“Don’t understand what?” he said, his voice ragged.

Shivering, she locked eyes with him and began to circle her hips against his. He cried out sharply and moved one of his hands to her neck, holding her tightly to him.

“Eliana,” he said, nibbling at her breastbone, pushing aside her collar with his mouth. “What don’t you understand? Much more of this, and I won’t be able to think well enough to care.”

She held his head to her breasts, keening a little when he began to kiss her there, his mouth hot and his every movement assured.

“Why this feels so right. I’ve never felt… Not like this.” She tried to explain further but couldn’t find the words.

“We survived the end of the world, you and I,” he said softly, echoing his words from the ice of Karajak Bay. He touched the strands of hair that had fallen loose from her braid. “That’s why, love. I feel it too. You and I, we’re all that’s left of home.”

The sadness in his voice robbed her of all remaining sense. Her throat aching, she bent low to kiss him. It was a clumsy kiss, hard and thin as she held back her tears, and soon she had to hide her face in his neck and cling to him, her arms tight around his shoulders.

He held her for a moment, murmuring low, sweet words into her hair, and then he rose to stand with her beside the bed. He began to unbutton her shirt, his eyes holding a question.

She answered by helping him, her fingers trembling first on her buttons and then his own. Soon they had both undressed, leaving only her castings in place around her hands. The abused lines of his body brought tears to her eyes. He was strong and lean, magnificent even for the tapestry of pain cut across his skin, and he stood before her completely unabashed. She touched his torso, his flat belly, his broad chest, and began kissing his scars, determined to soothe every last one of them.

But he stilled her with one hoarse utterance of her name and then whispered, “Please, can I touch you? I’ve dreamt of this, Eliana. Worshipping you, for hours and hours.”

She smiled up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Hours? My, aren’t we ambitious?”

“And even that wouldn’t be enough for me,” he said, helping her gently down, back into the bed’s warm nest of blankets. His gaze roamed over her, greedy and bright, followed by the reverent skim of his palms across every dip and curve. She squirmed under his featherlight touch, heat flooding her, and when he moved down to her belly and kissed her just below her navel, her skin taut and trembling under his mouth, he laughed softly.

“You’re even lovelier than I imagined,” he murmured. Then he laced his fingers with hers, pinning her hands to the bed, and moved down to settle between her legs.

She cried out, her hips arching up against his mouth as he kissed her, again and again, until she was a girl of liquid fire, squirming and mindless, pleading with him for more. Just when she felt herself ready to shatter, he pulled away to kiss her thighs, her belly.

“Damn you,” she panted, looking down at him, but the sight of him smiling up at her from between her legs made her reach for him, her head spinning. “Please, Simon. You darling, beautiful man.”

“Don’t worry, love,” he told her, his voice entirely, smugly pleased. “I’m not finished.”

And then he returned to her, kissing and stroking her until she was twisting beneath him, grasping wildly at the blankets, at his hands firm on her hips. She wound her fingers in his hair, moving hard against his mouth until, at last, with a sharp, high cry, the heat that had been slowly building inside her crested, drawing her down into a warm sea, golden-dark and thrumming.

She shook beneath him, time gone slow and supple, and then fell limp against the bed, every inch of her body flushed and tingling.

When she opened her eyes at last, she saw him settling beside her and smiled at him, delirious. She turned into his chest, catching her breath. He held her to him, stroking her hair, and then, when her wild heartbeat had slowed, she scooted up for a kiss, ready to tease him—something about how he would be insufferable now, how he would gloat about his skill with his tongue for the rest of her days—but she stopped when she saw the look on his face. How gently he watched her, how his eyes were warm in a way she knew instinctively no one else would ever see.

“Simon, please tell me you want more,” she said, touching his cheek. “Tell me I can have you.”

He kissed her hand. “I want as much as you’ll give me. I want you for as long as we have left.”

His words stabbed her, recalling truths about their future that she did not want to consider—not now, not with the rain against the window, and this soft cocoon of a bed, and his arms around her like they were meant for nothing else but holding her.

She shook her head against his chest, as if that could do anything to defy the horrible fate that had been dealt them, and then she moved up his body and kissed him, until she felt him hard against her belly. She reached down and touched him, relishing his sharp, strained cries, how he clung to her as she kissed his shoulders, his hair. This fearsome weapon of a man, desperate and trembling in her arms.

After a moment he gently stilled her hand, gasping against her neck. “Please,” he whispered, “not like that. I need you. Eliana, Eliana.” He nuzzled his face against hers, and she sighed happily at the soft scrape of his unshaven cheeks. “Can I?”

For answer she kissed him, sweetly, slowly—until suddenly, sweet and slow were no longer enough, and he was bearing down on her with a groan, his tongue in her mouth and his back slick under her hands. He moved against her, his circling hips sending waves of heat sweeping through her body, and for a moment she gave herself up to the hungry force of him, gasping into his kisses. He nipped gently at her neck, and she hooked her legs around him with a sharp cry. Low and hoarse, he murmured her name, and she shuddered, holding his head against hers.

“Keep talking,” she whispered, her eyes drifting shut. “I love hearing you like this.”

He laughed softly. “What shall I tell you? How the sight of you in my arms is beautiful beyond my every imagining?” He nibbled at the soft spot behind her ear. “How determined I am to give you every pleasure you desire?” Then he buried his face in her hair and said her name again, a choked little growl.

Dizzy at the rough sound of his voice, her skin humming and hot, she began turning away from him. He released her at once.

“No,” she murmured, nestling her back against his front. “Don’t leave. Come back to me.”

“I’m here.” He kissed her temple and wrapped her up in his arms. “Like this, Eliana? This is how you want me?”

She nodded, wriggling her hips against his, grinning to feel him so hard and eager. He hissed into her hair, a breathless curse. He held her in place—one gentle hand around her neck, the other sliding between her legs, teasing her. And then he was inside her, his thrusts slow and deep, and she arched back into him, crying out from the sheer pleasure of it—his arms cradling her, his chest strong against her back, the fullness of him, the heat of him, his fingers stroking her as his hips rocked against hers.