Page 70 of Enslak

I stepped toward him. "I want to keep going. I want to feel close to you. And I want to know what you want at every step, not just right now. Can you do that?"

"Yes," he said immediately, and then more slowly, like he was testing the weight of it: "I want to be with you, Niki. Not because I'm lonely or because you've been kind to me." His jaw worked briefly. "Because you're the person I want. Specifically. Because of the bird comparisons and the tuber throwing and the way you looked at me the morning you first brought flowers into the conversation."

"I brought flowers," I said. "You never mentioned them."

"I noticed everything," he said simply.

That undid me more thoroughly than any practiced line could have.

I reached up and drew him down to me, and he came willingly, lowering himself to the bedding beside me with that careful attention to the size difference between us that he always maintained. One hand settled at my waist, warm and certain.

"Tell me if you want to stop," I said.

"I will," he said. "Tell me what you need."

"I'll tell you," I said.

And I did.

What followed was unhurried and honest and more intimate than I'd known how to want before this. He was attentive in ways that felt chosen rather than instinctive, pausing at each transition to check in with a look or a word or a simple question, and I answered him each time because I wanted to, because his asking was part of the whole thing rather than an interruption of it.

He touched me like he had time, which was disorienting in the best possible way. His hands were large and warm, the slight roughness of his palms sending shivers up my skin as he mapped the lines of my body with a patience that made my breath shallow. Every new point of contact felt deliberate, offered for consideration before he continued.

"Good?" he asked, and his voice was low, private.

"Very good," I said, and pulled him closer.

His body was all warmth and solid muscle, the contrast between his size and his carefulness something I couldn't stop noticing. He was always so aware of the strength he was holding back, the claws kept carefully angled away, the weight of him distributed so that I never felt trapped. He gave me room to move, to direct, to tell him what I wanted, and when I did, he listened.

I told him. I asked for what I wanted and he gave it to me, and when his mouth found me and made me lose the thread of coherent thought entirely, I held onto him like he was the only solid thing in the world and he held me in return with exactly the steadiness I needed.

When we finally came together, the stretch of accommodating him was intense and real and entirely welcome, and I watched his face as we found our rhythm. His eyes stayed on mine. Not possessive, not claiming, just present. There. Choosing this exact moment.

"Okay?" he said.

"More than okay," I said. "Keep going."

He laughed, low and warm, and the sound of it vibrated through both of us. That was when I understood that we were genuinely here together, both of us fully in this, and that nothing was happening to either of us that we hadn't decided to want.

After, we lay pressed together in the cave's amber light, my cheek on his chest, his arm a warm weight across my back. His breathing slowed toward contentment, and mine followed, the way breathing always did when I was near someone whose rhythm I had absorbed without noticing.

Then something strange happened.

My heart stuttered. More than stuttered. It felt like it stopped for a fraction of a second and then restarted, not panicked but different, slightly changed, like it had found a new signature and settled into it. I pressed my hand against my sternum.

"Feel that?" I asked.

Enslak's hand was already at his own chest. "Yes." His voice was wondering rather than alarmed. "What is that?"

"I don't know." I propped myself up slightly to look at him. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." He considered it, his brow furrowing slightly. "Unusual. But not bad."

"Not bad," I agreed. I lay back down, pressing my ear to his chest to listen. His heartbeat was steady and deep, and underneath it was a new quality I didn't have a name for. "George will probably have an opinion about it."

"Healers always have an opinion," Enslak said, and I felt the low rumble of his voice against my cheek as much as heard it.

"He usually turns out to be right, which is annoying." I drew slow patterns on his chest with one finger. "It might be a mate bond thing."