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"Don't say anything clever."

A short breath against the inside of her thigh. "I wasn't going to."

She reached down and pulled him up by the shoulders.

His mouth came back to hers. She tasted herself on him and didn't look away from him while she did. His hand framed her jaw. The metal one slid up her side, anchored at her ribs, settled at her hip.

"Idonea. Look at me."

She did. "Yes?"

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Lysander."

He pushed into her slowly. She arched up to meet him. The first stroke was deeper than she'd expected. The second was deeper than the first. He held himself there a moment, his forehead against hers, his breath ragged at her cheek.

He didn't move.

"Lysander."

No answer.

"Don't —"

"I'm not."

"You're committing me to memory."

"In case." His voice broke around the word and rebuilt itself. "In case there isn't a second time."

"There will be."

"Then it costs me nothing."

She put her hand against the side of his face and held him there, and he closed his eyes, and they stayed like that until her own breath broke first.

Then he moved, and the feel of him inside her took the last of her thinking.

She wrapped her legs around his waist. The metal arm took his weight. His hand slid down between them, his thumb working in time with the rest of him. She bit his shoulder hard enough to mark it.

"Idonea."

"I know."

"Idonea —"

"I know."

He moved harder. She met him. The ache ran down her spine where the ink was. The bed pressed into her shoulder blades. Cold air moved on her thighs where the blanket had fallen back. Underneath it: him, present in her in a way no one had been since Jovana.

His hand framed her jaw. She turned her face into it and bit the soft place at the base of his thumb. He breathed a single word into her hair she'd not thought he would ever say—please—and was startled by it, but didn't take it back.

She came a second time with his name in her teeth.

He followed her a few strokes later. His breath broke against her temple. He stayed inside her, braced on the metal arm, his forehead against her collarbone, until he was breathing evenly again.

When he moved, he moved carefully. He drew back, lay down beside her, and pulled her against his chest. The metal hand came over her hip. His other hand settled at the small of her back.