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Saving, that’s a big word coming from him, the man who is impervious to death and who believes he is too powerful to need rescuing—or at least he used to believe that. I don’t know when things shifted in his mind, only that they have.

“Tell me, dear Sara,” he continues, “how might I repay you?”

I shake my head, staring up at him. “That’s not something you ever need to repay me for. I didn’t do it to make you owe me. I did it because I care about you.”

His eyes find mine, soft and bright and burning with so much …love.

Or am I imagining this too? All I know is that the look is too tender to be lust and too passionate to be kindness or compassion.

No, my eyes aren’t deceiving me. Now and only now am I seeing his feelings for what they truly are.

Love.

I have bound this man to me. I’ve cultivated a very human appetite in him, and this is the result. Love.

I should be frightened at the thought, but a strange sort of thrill rushes through me.

This time, it’s Pestilence that takes the lead. His hands rove over me, tossing away my blood-soaked clothes one piece at a time, his touch strong and sure.

My passion rises; along with it is this deliciousuncertainty—like the horseman knows forbidden things that I don’t, and tonight he’s going to introduce them to me.

I think Pestilence means to move slow—I know I do—but in the end our movements are hurried. The last of our clothes come off, and then it’s just leagues and leagues of glorious skin.

His tanned arms bulge as he dips lower and lower down my torso, kissing a trail down my body. He pauses when he gets to my core, staring at it for a long second. Then he kisses that too.

Involuntarily, my hips rise off the bed.

Whoa.

Pestilence spreads my legs wide, giving himself an unobstructed view of me. He drinks the sight in before moving back up my body settling his hips between my thighs.

I feel him thick against me, his cock pressed against my entrance. Without warning, Pestilence drives himself inside. I nearly moan as he fills me, coating himself in my wetness.

“I missed this,” he says as he pulls out. He thrusts into me hard again, his movements deep and demanding.

I run my hands up his back, drawing out goosebumps along his flesh. “Me too.”

Now that he’s this close to me, this alive, I finally,finallyam able to banish the last thoughts of this morning to the hinterlands of my mind.

Pestilence cups my face. “This isnotfucking.”

He choosesnowto make his point?

He stares at me as he works my core, and I realize he expects an answer.

Can’t remember my own damn name at this point.

“Mmm,” I say. That’s noncommittal enough.

His hips piston in and out, in and out.

“This is love-making,” he states—no,demands.

He’s really latched onto that term with gusto.

“Tell me your thoughts,” he all but orders. “I need to hear them.”

How can he eventhinkright now? But one look in his eyes has me sobering up real quick. This is important to him.