“I do not know.” The fingers against my bare skin slid toward the elicit ache. A strangled sound left me as he lazily drew a finger through the gathering wetness there. “A Joining is not required for such acts.”

“Have you—?” I bit down on my lip as his finger pierced my flesh. My entire body jerked, spasmed, just like the three in the tent. I really needed to stop looking.

And, of course, I found myself looking to where Kieran and Lyra were. They were kissing now, but her arm still moved at his hips in a slow rhythm.

“Have I what?”

Pulse thrumming as Cas’s finger slowly plunged in and out of me as he continued worrying the sensitive flesh, I gave up on remaining still before I even started to try. I lifted my hips against his hand as I forced my brain to remember how to form words. “Have you ever done that? What they’re doing under the canopy?”

His lips moved down the side of my throat, tugging gently on the column of my neck. “I have.” He nipped my flesh, wringing a gasp from me. “Does that bother you?”

Some of the passion faded enough for me to ask, “Why would it?”

“The pasts of some haunt the future of others,” he said, his hands stilling.

My brows lowered as my gaze flickered. “You’re over two hundred years old, Cas. I imagine you’ve done all manner of things.”

His fingers moved again. “With all manner of people?”

The way he said that made me giggle. “Yes.” Though my smile faded because I wanted to ask if he’d done that with Shea. A moment later, I realized that I could simply ask the question. So, I did.

Casteel kissed my neck. “No, Poppy. We didn’t.”

Surprised, I started to look back at him, but he curled his finger, hitting a spot inside me that caused my legs to stiffen and my toes to curl into the blanket. “W-why not?”

“We were friends, and then we were more,” he said, the tension curling deeper and deeper inside me as my gaze darted across the fire, the canopies, and the shadows. Somehow, my focus ended up on Lyra and Kieran. They were no longer kissing. Lyra’s head was at his waist again, and his hand was balled in her hair, his hips moving— “But our relationship was never one of raw need. That doesn’t mean I cared any less about her, but it wasn’t like this. There was no constant need to be inside her in every way imaginable, and even ways not yet thought of. I never found myself constantly hungering, and I believe you need that to find yourself exploring those things with someone you’re committed to,” he said, and my breaths became shorter and shallower. “I never had what I have with you with her, Poppy.”

I don’t know if it was the things he was doing to my body, what was going on around us or his words, but I teetered on that edge and then tumbled over it, falling and crashing like the waves rolling against the beach. The shattering release left me trembling.