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Grabbing her hips, he maneuvered her into position with her full cooperation. The second she let go of his erection, he pulled her onto him in a single hard push. Only when she released a grunt of air did his brain clear. “Did I hurt you?” If he’d hurt this soft, generous, astonishing woman—

“No, but I’m sure I can feel you in my throat,” she said, scraping her talons down his chest. “Now it’s my turn to run this show.”

Wet, tight, and in control, Dahlia rode him with a primal confidence that hypnotized him even as his body broke into every component cell. As if he was changeling and could open his eyes and re-form into a body and mind that weren’t in the process of a final disintegration.

He felt the foundations of his shields begin to crumble one by one and couldn’t find it in himself to care even a tiny bit.

He was a being of pure need and pleasure for the first time in his entire life, and he wanted to live in this moment forever.

Holding on to Dahlia’s hips, he moved with her even as his mind collapsed, the pleasure racing through his nerve endings a sweet, hot fire.

···

Dahlia went off like a rocket, Bram’s hands clenched so tight around her hips that he’d probably leave bruises. Fair enough as far as she was concerned—she’d certainly scratched up his chest and back.

Damn, but it had been a long time since she’d been with a man who’d not only handled her strength and desire to share control—but reveled in it.

The back-and-forth, the demands on both sides, the erotic release that made her bones ache, she hadn’t experienced that for years, perhaps not since she was a young falcon who played only among her own kind.

Certainly not with the Dickwad, as Maraea had named Dahlia’s ex.

Her thighs quivered as the orgasm faded to a dull throbbing, her chest heaving. Her body wanted nothing more than to collapse onto Bram’s chest and have him stroke her back and hair…but that was for lovers or friends who were offering each other the comfort of skin privileges.

Not for a random hookup with a man she barely knew.

Managing to extricate herself from him with some semblance of control even when her body was just going “wow” over and over again, she stood, uncaring of her nakedness…

or perhaps not. Because even as he pulled on his pants, his eyes never left her face and body, and her body wasn’t against the looking.

Neither was his, from what was going on in the pants he’d just zipped up.

“You planning to return to Raintree?” she said, because why not have a Psy playmate if he was amenable to the idea? “Or are you based within a gyrfalcon’s flight range? My wings can carry me long distances.”

When Bram didn’t immediately reply, she narrowed her eyes.

She wasn’t into games when it came to communication.

Never had been. And why would he start that shit now, when it was clear he couldn’t keep his hands off her?

About to blast him for suddenly acting coy, she snapped to attention when he stumbled over nothing.

The man hadn’t stumbled even when he’d carried her across the forest floor. Her focus shifted with force. “Bram? What’s wrong?”

He looked at her with the softest eyes she’d ever seen on a man—and would’ve never expected to see on this man.

“Thank you.” Hand braced on the nearest tree, he kind of just folded down into a seated stance against the tree with his legs out in front of him and his bare chest yet gleaming with sweat.

Heart kicking, and mind blaring a reminder of what was going on with Eleri, she crouched beside him. “Get up,” she ordered. “You have to drive home.”

That same oddly tender look. “You are the softest, most beautiful being I’ve ever met.”

The stark sincerity of the words, the way he said them, it healed something broken inside her, but she didn’t have time to think about that.

Panic was starting to stutter inside her because obsidian had begun to crawl in from the corners of his eyes, a creeping tide across the pale ice blue.

“Are you delirious? Do you need me to slap you?”

“My shields are in the process of a final disintegration.” He looked away from her for a moment to take in the forest. “I never thought I’d end it in a place like this, after an experience like the one we just shared, but—”

“No, no, no .” Dahlia got up and grabbed his shirt, tugging it on and buttoning it haphazardly in a couple of places.

Air whistled into her back through the slashes she’d made in the fine cotton.

“Get up. Get up right now!” She grabbed his shoulders, but the man was a boulder. “You get up, Bram! I am not living with a reputation as the woman who fucked a Psy to death!”

His lips curved, but his eyes were heavy-lidded.

“You aren’t helping if you give up and die,” she said, forcing aside her panic to make her tone harsh. “You promised her, didn’t you? That you’d do everything possible!” She had no idea what he’d said to Eleri, but it seemed the kind of thing a man like Bram would say.

He struggled to open his eyes. “I’m so tired, Dahlia.” The words were so stark, so stripped of any artifice, that they shook her. “I want to go.”

“Tough luck,” she managed to get out past the lump in her throat. “You don’t get to give up while Eleri is still dying.” This time when she hauled on his shoulders, he helped her and managed to get onto his knees.

So, guilt worked to motivate Bram. Good to know.

Because Dahlia wasn’t about to let him die in the forest. The way he’d said it— I’d end it —meant he had a conscious way to end his life. A poison pill? Or since he was Psy, maybe it was a psychic poison pill?

Not that it mattered.

Pulling one of his arms around her shoulders, she set her legs and hauled .

He was heavy, but not as heavy as a changeling—Psy bones were built different—and Dahlia had always been strong.

Which meant that with his help, she got him up.

It sounded an involuntary grunt from her, but she wasn’t here to look like a princess.

Getting him to the car took far too long, but she finally managed to belt him up in the passenger seat. She didn’t even notice the grit of the road under her bare feet as she ran around to the driver’s side and jumped in. “Stay awake, big guy, and program me into your vehicle.”

He did so with voice commands, his voice clearer than before. “If I’m big guy, are you little woman?”

Dahlia shot him a glance that should’ve incinerated him on the spot except he was looking at her with that softness again that was doing really weird things to her. “Don’t even try it.”

Then she started driving hell-for-leather.