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I barely had a moment to recognize Aire until he’d backed me into the dresser. I wasted no time giving myself to him, never tiring of his taste.

Drowsy dawn light poured through the glass panes. We hadn’t spent the night together because he’d been sequestered with Nicu, our friend needing another male ear, someone to talk to. On and off, he’d been sullen ever since punching Lyrik.

“I’ve missed you,” Aire sighed.

“It’s been eight hours,” I pointed out, chuckling.

His head dipped down my throat, planting kisses there. “An eternity.”

I hopped onto the dresser, placed his palms on my knees, and used them to spread me. He made a noise of shock, which I quelled with my mouth, my skirts bunching around my hips.

“The door is open,” he mumbled.

“That’s okay,” I cooed. “We can be quiet.”

Lyrik was on his side of the colony, tinkering in his potion room. Nicu was with Punk on some random terrace, dreaming at the sky and making music in his head.

Holding my gaze, Aire reached into the skirt. A long, slow tear peeled through the room, from where he pried open my drawers. I ached, wanting him there.

He backed up, getting an eyeful. “Open yourself wider for me.”

Damn, when a sweet one like him cranked up his wicked side. I listened to nobody, obeyed nobody. But I wanted nothing more than to follow his orders.

He watched my knees part and said, “Wider, still.”

I gave him what he wanted. For a while, he just stared at me. “What does it feel like for you? To have me in your woodskin?”

“Like the reverse, I think. Like you’re soft and I’m hard.”

He unbuckled his leather pants while returning to me, gliding between my thighs. His arm slung around my waist, jerking me into him and making the furniture rattle. “I want to go deep,” he intoned, positioning himself. “May I?”

“You’ve already gone as deep as you can.”

He thrust, his beautiful body spearing into mine. On a gasp, my head snapped back.

“We’ll see about that,” he vowed.

The dresser shook, punting the wall as we lost ourselves. My legs flanked his waist, my teeth sinking into his shoulder to quash the moans. I narrowed to that one spot where Aire’s hips flew into me.

The whole time, we were quiet. So very fucking quiet.

Although the day rose before us, we lay in a heap afterward, making a nest of clothes and pillows in front of the blazing hearth. By then, Aire had shut the door and we’d stripped, if only to investigate one another.

Me, listing the different woods of my skin.

Him, exhibiting his scars at my request, telling me the weapons that made each one, knowing that’s what I wanted to learn. The slice along his waist. The cuts across his shoulder. The puncture in his bicep.

“What made this one?” I asked, propping myself up on an elbow and mapping out his pec, where a red slash carved through his skin.

“Murderers,” he said, the reply cleaving into a memory.

I would have asked for more, but he traced my chest, outlining my acorn encasement. “What does it look like?”

Behind the closure, the acorn twitched from his touch. “Small,” I answered. “A small heart.”

“A fragile heart,” he translated.

“A hard heart,” I countered.