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He lay there, breathing hard when I didn’t answer.

I honestly didn’t know what to say. I wanted to reassure him.

Some part of me just wanted to give him head.

He winced violently when I thought that.

“Gods… I’m sorry.” I bit my lip. “I want to tell you what you want to hear. I can’t. I just can’t.” I laid a hand tentatively on his chest, rubbing him there gently. “Both of us are in so much pain.” I bit my lip. “Can’t we just––”

“No.” He shook his head.“Gaos.No, Alyson. No. Not after you said that.” He met my gaze, his eyes hard. “I’m not going tofuckyou when you think I want to be with someone else. I’m not going to just pretend you didn’t say that. I can’t.”

I didn’t know how to answer that, either.

I saw separation pain contort his features.

He reached for my arm, then my hand.

I felt him fighting for words.

He closed his eyes, sending to me. Most of it was images.

I saw my face there.

I saw memories with me that couldn’t be memories. Maybe they were memories of fantasies, things he’d created in his mind to get himself off. Feeling me open to his light, he let out a low sound, showing me more. I saw us fucking in that field by the cabin. I saw us at the Forbidden City, fucking in the consort chambers, where I worked for the Lao Hu.

I saw us fucking on the long table in that banquet hall of Ditrini’s and I slapped him, hard on the chest, but he only let out a low groan, pulling me closer.

When I opened to him again, his light spiraled out of control.

I felt him struggle with it, trying to speak.

“Fuck, please talk to me.” He gripped my hand tighter. “Please. Tell me what to do so you won’t leave me again.” He let out a pained gasp. “Gods, Allie, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do fuckinganythingyou want… anything. I won’t get near anyone else. I won’t take my fuckingshoesoff in front of another person again. I’ll do anything you ask, anything… just don’t fucking leave me…”

Anger rippled off my light. He fisted a hand in my hair.

“Gods, Allie. Please.Pleasefucking talk to me.”

I felt a flicker of real memory behind his eyes.

I saw us in front of that fireplace in the Himalayas, and pain caught in my throat. He’d asked me to go down on him. He’d groaned as he asked me, pulled on me, half-demanded it. It wasn’t long after we’d started getting truly weird from the bonding and the sex.

He pulled on me so damned hard.

He told me things, detailed things about what he wanted, how he liked to be sucked, how he wanted me to hold him off. He could feel me getting off on him talking to me, so he said more, got more explicit, more demanding.

When I started, he nearly lost control.

He watched me give him head.

He arranged his body and mine so he could watch, telling me how long he’d fantasized about me doing that to him.

The longer I did it, the more he said. He told me how he’d watched me, how he’d jerked off and watched me fuck other men, how he would try to fuck my light in his dreams, how he’d wake up hard and in pain, how he’d hire prostitutes and fuck them while he read me.

He lost control somewhere in that, maybe for real, maybe for the first time.

He lost control and it remained lost for hours.

“I remember,” I told him.