I jerk harder on the hem of his pants, rubbing against him.

He shudders. A moment later, his pants are gone. Then my underwear, too.

His body is hard, lean, exquisite. My hands explore him while his lips explore me, trailing hot shocks of lightning down my neck, my collarbone, lower. I lurch into him when he kisses the lower swell of my breast again, then drags his tongue upward. I didn’t know I could want him more, but desire explodes through me, creating a hot ache between my legs. His hand is there the next second. Making the ache better or worse? I don’t know.

He murmurs into my ear. Something in Fae. A question. My mind is too filled with him to do anything but nod yes. Yes to everything he wants.

He watches me as he repositions himself, something akin to wonder in his silver eyes. I feel exotic. I feel treasured. Then I feel him sliding into me.

No pain. Just heat and pleasure and Aren. He’s experienced. I’m not, but my body reacts to his movements, matching his thrusts to bring him closer, deeper.

The ache between my legs intensifies, and I’m filled with an indescribable yearning. I wrap my legs around his hips, wanting more even though I can’t possibly take more.

“Sidhe,” Aren gasps, then, a heartbeat later, we both cry out when an incredibly hot and potent chaos luster strikes between our connected bodies.

My eyes spring open. I’m not sure when I closed them but the media room is bright with the lightning flashing across our skin.

Our skin. And, impossibly, it isn’t just his blue edarratae causing the glow. My edarratae, which should only appear when I’m in the Realm, are white-hot and spiraling around us.

And spiraling within us. They’re moving faster and faster, matching the intensity of the pleasure building between my legs. So hot. So heavenly. So much.

I dig my nails into his back. I need to be grounded, or the lightning will shatter me, I’m certain of it.

“Sidhe,” Aren rasps out again. All his muscles are taut. He’s at the edge of his control. I’m so far beyond mine.

The ecstasy builds, current by current, and the frenzied light flashing around our bodies is almost constant. I’m not sure anything but the edarratae’s heat is touching us now. The lightning shoots around us like starlight, lifted inches above our glistening skin.

“Aren,” I gasp. “It’s—”

“Hold on to me.” His voice is strained. He’s moving in and out of me, his pace as frenzied as the lightning’s.

And then it happens. Our chaos lusters solidify into a disc of light that explodes outward when the rush of pleasure hits, and the release, the ecstasy. It’s indescribable.

TWENTY

“I TOLD YOU I was the right thing,” I murmur later when I’m wrapped in Aren’s arms. I love the way his chuckle rumbles against my back.

“You were right, of course.” He presses his lips to the crook of my neck.

I close my eyes and smile, soaking in the warm simmer of his kiss. It took a few rounds, but our chaos lusters have finally settled. We can even touch, lingering in each other’s embraces, without the lightning arousing us too much.

“This is nice,” I say, the biggest understatement of the century. Lying here with him is pure bliss.

I feel him smile against my neck.

I pull the blanket up to my chest, wriggling to get just a tad more comfortable.

“Careful,” Aren says, loosening his arms enough to let me move as much as I want.

“Sorry,” I say, grinning as I turn my head to the side. He places a kiss on my cheek then rests his arm across my stomach, above the blanket. My finger slides over the hard muscle of his forearm, leaving a trail of tiny chaos lusters in its wake. Absently, I draw a random design, loops and lines that fade away after a few seconds.

“I was a fool to think I could stay away from you.” His lips dip to my neck again. This time, he slides them along the raised skin there. It’s an inch-long scar he gave me when we were enemies, and I refused to read the shadows for him in Lyechaban. It’s a small, minor blemish, but I can feel regret in the way his lips linger.

Regret is the last thing I want him to feel right now.

I press the tip of my finger into his forearm twice, then swoop a curved line under the two dots.

“Smiley face,” I say, nodding toward the flickering sparks on his arm. He laughs, squeezing me tighter as the tiny lightning bolts fade.

A few minutes pass. I close my eyes, trying to keep my mind empty. I just want to relax in Aren’s arms. I don’t want to think of anything or anyone else.

“I want to stay here forever,” I murmur.

After a long moment, he replies softly, “Me too.”

I scowl at the unspoken “but” on the end of his sentence. “But we have a false-blood to hunt down,” I say.

Another hesitation as he rests his cheek against mine. “And vigilantes to track down and question. Lena’s going to want to find everyone who knows about the serum. She’s going to want to make sure it’s destroyed and that no one has the ability to replicate it.”

The serum and the research should have been destroyed when we burned down the vigilantes’ compound in Boulder. The lab was there. So was a network of computers. But, apparently, Nakano was smart enough to back up the research and store some of the serum off-site.

I run my hands over my face. A minute ago, I was blissfully relaxed in Aren’s arms, but now, the stress and tension I’ve been living with for the past several months slowly seep back into my body.

“What time is it?” I ask reluctantly.

“A few hours from morning,” he says with a shrug. That was a stupid question to ask him. The days and nights in the Realm and on Earth don’t match up, so he can’t tell me the exact time. Even in the Realm, fae usually speak in terms of hours or half hours before dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight—the real midpoint of the night. Time isn’t as important to them as it is to humans.

“I contacted the vigilantes yesterday around noon,” I say, reaching for the laptop on the table beside the couch. “They might have replied.”

It’s a sign of how tired I am that I don’t realize what I’m doing until I open the laptop and press the power button.

“Torture, nalkin-shom?” Aren asks at the same time that I say, “Shit. Sorry.”

I start to get up, but he laughs and pulls me back against him. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely,” he says. “Nick still has the power off, and you’ve chased away my headache.” He slides his hand, the one that’s under the blanket, over my hip, then down my leg.

“What does it say?” he whispers, letting his lips brush against my ear.

“Mmm.” I move my finger across the laptop’s touch pad, trying to concentrate on what I’m doing, not on what he’s doing. “I, um, need to log in.”

“Okay,” he says, letting his fingers skim lightly up and down my inner thigh.

I manage to get into my e-mail. I read the one new message that downloads to my in-box.

“The seller’s responded already,” I say. “He wants to know how long it will take me to get to Boulder.”

Aren’s hand stops moving. “Boulder, again?”

“Apparently, the vigilantes didn’t flee the city.”