Rio bit her shoulder, a teasing bite he couldn’t help, kissing her skin, the line of her back. Anything he could reach. He wrapped her up in his arms, just held her while he tried to recover his ability to breathe. Every moment that he was with her made him feel more alive. He thought running in the forest was the most freeing feeling, but being with Rachael gave him something else, something he couldn’t quite put a name to, but he never wanted to do without. Slowly, reluctantly, he eased his body from the haven of hers, a wide smile on his face.

Rachael sagged to the floor of the cavern as if her legs simply collapsed. Rio eased her down onto the sleeping bag. To his horror she burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. He stared down at her helplessly, astonished that she would be sobbing as if he’d broken her heart.

“Rachael. Damn it. You didn’t even cry when Fritz nearly tore your leg off. What’s wrong with you?” He sat down beside her and clumsily put his arm around her shaking shoulders. “Tell me.”

It was the first awkward movement Rachael had ever seen him make and it comforted her when she thought there could be no comfort. “I don’t know myself like this. It frightens me, the way I feel for you. The way I think about you. I don’t even know my own body anymore. I like sex, Rio, but I’m not driven by sex. I’m a thinking person. I like to think about things from every angle. When I’m with you, like this, I disappear completely and there’s only how it feels. How you feel.”

He pulled her to him, pillowing her head on his shoulder when she wanted to hold herself stiffly away. “How we feel together, Rachael. It’s being one person, in the same skin, our minds in the same place. It’s how we are together. Why would you be afraid of that?”

“I can’t fall in love with you, Rio, and you can’t love me. If we just wanted to have sex and it was pleasant or even fireworks, it would be fine, but this is different. It’s so much more. It’s like an addiction. Not to the sex, that’s only a small part of it. I feel like I have to be with you. That you’re in some way essential to my life, to my reason for existing.” She shoved her hand through her hair, lifted her head from his shoulder and glared at him. “I wish it was a past life that makes me want you so much, but I can’t even blame it on that. Love shouldn’t be so all-consuming. I’m not an all-consuming person. I’m not.”