Lover Beware

down. She stepped out of them and would have turned around, but he clasped her to him, her back to his front, and carefully unbuttoned her top. Undid the catch on her bra, and removed it. And eased her panties down.
    Then she turned and reached for his belt buckle. Her hands weren’t steady. Neither was his breathing. The heat in his eyes made her fingers fumble, because she couldn’t look away.
    When he was as naked as she was, he said, “I don’t think I can go slow. I want to. I want to spend hours on your body, but I can’t. Not this time.”
    “Thank God.” And she looped her arms around his neck, bringing their bodies together. They touched, skin to skin, and the world changed.
    He lifted her, tumbling her onto the bed and following her down. She wrapped herself around him, trying to touch all of him at once while he tried to kiss her everywhere. His hand snaked down between her legs, where he stroked the slick folds. Her stomach went hollow. The muscles at the tops of her thighs clenched and quivered, a kinetic percussion with her heart pounding out the accompaniment.
    She dug her fingers into his waist. Hurry . He slid up her body. Instinctively, her legs opened and the head of his penis teased her inner folds…the soft, silky, bare head of his penis.
    “Wait,” she gasped. “I’m on the pill, but—”
    “Are you?” He had a funny look on his face, his eyebrows all awry and his mouth pressed down. His arms quivered with strain, but he bent and kissed her gently. “You can’t catch anything from me, or vice versa. Bugs don’t stick around in my system.”
    In spite of everything, indignation pricked her. “Does that mean you’ve never even had a cold?”
    His lips twitched. A drop of sweat drifted down the side of his face. “Afraid so. Lily… now?”
    He needed her. As any man needs a woman—in a purely human way—he needed her. Something softened and opened inside her, and she answered without words, cupping his face in her hands and lifting up gently with her hips. He pushed inside.
    Full. Throbbing. Complete. Sensation pinwheeled through her, a thousand little sparks like colors spun into feeling. Her eyes squeezed closed, and the colors were there in the darkness with her.
    “Ahh,” he said. “Ah, Lily.” And he stroked her face with his hand while he stroked her, deep inside, with his cock. “Look at me, Lily. Look at me while I’m inside you.”
    She opened her eyes and his were right there above her, waiting to catch her as she emerged from her private darkness. His pupils were huge. Growing. Darkness bled through his irises and beyond, pooling where white should be, a black, alien rainbow overtaking the colors she knew.
    The shock of fear hit instantly, an electric tremor. But it was too late to pull back, too late to reserve any portion of herself—he was already inside her, deep inside in a way beyond the physical. Fear was only another sensation, giving claws to the need in her belly.
    “Now,” she panted, digging her fingers into his buttocks. “Now, Rule.”
    He shuddered. As if some inner chain had snapped, he dug his hands into her buttocks, lifting her, putting her where he needed so he could pound into her. She cried out. Need surged—his, hers, the two swirled together in complex patterns disturbing the lines that were supposed to divide them.
    Fingers gripped, bruised. Flesh smacked into flesh as sweat dripped, running over heated bodies as the great, greedy beast of passion took them both by the throat, shook them—then flung them out into a clear, crisp darkness.
     
    “SOMEDAY I WANT to see you in colors. Green, maybe.” Lily’s head was pillowed on Rule’s chest. It was damp and warm, stirring slightly with his breath. The aftershocks had faded into drowsy bliss. Later, she knew, she would question, wonder, try to understand. That business with his eyes…but not now. Not yet.
    He opened his eyes. “I must have done something wrong. You have enough breath left to talk.”
    Her laugh was husky and delighted. “Blue. You’d look good in blue.”
    He ran a hand over her hair. His voice was quiet, almost sad. “I wear colors sometimes at Clanhome. Tomorrow I’ll wear blue for you.”
    Reality seeped back in, about as welcome as a cold trickle of rain leaking beneath a raincoat collar. And just as impossible to ignore. She propped herself up on one elbow. “You never did tell me why you had to see me so urgently, did you? It’s because you’re