his head, he kissed her breasts with an open mouth, licking at the sensitive skin, and when she gasped, suckled wetly at one taut nipple. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, but then Stefan ran his hand over her ribs and lifted his mouth to repeat the caress on her neglected breast. Tugging at his hair, she brought him to her for a kiss as she wrapped her legs around his hips in shameless seduction.
One of his hands cupped the back of her thigh; he stroked as they kissed, said, “I love the way you feel. So silky and soft.”
Breasts crushed up against his muscled chest, the surface abrasive with a light layer of chest hair, she shivered. “You feel better.” All hard and rough and beautiful.
She petted his shoulders, shaped the muscle of him. “How are you so patient?” she asked, still a little shy with him. She might not be experienced, but she’d overheard the married women in the village talking, knew enough of biology to know a man often lost all control when he had a naked woman underneath him—especially a man who was violently aroused.
Like Stefan was right now.
His hand clenched on her thigh. “I wasn’t the first time.”
“Neither was I.” She kissed his shoulder, a silly, happy smile on her face. “I’m not patient now, either.” He was the one who was keeping them from rushing—left to her own devices, Tazia would’ve driven them over again by now, forgetting all about the slight, intimate soreness of her body.
“There are certain advantages to the kind of training I underwent as a Tk.” Another lush kiss as he shifted his hand inward, touched the plump, wet folds between her thighs with a single caressing finger. “Does that feel good?”
Nodding at the low murmur, she kissed his throat, asked the same question. And they learned. For two days and two nights, they learned each other until there was no shyness and his skin against her own was something she needed to feel whole.
And they didn’t speak about what would happen when the interlude ended.
Epilogue
The two of them passed their physicals with flying colors. Sitting in the small green park behind the offices the day before their departure for Alaris, Stefan said, “Tazi.”
Her stomach tight, she turned. “Yes?”
“Do you have hope again?”
He’d remembered. It shouldn’t have startled her, but it did. “Yes,” she said, though her heart ached at having to go back to what they’d been before this, to waiting at least three more months until they could touch again. “Did you know, Stefan?”
“What?”
“That my home wasn’t far from the site of the quake.”
“Yes.”
Of course he had. Stefan never did anything by chance. “Thank you.”
“There’s no need. You’ve given me yourself, a gift beyond price.”
Love burned in her, a hot flame. “What will we do?” She couldn’t not touch him, couldn’t not be with him.
Deep gray eyes looked at her with a thousand hidden secrets . . . hidden from everyone but her. “I cannot break the rules on the surface. I must be perfect.”
“I know.”
Concealed between their bodies, his hand, strong and warm, closed over her own where it lay pressed against the grass.
“I’m a teleporter, Tazi.”
Oh.
She covered her hand with her mouth, her smile so huge it cracked her face. “Will I sleep with my husband every night?”
“Of course. Going from one part of Alaris to another takes no effort.”
“I suppose I can bear the distance during the day then.”
It would be hard, but she’d think of it simply as if they were going to work like other husbands and wives. Knowing they’d meet again at the end of their shifts would be enough to carry her through, a secret joy inside her heart.
“No one but you,” Stefan said, “ever goes into the engine room at Alaris.”
Her pulse turned to thunder. “And,” she added, turning her hand palm-side up so their fingers could entwine, “there is no surveillance.” They could touch there at times when the need was deep, love there, safe in the darkness until they could come up into the light again.
“I can redirect my telekinetic energy into the sea when we love. It’s so vast, the effect won’t even raise the temperature a minute degree.”
Her fingers locking with his. The tightness in her chest blooming out in rays of fire. And a laugh bubbling into her throat. “Do you think changeling sharks exist?”
“Nothing is impossible.”
DORIAN
I
Dorian climbed up the tree at the far end of the play area. Even though he