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When he kissed me the third time, I coiled my legs around his, curling one tightly around his waist. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clutched his hair and shoulder.

Damn him.

From the first day I’d met him, he’d had this effect on me.

As far as I could tell, that effect was only getting worse.

By then Black was slowing down, taking his time with his tongue and lips as my chest and belly compressed under his weight. It had always been strange to me, how good his weight felt on mine, despite him probably weighing three of me. Right now I couldn’t get enough of any part of Black––his weight, his skin, his mouth, his shape, his fingers, his light.

His light more than any of it.

I felt starved of his damned light, deprived of it even.

To the point where I didn’t really care if we waited or not.

I mean, seriously, who gave a shit?

Black let out a low laugh, ending the kiss.

His voice, even the laugh, shifted downwards, growing deeper and gruffer in that way I’d always liked. His voice dropped into that deeper, heavier tone whenever Black got really turned on. Together with his taut expression, the angle of his jaw, the glassy look in his eyes, it made me care even less about arbitrary rituals and exact times and dates.

We were already married anyway.

Technically.

I slid my hand between his legs, watching his face change as I massaged him again.

“Does it matter to you?” I asked. “Waiting?”

He clicked at me in mock exasperation.

“You reallyareevil,” he grumbled in that deep voice. “I have the plane all ready to go. We’re just waiting for the doc to see you a last time… I’ve already filled out most of the discharge papers, like I said. I’ve done everything but shove shoes on your feet and put you in the raincoat I brought so you don’t show your ass to the world as you leave.”

I laughed. “What’s wrong with my ass? And where are my clothes?”

“Your clothes are trashed,ilya.Burnt and torn and only good for the garbage. Even your shoes. They were scorched and melted on the bottoms. All of that’s long gone. And for your information, it’smyass you’re talking about. That’s what’s wrong with it. And I’m not letting you moon the hospital staff on our wedding day… whether you want to or not.”

I burst out in another laugh.

Mostly, though, I was puzzled.

If he’d done all that already, why were we still here?

“Can’t we call someone in here now?” I poked him in the chest with my finger. “Whatever doc they have on duty can probably discharge us, right? Are they reallythatworried I got a little low on iron? They had me on that IV for over two hours yesterday.” Lowering my voice, I glanced at the door. “And it’s all just a seer thing anyway, right? What was wrong with me? Everything apart from the shrapnel––”

“Yeah,” Black said wryly. “Apart fromthat.”

“I just mean… most of that seer stasis stuff was me repairing my light, right?”

“Correct,” Black said.

“So I should be totally okay to go now, right? I mean,I’mnot the one who got thrown thirty feet through the air,” I reminded him. “It wasn’tmewho got chucked through a burning wall at full speed––”

“You just had part of that wall sticking out of your leg,” Black growled.

I conceded his point with a dismissive wave. “Right, right. But that’s all healed now. They have no reason to keep me.”

Black tugged at my hair where his fingers curled into it.