“Mmm,” he murmurs into my throat. “I’ve missed this. Feeling how wet you get for me.”

He circles my clit, and I gasp, my arm reaching around to grab behind his neck.

“It was less than a week,” I say, and he laughs low and dark.

“It felt longer for me, and even a moment without you is too long. Don’t you know that by now?”

His fingers continue to tease, dipping into me and then back out as circling around.

“I missed you too,” I say. “Every single moment, I only wanted to get back to you.”

“When I couldn’t feel or hear you anymore—” He breaks off with a shudder. “I was sure she was preventing it.”

“Maybe it was the Evanescence,” I say. “What if it cuts people off from the surface?”

A moan slips from my lips as he touches me, his fingers plunging into me with a thrust.

“Maybe,” he says. “All I know is I never want to go back there. At least not until we decide we’re done with this life. Together.”

I exhale a breathy whimper as he drives his fingers in again.

“Fuck,” he says. “That sound. It makes me so fucking hard. I need to be inside you, Lor.”

“Yes,” I gasp as he fingers my clit again. “Please.”

I flip around and straddle his hips, kissing him. Bending his head back and just devouring him. I want to taste him and feast on him. Soak up his essence and every piece of him until he becomes a part of me. We kiss, and we kiss like the world is ending, and maybe it is, but if we don’t survive, then maybe it will have all been worth it because at least we had this. And that’s all I ever really needed.

“Lor,” he moans into my mouth. “I don’t know how I lived before you or how I’ll ever live without you.”

My hips rock into his, the hard length of his cock rubbing against me with the most delicious friction.

“You never will. From now until the sun burns out and the mountains crumble into the sea, I will be yours, Nadir. This is my promise.”

I’m not ready to tell him yet what fate might await me, but I will tell him after this. He deserves to know. None of it changes how I feel, and if anyone can help me sort this out, I know it’s him.

He stares into my eyes, and I see the promise written in them. We were nearly lost. The Aurora King almost broke us one more time, but never again. Zerra tried to keep us apart, but nothing and no one will ever find their way between us.

“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he says.

“I might say the same thing.”