And neither was there any on his end. I could make out just the outline of Zayne, but I knew he was watching himself. I could feel the intensity of his gaze as he slid his hand under undies that I now remembered had tiny sharks all over them. In the distant part of my still-functioning brain, I wondered if he could see them.

Then he obliterated that small working part of my brain with the first featherlight touch. My entire body reared as I gasped. We’d done a lot the night of the Imps. I’d been completely undressed, and we’d both found release, but we hadn’t done this. He hadn’t done this. No one but me had gone there, and that had felt nothing like it did now. Each pass became bolder and shorter until...

Every breath left me. Every thought scattered as Zayne made a sound that only added to the sensation of fullness. I’d been wrong earlier, because I lost all sense of everything. My hips moved with his hand, and a maddening, tightening rush swept through me. I was speaking. I thought I was saying his name as I drew one of my legs up.

“Zayne, I...” Tension curled impossibly tight as my eyes widened.

He made that sound again, a throaty groan. “I can see you. Each breath you take. The way your lips are parted. How wide your eyes are and how flushed your skin is. That light inside you. The spark. I can see it and it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

Maybe it was his words or what he was doing, or maybe it was just because it was him and it was us, but whatever it was, I tipped over an edge and fell into pulsing waves that seemed to come from everywhere.

At some point I became aware of Zayne’s forehead resting against mine and that his hand was now at my hip, his grip tight but not painful in the least.

My eyes fluttered open, and again, I wished I could see him. I finally eased my grip off the poor shirt and touched his cheek. His head lifted the scantest of inches. Everything about him seemed incredibly rigid, and then his head tilted in a way that I knew what was coming next.

“No kissing,” I reminded him. “Kissing makes this mean more than it does.”

Zayne lifted his head, and I reached for him, my fingers brushing the band on his pants. He caught my wrist.

I stilled, lifting my gaze and wishing I could see his face. “I want to—”

“I know. I want you to do whatever you want to me, but no.”

“No?” I repeated dumbly. My senses were too all over the place to even begin to decipher what was coming or going through the bond.

“No,” he said. “Because that would make this mean more than it can to me.”