Not that she would ever do anything to threaten or harm him.

He meant too much to her for that.

Wanting to please him as much as he’d pleasured her, she spread her legs and bent her knees in silent invitation. “You know, I was only teasing you when I sent that text.”

“You want me to leave then?” he asked in that wonderful baritone that had a way of sending chills over her. Gods, how she lived for the sound of his true voice…

Most of all, she loved to hear him laugh. It was the most infectious sound that seemed to come from some place deep within him.

“No,” she said quickly. “But you didn’t have to come here tonight. I wasn’t trying to be clingy. I just wanted you to know that.”

“I’m already away from you more than I like.”

It was true. They only saw each other maybe two or three times a month, if they were lucky. The rest of the time, they were relegated to texting and scrying… at least she scried so that he could see her while they talked. He, on the other hand, was only a deep, sexy voice with no face. But she cherished every piece of contact she had with him.

Even when it was at a cloaked distance.

Reaching down, she opened herself up even more so that he could have all the access to her body that he wanted.

He sucked his breath in sharply. “Woman, you know what it does to me when you do that.” The bed dipped under his weight as he crawled up from between her feet. “Now what have we here?”

She hissed as he took her into his mouth so that he could tongue her into oblivion. Biting her lip, she buried her hand in his soft hair and lifted her hips for him.

Never in her life had she been so open with or reliant on anyone, and she’d done things with him that she’d have never thought herself capable of. Things that should have shamed her to the core of her soul, but she’d learned to trust him implicitly. And it wasn’t just the sex. She held a faith in him that defied explanation. For the first time, she understood what it meant to share herself with someone. To need a man by her side.

As far back as Zarya could remember, she’d always held a piece of herself away from other people. She’d only been a child when her father had been branded a traitor and her mother and sister brutally murdered. In that one instant, she’d been forced to grow up and had learned to trust no one. Ever. Not with her safety. Not with her secrets. And definitely not with her heart.

But from the moment she’d met Kere, it’d been different.

Unlike the other men in her life, he’d never once hurt or betrayed her. Never walked out on her at a critical moment. If she needed anything, he was there without fail, or complaint, or hesitation. No matter the time, day or night.