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Her heart was a jarring sort of beat in her chest. She wasn’t sure what he would do—

But he rose. He peeled back her grandmother’s quilt and got to his feet, wearing nothing at all.

Possibly because all of his clothes had been wet, she recalled. And since she couldn’t see them, were very likely hung up in his bathroom. She made a mental note to do laundry, and then almost laughed.

Because here she was thinking about washing clothes while the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on moved toward her in the dimly lit room, that gorgeous cock of his hardening with every step.

By the time he reached her, her mouth was dry. And she wasn’t thinking about anything so prosaic as laundry.

When he was finally standing before her she followed an old, familiar urge and placed her hands on his bare chest. The way she always had. And just like then, they both took in a quick breath, because the touch was like fire.

She looked up at him, searching that beautiful face of his—looking for the man she had loved so wholly and recklessly, she supposed. For the man who had loved her more than anyone else ever had, in all her life.

And in the end, still not enough to prevent all that heartbreak.

Aeryn didn’t want to talk about any of that, not now. She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to stop thinking altogether, as a matter of fact.

She stepped back, holding fast to one of his hands, and then she towed him with her down the hall and into her bedroom.

Where she could admit, at last, that she’d dreamed him all this while. Again and again and again, here in this bedroom where the way they’d loved each other and torn each other up was like a ghost that had never quite let her be.

Inside her room, the fire gleamed in its gas grate. There were lights from outside the windows, hanging high over the street, but they were muted. The bare trees were laden down with snow. Her blinds kept the streetlights to little more than a glow, though she thought they seemed somehow softer than usual, thanks to the weather.

But none of that mattered, because the light that she and Vesuvius gave off was electric.

She turned to face him and took his other hand. Then she led him to the bed, backing up until her bottom hit the high side. She sat, but she kept pulling him close until he stood there between her legs.

He made a low noise, like a growl. “Are you sure?” he asked.

She didn’t want to say a word. She wanted all of this to stay dreamlike, like some kind of spell, but she also wondered if that had been part of the problem before. It was easy to be swept away. It was harder to announce an intention to let herself be swept in any direction at all.

“I’m very sure,” she said, owning it. Owning this.

Aeryn let her hand trail over the wall of his chest, the flat goodness of the muscles there, then down the ridges that made up his abdomen. Where she took her time tracing the line of dark hair that led directly to his proud, huge cock.

She wrapped her hand around him and everything in her seeming to shimmer when, just as she remembered, she couldn’t quite get her fingers around his width—

But his hand shot out to grab her wrist.

Then he was shifting, hauling her up into his arms. He pulled her in the way that always had her wrapping her open legs around him, so she did it now, and then he was taking her mouth like he was laying a claim.

She could feel everything. It was exultant. It was perfection.

It was like coming home.

Aeryn could feel the rough scrape of his beard growing in along his jaw. She could taste him again and again, and deeper, and wilder still.

Then he was tilting her back onto the bed and following her down onto the mattress. His hands slicked up the length of her legs, getting beneath that silk and then stripping it up and away.

He tossed the nightgown aside and then his hands were in her hair again. His mouth plundered hers and she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find her hair uncoiled and all around her as he settled himself there, just beside her, and raked his fingers through the length of it.

And all the while his gaze was moving down the length of her body, as if checking to make sure she was just as he remembered—

She had to remind herself that he couldn’t.

It occurred to her only then that perhaps she should have some kind of vanity here. She should worry that she’d changed—or even if he couldn’t remember how she’d used to look, that childbirth had surely wrecked her.

But she couldn’t get there.