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“Summer’s heat can burn the flesh of winter’s fiercest warrior.”

An Unseelie Fable, Author Unknown

M y body is thoroughly wrung out and yet sleep eludes me.

How can I rest when Ever’s bare skin is molded to mine, his arm tucked beneath my neck as the most perfect pillow? He traces one of the more amorous marks left by his teeth at the swell of my hip as I run my fingers up and down the ridges of his abdomen.

“If you leave these much longer, they will scar,” he says quietly, his words drifting into the curtain of night falling around us.

“At least when I look at them, they make me happy.” Blissfully so. Unlike the mottled skin covering my legs. Thank heavens the sheets are keeping them out of sight.

“I wish you would let me heal you.”

And waste all his water from the well on me? I don’t think so. If we are to live together on this side of The Divide, then we must be frugal with what little resources we have. “I wish to wear your marks for everyone to see.” For this world to know who I’ve chosen for myself.

“Do you plan on walking around without clothes, then?” he murmurs against my ear, cupping my breast and skimming his thumb over the mark alongside my nipple.

My back arches, pushing myself further into his grasp. “Would you like that?”

“Mmmm…” He replaces his hand with his mouth, his tongue dancing across the stiff peak. “Although if any wayward hunter were to stumble upon you, I would be forced to kill him, so perhaps you should wear clothes.”

Wearing clothes is the last thing on my mind as a familiar ache gathers between my thighs. Surely it is too soon for a repeat of our lovemaking. We’ve only been laying here for half an hour.

Ever’s erection nudges against my hip. Or… maybe I am wrong. I slide my hand under the sheet, finding the heat of his stiffness. When my fingers clasp around his rigid length, his breath hisses against my cheek.

“Is it too soon?” I whisper as he presses closer, the weight of his body falling over mine as he uses his knee to separate my thighs.

His rasped, “Never,” breaks as I guide him home.

I expected some soreness, but not the utter euphoria of his body once again moving inside mine. Unlike the frenzy of our first coming together, this time his hips work in slow tandem with mine, the ebb and flow of a pleasure-fueled tide. Rolling and rocking until our panting breaths grow labored. Stilted. Overcome with the sheer bliss of release. I’m entirely boneless by the time Ever drops to the mattress beside me, his face painted in shadows and satisfaction, no doubt the mirror of my own.

If this is what eternity with Ever looks like, I just might be the luckiest woman alive.