Demon Moon

and had to let it go. That I’ll never have it again. And it hurt . You must know.” It wasn’t a question.
    “Yes.” Evidence of it filled his studio; she’d see it soon enough.
    “Maybe it’s even worse for you; you had two months.”
    “Perhaps it made it easier.”
    She shrugged. “How does one quantify and compare that kind of loss? It’s impossible. Not worth the attempt.” Absently, she traced a circle on his chest, drew a square over it. “The anxiety attacks have been worse since I came back—the need to run. And running from you was easy, but from that loss?”
    “It’s impossible.” His voice was rough.
    “I try not to think of it, but…” She trailed off with a sigh. “And despite knowing how lucky I am that I went—and that I have this memory to take me back whenever I want—I wish it could fade, too. It’s a blessing and a curse at once.” She met his gaze and cocked her head. “Does that sound whiny? ‘Woe is me, poor little rich girl’?”
    “A bit,” he said, his lips quirking.
    She wrinkled her nose, huffed out a breath. “Yeah. So, anyway, last night when I realized I couldn’t ever forget what you’d do to me, it freaked me out. Because how will anything else compare to it? It can’t; it won’t.”
    His relieved laughter disturbed her balance; she slipped from his side, sat up. “Oh, sweet—I’ll not be sorry for that.”
    She wrapped her arms around her bent knees, stretching the sheet into a tent over her legs. “Not men or sex. You ass. I’m talking about what I feel for you, and that I’ll go into it knowing that I have to leave in a month. That it will be more to me than anything I’ve ever had; but unlike other women you’ve fed from, I’ll never forget it. And that everything I feel in the future will be pale and insipid in comparison. It’ll be like Caelum all over again. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
    It seemed a simple solution to him: Don’t leave . But he couldn’t ask her that, couldn’t ask her for a commitment when he did not know if he could offer anything in return.
    Yet she had made a commitment. Had made this month-long bargain after she’d realized the consequences of it. “You’re afraid, but you’re not running. Is your curiosity so strong?”
    “Yeah. But also because it’s too late; even without your superpowered orgasm, this is already more than anything else I’ve ever had. And I don’t know if I’ll have another chance like this again.”
    “Then why wait until tomorrow?”
    “Because I don’t know how or why Caelum affected us like it did. And I won’t know the reason behind your power, or how it works, or what it will do to me. Or if, even with this memory, it will seem like it isn’t real.” She turned, lay against his chest. “But this , I’m certain of. And when I leave I’ll know that I’m pining over something that genuinely existed between us, instead of…magic. I just want to wait one day, so that I can say for certain: it was just you and me.”
    Nodding tightly in agreement, he drew her mouth down to his. Her eyes closed as he kissed her; the soft clinging of her lips, her breath, wrapped around him and rooted themselves deep. The rough stroke of her tongue across his. The play of her hands over his skin.
    He eased her onto her back; her neck arched, and he licked a trail down her chin, her throat. Her muscles tensed beneath his hands, as if in anticipation of his bite. But he had not finished.
    Allow me to give this to you .
    She moaned as his lips closed over her breast, as he tugged her nipple between his teeth, as he licked and suckled the taut peak. Her fingers threaded into his hair, urged him to its opposite, and he eagerly followed her direction.
    Anything you ask of me .
    “I’m sorry,” she gasped, and sweet, warm flavor flooded into his mouth through her skin. “I forgot.”
    He had, too. Hadn’t cared for his pleasure over hers.
    When had she effected this change in him?
    Standing in the middle of a park, fearless and aroused? Across a restaurant, with her laugh and her playful smile? In a parking lot, her bleeding hand over his mouth? Outside a mirrored room, a kiss from her lips? Holding a sword over a wyrmwolf’s neck, terrified yet determined to see it through?
    Caelum?
    I’ve fallen in love with you .
    Of course he had.
    “Don’t apologize, sweet,” he said against her belly. His tongue flicked into her navel. “It happens to the best of us.”
    With a strangled