A familiar warmth entered me, a familiar thickness took me, causing me to cry out in surprise, even though I’d asked for it. Because Mircea was bigger than Pritkin, bigger than most, something I’d almost forgotten. But my body welcomed him, embraced him, engulfed him as eagerly as if it had missed him, too. And the familiarity of his touch, his scent, his heartbeat thudding against my back, eased the transition from one lover to the other.

I could feel his emotions through the bond as he took me, and there was conflict there. He needed to go fast—there was no time for anything else—needed to generate power before ours was all used up. But he desperately wanted to take it slow. To savor this, to enjoy it, to properly experience what was likely our last time together. The depth of his feeling surprised me; I hadn’t expected that.

But he wouldn’t endanger me for his own gratification. Which was why he almost immediately thrust deep, causing me to cry out again, in surprise this time. He paused for a moment, giving me time to feel the pulse of him inside me, to experience his heart beating at my center, to sense the familiar heat of his body melting into my own. And then he slowly withdrew, allowing us this if nothing else, the long, slow glide of his flesh through mine, so good that it was almost torture.

Until he thrust back in, setting up a powerful rhythm that had me gasping at every move, had sweat running in rivulets over my already overheated body, had goosebumps cascading and my skin flushing and my teeth biting onto my lower lip to try to keep the most embarrassing sounds in my throat.

I found myself surprisingly emotional, too. I’d thought I was over him, or as much as I was ever likely to get. Other people seemed to be able to drop a lover, once the relationship soured, to put them in the past, to just forget…

I didn’t have that skill. And our relationship hadn’t soured so much as… not worked out. If I’d hated him, maybe it would have been easier. But I didn’t hate him; I never had.

Okay, maybe for a few hours, after the daughter he’d never told me about almost killed me, but really not even then. I’d been furious—and hurt and betrayed and just so very sad. But I hadn’t been able to really hate him; I’d come closer to hating myself for failing to do so.