“I almost forgot. It’s our anniversary.”

“What?” I asked, bolting upright. “We’ve been married a year already?”

“Not that anniversary.”

“Oh, whew. So, on this day however many years ago we … kissed for the first time?”

“Nope,” he said with a smirk, opening the bottle with a loud pop.

“We … celebrated the first spine you’d severed in my defense?”

“Nuh-uh.” The bed dipped with his weight as he eased back onto it, turned me over, and poured champagne in the small of my back.

The icy liquid stole my breath and sent a shock wave rocketing through my system. I squealed and buried my face. “Cold. Really cold.”

But his tongue was already on my skin, warming me as he drank the sparkling wine. Then he poured it between my shoulder blades, and it ran straight down to pool in the small of my back again. I shivered and then sighed as his mouth lapped it up.

“The first time we drank champagne together?” I asked.

“No,” he said, concentrating.

“The first time we landed on the moon?”

“Nuh-uh.” He nipped as he drank, causing spasms of pure delight.

“Wait, is it my birthday?”

“No.”

“Is it your birthday?”

“No,” he said with a soft chuckle.

“Oh, thank God. Can I have a drink?”

“I think you’ve had enough to drink for one night.”

I turned over, but he only continued the assault there. Pouring. Kissing. Lapping. Nipping. I grabbed a handful of hair when he dipped between my legs.

“The first time we had oral sex?” I guessed.

He shook his head as his tongue feathered across my clitoris. I sucked air in through my teeth as he deftly brought me to the brink of orgasm and then stopped. When he rose up, I whimpered in protest. He ignored me and took a drink from the bottle but didn’t swallow. Then he started at my mouth, filling it with the bubbly wine, dripping it over my lips and down my neck. He took another mouthful and suckled a breast, the cold liquid hardening my nipples on contact. Then he gave the same rapt attention to its twin.

I squirmed under his ministrations. His mouth was blisteringly hot compared to the chilled champagne, and the contrast was almost painful. I gasped with each kiss. Clenched with each suckle.

He bathed my entire body. My stomach. My hips. My legs. My ankles. My insteps, which caused way more pleasure than I could’ve imagined. Then he made his way back up to the apex between my lower extremities.

His dark hair fell over his forehead and became entangled with his lashes. His sculpted jaw worked with each kiss. His full mouth firm but smooth. I could’ve watched him forever, he was so beautiful. So darkly handsome. And so clueless about it all, which made him all the sexier.

Then he dipped south with a mouthful of the good stuff, and I almost bucked off the mattress. He let the liquid slip from his lips and run between the sensitive folds of my cunt before he lapped it up in a hypnotic rhythm, coaxing the flames in rapturous delight. Tiny bites of pleasure quaked between my legs and pooled in my abdomen.

I curled my toes in the air and my fists into the sheets as he dropped the bottle, spread my legs, and entered me in one seamless thrust.

Wrapping me into his arms, he pulled me up until we were both upright. I thrust my fingers into his hair and started to rock, wanting that sweet sting to wash over me again, but he surprised me for a second time that night. He held me close, looked into my eyes, and let the darkness envelop him.

He shifted, and I followed.

Suddenly, we were making love amid a mosaic of colors and winds and lightning. My hair whipped around us as the heat from the otherworld scalded the skin along my spine. Then I realized it wasn’t the wind, but Reyes. His heat had multiplied. His hands burning and scorching and causing the most delicious spasms to rocket through me.

He gripped my shoulders and pulled me harder onto his cock. I cried out but could barely be heard over the storms raging around us. Still, I wanted more. So very much more. I rose onto my toes and began riding him. He cupped my ass and helped me, lifting me off him to the very tip and then plunging me back down.

Arousal flared to life, hot and thick and full of need. Distant, yet rocketing closer. He drove it forward, the sting of orgasm, with each thrust of his hips. The length of his cock massaged me from the inside, milked me until the sensation grew to nuclear levels.

I clutched at his shoulders and cradled his neck as he took me into a vise grip and pumped into me.

“Rey’aziel,” I whispered, and he growled and ground into me harder.

Until there was no more resistance. Until it surfaced and burst and spilled into every molecule in my body, flooding me with a sensual pleasure like nothing else on this plane or the next.

Reyes tensed as he came, too. Growled and shuddered as he held on to me for dear life. Pushing out the last remnants of desire. And then we were back in bed. Panting, we collapsed onto the mattress.

After a long moment to collect myself, I looked over at him. “So, what anniversary was it?”

He sobered and seemed to withdraw inside himself. He threw an arm over his eyes and then, almost inaudibly, said, “The night you saved me.”

I stilled. Studied his profile. Basked in the beauty of it. “I wasn’t aware that I had.”

A sad smile slid across his face. “Now you know.”

“And what night was that?”

His jaw muscle jumped in reflex. “You have to ask?”

I didn’t. I really didn’t. Only one night would bring him such sadness. Such regret. The night I lobbed a brick through a plate glass window to stop a man from beating a teenaged boy.

“Well, good,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t want to talk about it at length. Surprised he would even bring it up. “I was worried it was the night I lost my virginity.”

“January twenty-seventh. You were fifteen.”

I bolted upright. “What? How could you possibly know when I lost my virginity?”

When I pinched him, he laughed soflty and pretended to be in pain. We both knew better.

“I felt it,” he said at last. “I felt something wrong, so I went to you. I’d only just realized you were real. And I thought you were in trouble.”

“Trouble?” I asked, thinking back. Freddie hadn’t forced himself on me in the least. If it was anyone’s idea, it’d been mine. But still, truth be told … “Yeah, I think Freddie had a lot more fun that night than I did.”