He selected one of the stones, yanked it out of the ground and rolled it toward her like a mossy bocci ball. She stopped it with her foot and marked her spot. “Okay! This is as far as I can go!”

“Great, now get that cute little ass back here before I stress myself into an early grave.”

Dani laughed, and catching her breath, moved away from the rift and all its charms. The farther she walked, the better she felt, until she was running full tilt at him. Grinning, she leapt into his arms and Zed almost bobbled her, before he caught a double-handful of her ass to grip. Chuckling against her mouth, he dropped onto his back, and she landed on top of him, straddling his hips.

“So I take it you’re feeling okay?” he asked, smirking up at her.

“I’m feeling great!”

Zed propped himself on his elbows to grin up at her. “Obviously.”

“How would you feel about having sex right now?”

Zed made a sound that was between a laugh and a cough, clearly caught off-guard. “You’re a direct little thing, aren’t you?”

“No sense in tip-toeing around it. I want you. I think you want me. And the rift mojo just reminded me of how short and potentially awesome life is, and how stupid it would be to put off something we both seem to want, when the opportunity is right here.”

She tore her shirt over her head, revealing a turquoise sports bra that was a wonder of modern brassiere engineering. She kicked off her hiking boots and shimmied out of the prison of her nylon pants. Fresh air on her skin never felt so good. Zed grinned even broader at the sight of her panties, a cute blue cotton print showing llamas prancing all over her generous ass cheeks.

“So what do you think?”

His face was very serious as he said, “I think you’re one of the greatest philosophers I’ve ever met.”

She beamed down at him and bit his bottom lip, making him moan and thrust his hips against her. How long had it been for her? Tribal customs had been too difficult to navigate in Mongolia for a casual partner, and she’d been there for two months. The Seychelles? No, she’d been so drained by that job that she didn’t have the energy for blinking, much less sex. Alaska, that burly lumberjack guy who had turned out to be a werewolf. Sam something. Hell, that had been six months ago.

“If you don’t catch up, I’ll start without you,” she told him, making him toss his head back and thwack it against the ground while he laughed. She lunged forward, licking at the hollow of his throat. He struggled to kick off his pants and his own boots.