Chapter 10: Bond Heat

I sent them all out and locked the door.

Addie went last, and she squeezed my arm once without saying anything.

Then it was only the two of us, the rain on the roof and the bond pulling so hard in my belly that I had to put a hand on the wall.

Bram lay across the bed with his chest bare and the grey line crawling up toward his heart.

His eyes were open, and unfocused with the fever.

"Lin," he said. "Don't."

"Shut up."

"You don't have to. It isn't a term. It's not what you agreed to."

"I know what I agreed to."

I pulled my nightgown over my head and dropped it on the floor.

His eyes found me and stopped, and the heat that came off him doubled.

I was three months along, with a stomach beginning to curve and breasts that ached all the time.

I had thought I would feel shy.

I felt starved.

I climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips, and the bond screamed in me at the contact.

"Look at me," I said.

He looked.

I put both hands flat on his chest, right over his heart, and pushed him down into the mattress.

"You don't get to decide anything tonight," I said. "Not one thing. You lie there and you take it, and you do not die on me."

His mouth opened.

Nothing came out but a groan.

I bent and kissed him.

It was hard and furious, nothing like the careful kisses we'd had in our first month.

His whole body arched up under me, and his hands came up from the sheets and gripped my hips so hard I knew there'd be marks.

I took them by the wrists and pinned them over his head.

"Mine," I said into his mouth. "You asked for it. You made me stay."

"Yes."

I reached between us and found him.