“You tell me if I reached you,” I whispered as the edges of the shirt floated out from me, threatening to rise to the surface.

His gaze lifted to mine, and that glow...the radiance in his skin and his eyes burned brighter. He was almost painful to look at, but I didn’t look away.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” he said.

I refused to believe that. “Yes, you do. On some level, you do.”

His features tightened and then blurred as he lowered his head to mine. “Then tell me why.”

11

How could I tell him in a way that he’d listen or understand, when I told him before? That it was because I loved him and he loved me, but words...words seemed to hold no meaning.

And I didn’t know if that was why I did what I did next. If it was to reach him like I had before or if it was propelled by the ache that had settled low in me, or if it was just my reckless impulsivity that operated on the mantra of act first and think later.

The why didn’t matter as I lifted my mouth to his. All that did was that it felt right even though he was either threatening to kill me or to put me in a cage, and I had really wanted to stab him in the heart earlier. For real. In no normal world would any of this be remotely okay. Certainly not what I was about to do. A whole lot of pearls would be clutched, but this...none of this was normal. We weren’t normal, and the norms and rules and expectations were not black and white here. They were gray, and we were drowning in that, but I knew when he kissed me before, that there was still a part of Zayne in there that recognized me—recognized us, and everything we meant to one another. Reaching that part of Zayne was worth it all.

The moment my lips touched his, I shuddered—he shuddered. The kiss...it was nothing like in the park. There was no tentative prodding or hoping for a reaction in him. It was there, and his reaction was immediate.

“I... I need you,” he said, voice thick.

“You always have me, Zayne.”

His mouth pressed to mine, and the kiss tasted of water and wintermint, familiar yet unknown.

And that kiss, the touch of his lips, his tongue...it all quickly became something more, something deeper and harder. And it all quickly spun spectacularly out of control.

His arm swept around me and mine hooked around his neck. I pushed off the wall, pressing against him, and then he was pinning me back against the wall, the weight and feel of his body scattering any thoughts before they could form. My fingers sunk into the wet strands of his hair and his hand was under the water, gliding over my thigh and my hip, under the floating edges of the shirt and farther up, to exactly what had caught his attention earlier. My back arched as a strangled sort of sound left my lips.

It was captured in the maddening and dizzying kiss, and lost to all the soft sounds that followed. Heat burned me from the inside, warming his skin and setting fire to my blood. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist, rocking against him as we kissed and kissed until I felt short of breath, and I didn’t stop there. It was a primal sort of need that drove us, one that went beyond the physical, and it was like dancing precariously close to an edge—the way his tongue moved with mine, the way his hands explored and lingered on the swells and the dips of my body, moving over bare skin and then lower, slipping under the flimsy barriers of clothing. His hand opening and closing there, urging me to move, but I needed no urging. And it was a lot like tipping on that edge now—the way I grabbed at his skin, his shoulders, his arms, trying to bring him closer, and the way I moved and twisted, pressing against him until the throbbing ache became something so acute it was almost painful. It was in the way I pulled at the slippery, soaked waistband of his pants and in the way my hips jerked as he shredded the clothing.

Then we were toppling, tumbling and spinning over that edge.

And there was no coming back from this—from him—and no matter what the outcome was, I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t regret this, because this was him. It was Zayne who held and touched me, and it was he who created the tension deep inside me. That coil was already tightening and twisting when he lifted me away from the pool wall, when the immense pressure of him pushed in and in, until his hips met mine. There was a glance of discomfort, a shock of fullness that caused me to stiffen and gasp into his mouth, but it was Zayne who held himself still, and it was a ragged sound that came from his mouth. And then he moved. We moved, and there was nothing slow as we took each other.

And his mouth never left mine. I never stopped kissing him, not even when our bodies came together, not now when they rocked together, and when the coil unraveled, releasing a flood of rippling, intense pleasure, my cries fell on his lips as he shuddered all around me, in me.

It was only when the madness ebbed, long after the last of the tremors racking both of our bodies, that our lips finally parted. I didn’t speak. Neither did he, but he still held me to him, his arms crossed over my back, and I still clutched his shoulders. He shifted, dragging his forehead across mine before he dropped it to my shoulder. His lips brushed the skin there and there was a soft nip.

Pulse slowing, I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was his wing. It was so close to my face that I could see that each panel of feathers was actually several smaller ones. I could see the fine network of veins glowing with grace.

I lifted a hand. The tips of my fingers brushed the downy softness—

His head snapped up and his hand was even faster. He caught my wrist, pulling my fingers back. “Don’t,” he warned, his other arm tensing around me. “They’re...”

My heart was thumping again. “They’re what?”

His eyes searched mine, but he didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just held me there for what felt like a small eternity. “I know now,” he said. “Why I come to you. It’s this.”

There was a spark of hope, but then my eyes narrowed. “It is not what we just did.”

“It’s not?” His arm tightened again, pulling me firmly against him and eliciting a gasp from me. “It’s this.” A look of arrogance settled into his features, but quickly vanished as his forehead returned to mine. “It’s more.”