her spine.

Which was exactly the reason she should do it. No more running from her fears. She’d keep spitting in the face of her demons, would spit on that demon’s non-existent grave and rob him of his legacy.

“I have no idea,” Arawn said in a near whisper, “why anyone would think you fragile. You are far stronger than they all give you credit for.” Such pride in his voice, deep appreciation in the caress of his dark power.

“You see me.” A tender kiss to his jaw. “You’ve always seen me.”

“That is”—his hand slid over her back with loving possessiveness—“because you are a sight to behold.”

He made her heart ache with love. She sought his mouth, kissed him long and deep, framing his face with her hands. It stirred the simmering need inside her to a boil again, until it was her core that ached—for him.

His one hand shaping her butt, his other cradling the back of her head, he sat up…and the change in position placed her directly on his hard cock. Not sliding down it, the angle not quite right, but the length of it pressed against her sensitized skin sent a shock wave through her body.

She stiffened, her heart stumbling. Fear clawed at her.

Arawn broke the kiss, but held her face close to his. “Just breathe.”

She waited, went through the exercises Tashia had taught her to calm her nerves, to root herself in the present. Breathing in a pattern, she noted the details of her surroundings, reminded herself that this was her choice. And held on to Arawn for dear life, her hands gripping his nape.

The drumbeat of panic subsided, giving way again to the desire curling in her core. She moved, tentatively, and rubbed along his hard length with tiny thrusts, getting used to feeling him like this before she took him in.

A thought flitted into her mind, and she paused. “Um. I’m not on birth control.”

“And you do not have to be.” Some dark echo in his voice. “I cannot procreate.”

“You can’t have children?”

“No.” That twist behind his words intensified. “Few gods have the gift of fertility. Creating life is not one of my powers.”

She blinked, drew back enough so she could look at his face. And what she saw in those harsh lines pierced her heart. “You want that, though,” she whispered. “Children. A family.”

The fact he allowed her even a glimpse of what had to be a deeply hidden hurt touched on tender parts of her soul. This, right here, letting her see this vulnerability of his, this sadness…it was the utmost trust.

“Even I,” he said without concealing the raw pain behind his statement, “do not get everything I want.”

Remembering how much he disliked being pitied—and understanding that particular feeling thanks to her own twisted experience—she gave him the hint of a smile. “Well, there’s this one thing you want that you’re about to get.”

And she underscored her teasing words by rocking her hips against him. She was so wet, from her arousal, from the way he’d pleasured her with his mouth, that she slid along his erection with erotic smoothness.

His expression tightened with lust, and the hand he still had on her butt flexed, grabbed her harder. “Whenever you are ready.”

His chest hair rasped over her hardened, sensitive nipples, and her core clenched in response. She was as ready as she could be.

“I want this.” A whisper, a reminder, a pledge.

“Then take it.”

She rose a bit, took one hand off his neck to grab his cock, position it right. The tip nudged her entrance, and she paused, breathed past the flicker of instinctive fear. Knowing he wasn’t pushing, wouldn’t move before she told him to, and would stop if she asked him—or even just thought about it—helped ease the budding panic.

Safe, she repeated to herself. I am safe.

With that reminder, that assurance, she began lowering herself onto him. Inch by inch, her breath fast and shallow, her pulse racing. He held her gaze, kept her bound to him, to his presence, to the feel of him so it would drown out the whisper of her nightmares, keep their shadows from reaching for her.

“Take your time.” For all the gentleness of his words, his voice was edged with searing hunger.

“You’re stretching me…” She gasped, but it came out as half a moan. “Oh, gods. ”

His smile was wicked and incredibly arrogant. “Arawn will do from now on.”

She laughed, short and quick, but it was enough to relax the tight curl in her belly, to let her breathe more freely. After a moment of getting used to the size of him, she moved farther down, until he was sheathed in her up to the hilt. She paused, relished the pleasure laced with pain of the erotic intrusion.

A brush of his energy over her clit, sparking more lust in her core. She clenched around him, and—oh, damn, it felt incredible.

“Arawn.” A whispered prayer.

That glint in his eyes was positively roguish. Kissing her, he stroked the back of his hand over her breast—and pinched her nipple between his fingers.

Her inner muscles tightened again, and she could move, gave in to the need to feel the friction of him sliding in and out. Holding on to his shoulders, she rocked up and down, slow at first, building momentum and pleasure.

Prickles of anticipation burst along her nerves, and she rode him faster, harder. His hands came to rest on her hips, squeezed…with the hint of a question.

“Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “Move. I want to feel you.”

He kissed her with a touch of teeth, raw and hungry, and she felt the moment he loosened one of the shackles he’d been keeping on his consuming power, the wildness of his nature. It shuddered through her via the bond, a full-body earthquake that left her breathless for a few seconds.

And then he moved.

Gripping her hips, he thrust up while his magic twined around her, licked over her skin with pulsing zings of finest pleasure. Her breath caught, her heart skipped a beat, but she held on to the pure joy of feeling him this way, and left no room for horror to invade where it should never be endured.

She met his thrusts, let her body take over, gave herself fully to those instincts that were honed before the attempt to break her. Hot, ravenous kisses, her fingers digging into his shoulders, his hands grasping her hips tight, making her ride him in a primal rhythm that shattered and dissolved some of the ugliness that had taken root in her mind.

A pinch of his power on her clit—and she flew apart.

He swallowed her moan with a devouring kiss, followed her over the edge a moment later. Rocking out both of their orgasms together, they clung to each other.

And the night sky rained stars above them.