“She also said . . .” Gabriel groaned deep in his chest as I swirled my tongue over his nipple. His hands were on my shoulders now, fingers digging into my flesh, his eyes screwed up tight as he made a face that expressed both rapture and exquisite pain. “She said that my inability to retain control around you could be dangerous and risky, that you see me as a man, and I must go carefully before you see my true depths. I am trying to do so, little bird, but I begin to think it is impossible. You are too much a part of me now.”

I stopped tormenting his nipple and looked up, rocked to the bottom of my soul with what he had said.

“You’re stopping?” he asked, opening his eyes in surprise.

I put both hands on his cheeks, searching his face for signs of anything that hinted of an untruth. There was nothing, much as I expected. Gabriel might be many things, but he had never lied to me. “Did you mean that?” I asked.

“Mean what?”

“That you can’t control yourself around me because I’m so much a part of you? You meant that?”

He picked me up, carrying me over to the bed, spinning me around so I was astride his thighs as he sat. “I wish it was different. I wish I had the ability to retain my control when I’m with you, but I am obviously lacking in character.”

“Oh, Gabriel,” I said, my heart melting at the look shining from his eyes. “No one has ever said anything so beautiful to me.”

“Beautiful?” His dimples flashed to life for a moment as he shook his head. “I have never met a woman like you, May.”

“A doppelganger, you mean?” I asked, sliding my hands up his arms.

“No. A woman who finds my lack of self-control an attribute rather than a flaw.”

“It means I really matter to you,” I said, kissing the corners of his mouth. “So much so that you can’t stop yourself from showing your inner dragon when we make love.”

“You are my mate, my life. You are bound to me. You do more than matter, little bird—you are my reason for existence.”

“That,” I said, pushing him backwards onto the bed, “is not the least bit true, and we both know it. However, due to the fact that you are the sexiest dragon I’ve ever met, and I’m probably going to expire if you don’t make love to me in the next ten seconds, I’m willing to let it go for now.”

“My mother said,” he started to say, but I kissed him to a stop.

“I love you,” I said, the words tumbling out unexpectedly.

Gabriel’s eyes opened wide. I froze for a second, unsure of what to do or say, but that dilemma ended quickly when he lifted me slightly and shifted me forward, impaling me with a swift upward thrust of his hips. “Foreplay later,” he growled, the cords in his neck standing out as his eyes shut for a moment in ecstasy.