“Once again, I have you to thank for protecting me—saving me,” he says against my skin.

Saving, that’s a big word coming from him, the man who is impervious to death and who believes he is too powerful to need rescuing—or at least he used to believe that. I don’t know when things shifted in his mind, only that they have.

“Tell me, dear Sara,” he continues, “how might I repay you?”

I shake my head, staring up at him. “That’s not something you ever need to repay me for. I didn’t do it to make you owe me. I did it because I care about you.”

His eyes find mine, soft and bright and burning with so much … love.

Or am I imagining this too? All I know is that the look is too tender to be lust and too passionate to be kindness or compassion.

No, my eyes aren’t deceiving me. Now and only now am I seeing his feelings for what they truly are.

Love.

I have bound this man to me. I’ve cultivated a very human appetite in him, and this is the result. Love.

I should be frightened at the thought, but a strange sort of thrill rushes through me.

This time, it’s Pestilence that takes the lead. His hands rove over me, tossing away my blood-soaked clothes one piece at a time, his touch strong and sure.

My passion rises; along with it is this delicious uncertainty—like the horseman knows forbidden things that I don’t, and tonight he’s going to introduce them to me.

I think Pestilence means to move slow—I know I do—but in the end our movements are hurried. The last of our clothes come off, and then it’s just leagues and leagues of glorious skin.

His tanned arms bulge as he dips lower and lower down my torso, kissing a trail down my body. He pauses when he gets to my core, staring at it for a long second. Then he kisses that too.

Involuntarily, my hips rise off the bed.

Whoa.

Pestilence spreads my legs wide, giving himself an unobstructed view of me. He drinks the sight in before moving back up my body settling his hips between my thighs.

I feel him thick against me, his cock pressed against my entrance. Without warning, Pestilence drives himself inside. I nearly moan as he fills me, coating himself in my wetness.

“I missed this,” he says as he pulls out. He thrusts into me hard again, his movements deep and demanding.

I run my hands up his back, drawing out goosebumps along his flesh. “Me too.”

Now that he’s this close to me, this alive, I finally, finally am able to banish the last thoughts of this morning to the hinterlands of my mind.

Pestilence cups my face. “This is not fucking.”

He chooses now to make his point?

He stares at me as he works my core, and I realize he expects an answer.

Can’t remember my own damn name at this point.

“Mmm,” I say. That’s noncommittal enough.

His hips piston in and out, in and out.

“This is love-making,” he states—no, demands.

He’s really latched onto that term with gusto.

“Tell me your thoughts,” he all but orders. “I need to hear them.”

How can he even think right now? But one look in his eyes has me sobering up real quick. This is important to him.

“This isn’t fucking,” I agree, and I mean it. There’s far too much emotional subtext here between us. Each rushed touch is filled with longing, with lov—

“It’s love-making,” Pestilence agrees, like the two of us are on the same page.

I shake my head. Am I in denial? No? Yes?

“Love-making is slower, more reverent …” That’s all I’ve got.

The horseman’s brows furrow and his pace—damnit—his pace slows. But his thrusts deepen, his cock thick and throbbing inside me, and he unshutters his gaze so that everything he feels is right there staring down at me. He’s gazing me as though I’m beloved.

His thumb brushes my cheekbone. “Like this?” he asks as he pumps slowly in and out of me.

“Yeah,” I say, unnerved as hell because the full-force of that adoring gaze is staggering, “just like this.”

His eyes dip to my lips, even as he moves deep inside me. “And if I kiss you, will I still be making love to you?”

I nearly forget to breathe. “It’s all about your intent.”

His mouth follows his gaze until I feel the sweet brush of his lips against mine. The very sweep of them as they pass over my mouth seems tender, loving. And when he coaxes my lips open and our tongues touch, that too seems to be done as though he reveres even the very taste of me.

He pulls away. “Was my intent clear?”

“Very.”

Pestilence goes slow and deep for a while, but then, perhaps in response to my own feverish need for more of him, he begins to speed up, his thrusts becoming fast and rough.

“Want to keep making love to you, but I cannot resist this need—”

“Then don’t.”

My words are permission enough. He takes my mouth again, and this time his kiss is savage. His pace doubles on itself, as though he can’t help but move deeper, faster, until the headboard is rocking against the wall.

I twine my legs around his, needing him to touch as much of me as possible.

Each stroke makes me burn hotter and brighter. It’s like I unleashed a storm. I guess that’s what you get when you fit a force of nature into the body of a man.

His eyes lock with mine. The moment stretches on and on. Something passes between us, something I won’t put a name to, but something that comes from me every bit as much as it comes from him.

Something that worries me deeply.

I hold on until I can no longer, but that look. I’m powerless against it.

With a cry, I come, sensation lashing through me as I call out his name. He bellows as I tighten around him, his own climax riding on mine. Pestilence grips my hands in his, pinning them to the bed as his harsh final thrusts batter against me.

And then the moment’s over.

Pestilence gathers me to him, and even after he’s no longer inside me, he still seems keen to keep me close.

His lips brush my forehead. “I like making love to you, Sara Burns.”

My stomach somersaults.

“I think it might be my new favorite thing in the world, next to this.” His hold briefly tightens.

I run my hand over his chest and down his abs, smiling softly. “You prefer this to my mad conversation skills?” I tease.

“Ask me again tomorrow when we’re in the saddle,” he says, grinning. “I’m sure my answer will change.”

That smile! The sight of it causes my breath to hitch.

“You’re just saying that to get on my good side.”

“Sara, you only have good sides. I’m saying this because each moment with you is my new favorite.”

You’d think I’d start to get used to his flattery, but like always, Pestilence’s words have a way of overwhelming me.

The two of us are quiet for a while, and I’m blissfully happy simply laying against him, enjoying how his hand lazily strokes my back.

But the longer I lay there, the more worrisome my thoughts become. This morning bubbles back up, even more gruesome now that Pestilence is in my arms and I can feel the weight of my emotions pressing in from all sides.

These attacks will keep happening. I know it as certainly as I’m sure Pestilence does. I’m not sure why this is some sobering revelation now. I was, after all, one of those people who tried to take him out. Of course it’s going to keep happening.