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Entering her was like coming home.

Entering her was like swallowing fire.

Entering her was pure pleasure and shuddering joy. A sensation so overwhelming, it threatened to unhinge me.

As I drew away, her eyes closed and her hands clawed up my back, her nails scoring my skin in delicious ways. I buried both hands in her hair, held her there, with her head arched back, and watched her face as I took her again.

A low, guttural sound broke from me, graveling into a pleading moan as we began to move together.

The universe became very small.

There was no firelight. No carpet. No chill.

There was no rival, no pressure, no world beyond the sound of her whispers and cries.

There was no Cruor circle, no Heir, or mark—only my mate, her skin, her warmth, and the soft, sweet taste of her mouth.

The bond lived, glowing, pulsing, generating heat that rippled from her heart, through that precious cord, to feed mine. And as I consumed her fire, my own rose to sweep back to her.

Back and forth, back and forth. Love. Desire. Need. Admiration. Here there was no wall. No door. No barrier between us. And the only shadows existed in the tiniest, sacred places where my sweat painted her skin.

Grace was my world. And I became hers.

Coiled together as tightly as the twined strands of a rope that have ceased to exist except as one, I moved within her, fierce, needy calls breaking in my throat.

And she cried for me in response.

“Grace, I… I—”

“I know,” she gasped. “Me as well.”

I wanted to offer more. But words were insufficient.

How could I show her how desperately I needed her? I could only offer my body for her pleasure, my heart for her delight. How could she know? How could the flat of my palm possibly make her understand how precious she was? Or the sweep of my lips assure her that I’d never let harm come to her?

How could the joining possibly explain that I would stand before her and give myself in her stead?

And yet, the bond sang—together again. Together once more. Together forever.

The hollowness within me when we’d been distant suddenly full, brimming, satisfied.

With her name on my tongue like a benediction, and my body worshiping hers, with my hands filled by her breasts and her waist, with my heart full of her love, I forgot fear.

I cracked my rib cage—throwing my heart wide and ushering her in, to take, to love, to see every shadow and slip into every corner.

As Grace began to keen, arms wrapped around my neck and holding so tightly I could barely breathe, I… gave myself up. I emptied my heart so she might fill every space.

And when she sobbed my name and gave me her heart, letting it swell to the same shape, to inflate behind my ribs, our bodies trembled.

Frantic for her, I clawed both hands into her hair and leaned on my elbows, staring down at her, my jaw slack and breath tearing. I felt as if I might break—and the moment before my death would be the most beautiful I’d ever had.

“Look at me,” I rasped.

Grace’s eyelids flickered as if she woke from a trance, but as our bodies met again, and again, faster, harder, I knew there was very little time. I cupped her jaw with one hand and stroked her cheek with my thumb. But my fingers clawed.

“Look at me… Grace, look at me!”

Her eyes flew open and locked with mine—and an arrow of need and love pierced skin and bone, sinew and soul, and buried itself in my heart in the same moment her body clamped on mine, as if she denied me to ever leave.