I lowered my mouth to his, then caught a whiff of blood and pulled back. Blood trickled from his shoulder.

“Whoops,” I said, licking my fingers and wiping it off. “Got a bit carried away. Sorry about that.”

“Didn’t hear me complaining.” He brushed his fingertips across a fang-size hole under my jaws. “Seems I gave as good as I got anyway.” He yawned and stretched, hands going around me and resting on my rear. “Just add them to the collection.”

I ran my hand over his chest, fingers tracing across half-healed scabs and long-healed scars. Most of them were the dots of too-hard bites or the paper-thin scratches of misaimed claws. The residue of friendly fire. I had them too, tiny marks that wouldn’t be noticed from more than a foot away, nothing to draw stares when I wore halter tops and shorts. I had few true battle scars. Clay had more, and as my hands moved over them, my brain ticked off the stories behind each. There wasn’t one I didn’t know, not a scar I couldn’t find with my eyes closed, not a mark I couldn’t explain.

He closed his eyes as my fingers moved down his chest. I looked up at his face, a rare chance to look at him without him knowing I was looking. I don’t know why that still matters. It shouldn’t. He knows how I feel about him. I want to have a child with him—it doesn’t get any clearer than that, not for me. But after ten years of pushing him away, trying to pretend I didn’t still love him, wasn’t still crazy-in-love with him, I’m still cautious in some small ways. Maybe I always will be.

I shifted to look down at him. Gold eyelashes rested against his cheeks. His skin already showed the first beige tint of a tan. Now and then, when he was poring over a book, I caught the ghost of a line forming over the bridge of his nose, the first sign of an impending wrinkle. Not surprising, considering he turned forty-two this year. Werewolves age slowly, though, and Clay could still easily pass for a decade younger. Yet the wrinkle reminded me that we were getting older. I’d passed thirty-five this year, right around the time I’d finally decided that he was right, and I—we—were ready for a child. The two events were, I’m sure, not unconnected.