“Are you scared?” I asked him.

The master of lust seemed to have lost his cool because his response was a grunted, “Hm?”

“Been too long?” I cocked my head to the side. “Out of practice?”

He hadn’t been with anyone in eight months. For Kaidan Rowe, that was an eternity.

His eyes got wider than I’d ever seen them, full of indignation, and I felt a rush of mean potency in my blood. Acting as the vixen he often called me, I reached out and pinched his nipple. Hard.

He let out a small holler and grabbed my wrist. With my other hand I tore off his towel. In a movement too quick for me to comprehend, he was on top of me, pinning me to the bed.

“You win,” he ground out, breathing hard.

I wanted to laugh at the thrill of my victory, but his seriousness snuffed that urge. I tried to move my hips up to him, but his body pressed me down. I stroked his cheek, which had grown a five o’clock shadow, and he rested his forehead against mine. I felt his worries creeping in—the deeds of his past haunting him.

“This is right, Kai. We love each other.”

He closed his eyes. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Just love me,” I whispered.

“I need you to know this is different for me. I’ve never felt like this with someone. I don’t just love you, Anna. I adore you.”

I kissed him, and when he pulled away his hair hung around his eyes in sexy strands. I knew from the deep look he gave me that this was about to happen.

“Don’t look away from me, Anna,” he said.

I nodded. Nervous. Excited. “Okay.”

“If you need to stop—”

“Kai. I’m not fragile.”

“Right.”

I watched him swallow, then close his eyes as a shiver ran through his body. When he opened his eyes again, color poured through the air around him—the vivid, hot pink of passionate love.

Kaidan was showing me his colors.

It was my turn to swallow hard as I beheld the special gift he was offering. Under his thick aura of love was a strand of gray worry and even darker self-loathing. I wished I could make those go away, but only he held that power. Still . . .

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered back.

I hitched a leg around him to pull him closer. He shifted above me, his body powerful and graceful. His hips curved toward mine and I moved to meet him, gasping at the contact. I never took my eyes from Kai as we became one.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DANCING WITH LIGHT

My goal had been to stay awake with Kaidan all night, but I must have dozed off because I woke at three a.m. with that eerie feeling of being watched. Moonlight streamed through the curtains, and I found Kaidan sleeping soundly next to me. I looked around the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

It must have been a full moon because the night seemed brighter than normal. There were no streetlights. And then, suddenly, the light shifted and dimmed. Something was out there. My heart raced as I climbed silently from the bed and went to the window.

In the darkness, trailing through trees away from our cabin, was a spirit of light. An angel! Wonderment swirled through me like a windstorm. I didn’t want it to leave. I wanted to know why it’d been at our window and what it wanted—who it was.

I slipped on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and slid my feet into flip-flops. Kaidan didn’t wake up. He must have been really tired, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. Hopefully I could sneak out and make it back without disturbing him. I left our cabin in silence and took off running toward the woods.

The spirit was fast, only a dot of light now. I followed it in the direction of the Grand Canyon. I could see the nearest cabin down the road, but no lights were on. Only a crescent moon and a huge sky full of stars lit my way, so I opened my night vision to get me through the pine trees on the dirt trail. I couldn’t see the angel anymore.

This was really stupid of me. I knew better than to go out in the open at night. As I berated myself, the trees tapered off around me and I stopped and stared.

Whoa.

Fifteen feet away from me was a wooden railing, and then darkness. Nothing. It could have been the edge of the earth. I moved closer and felt a dizzying sense of vertigo until my hands grasped the rail. It was monstrous. Eerily majestic. Scary, even. Deeper and wider than I could comprehend. With my supernatural vision I could just barely make out layers of earth in the canyon walls. I wished Kaidan were at my side to see it.

From the corner of my eye I saw a shooting star. My heart thumped and I stared at the white light as it moved with graceful speed through the sky. Definitely not a star. It seemed to be dancing its way toward me, loving the open space provided by the canyon.

I held my breath as it got nearer, feeling that same awe I’d felt when angels had entered the summit in New York. Such indescribable beauty and peace, like everything was okay, and all of my worries were silly and inconsequential.

As its gossamer form neared, a song blossomed in my mind—a sound more enchanting than children laughing and choirs harmonizing. My heart grew wings.

The angel descended until we were face-to-face and I was overcome with clear, pure emotion. The spirit wore a fine cloth around its body, golden hair long and windswept. I met its perfect, angelic face, and while I didn’t recognize her visually, my heart cried out. . . .

Mother.

Through our telepathic bond I asked, Are you . . . Mariantha?

She smiled. “Yes, my sweet daughter. We finally meet.”