Her surrender made his brain haze so badly he thought he felt the earth shake.

He stroked deeper, found her silken and wet and tight.

Sweat beaded on his temples. His hand trembled.

And Payal spread her thighs before gripping his erection to pull him to her. He saw stars. Flipping off her, he brought himself to a seated position against the solid support of the headboard. Payal moved with him, straddled him, her expression dazed.

“This way,” he said, his voice harsh with need. “So I can see your face.”

She touched her fingers to his lips, then looked down between them and positioned herself just right. The first touch of her scalding heat on his cock snapped his spine rigid and made his hands clench on her. He fought to loosen his hold, but Payal murmured that it was okay.

Then his telekinetic lover, movement her gift, undulated her hips as she sank onto him. Canto felt her pleasure in his mind, felt her break even as he broke. They rocked together hard and fast and probably without rhythm.

But it didn’t matter.

What mattered was her desperate kiss. What mattered were his arms wrapped around her. What mattered was the pleasure he felt shake her body before the same wild pleasure erupted in him, shattering him to pieces.

PAYAL lay cradled in Canto’s arms, her inner shields in shards at her feet, and the screaming madness in her oddly quiescent. As if it, too, had been drugged by the pleasure that had turned her body boneless.

She thought about moving, did nothing about it. She just kept her head against Canto’s shoulder, one hand on his chest, the scent of salt and sweat and Canto in her every breath, and wallowed in this moment.

Stirring, he brushed a kiss over her shoulder.

Payal snuggled into him even more. The way he’d touched her … the way he held her … She’d never be the same. If he ever decided against her, it would break a fundamental part of her.

Unable to stop, she reached out to touch their bond.

It was still there, deep in the Substrate, a gossamer thread as strong as steel. It made her happy to touch it, to know that she wasn’t alone as she’d been for so long. It felt even better with Canto wrapped around her.

He nuzzled at her hair, strands of it catching on his stubble. “That’s nice,” he murmured, his voice a lazy lion’s. “Like you’re stroking me.”

Shy, startled, she pulled back her psychic hand … but then because he’d sounded like it was a good thing, she touched the bond again. He made a rumbling sound of contentment in his chest before saying, “I’m sweaty as hell.”

Payal could feel the stickiness between them, the stickiness between her thighs, but she didn’t care. “I don’t want to move.” It’d probably get uncomfortable in a while, but not yet. She wanted to wrap this moment around herself until nothing could take it away, wanted to hoard it deep inside her mind, a secret treasure.

“Me, either.” He yawned. “God, I feel like I could sleep and sleep. As if you’ve wrung a lifetime of tension out of me.”

Her own eyes were heavy. “Hmm.”

She didn’t know which one of them fell asleep first, but when she woke, Canto was flat on his back and she was on top of him. He stirred with her, and when his lashes lifted, she saw galaxies. “I love your eyes,” she whispered. “You carry the universe in them.”

“They’re weird eyes,” he said with a laugh that made lines fan out from the corners of his eyes, then kissed her with an ease and an affection that made her want more and more. “But they meant you knew me when we met again, so they’re my lucky charm.” Another kiss.

Smiling wasn’t an act Payal had ever tried, but she didn’t fight it when the warmth within her wanted to reach her face. “Do you have a bath? I’ve never had a bath.” Showers were far more efficient.

“No,” Canto said. “But let me send you an image.”

A clear pond surrounded by lush green forest shimmered into her mind. “It looks cold.” She shivered.

“Dare you.”

She teleported them both into the water. A shriek was torn out of her at the cold, while Canto said, “Fuck!” Then he dived underneath. When he came back up, he was a sleek seal of a man. Even though he could only use his upper body for floating, he had no trouble, having clearly spent a lot of time in water.

“How often do you come here?” she asked.

“Few times a week. It’s not far from the house.” Then he splashed her.

Crying out at the cold, Payal manipulated the water using her Tk so that it fell on him in gentle waves. He grinned and began to “chase” her around the pond. It was silly and fun and it was a wonderful coda to the most pleasurable experience of her life … even though her mind was already going sideways, her thoughts skittering out of her control.

She barely got them home, her ability to maintain a teleport lock erratic as her concentration fractured. “I can’t think.” Wrapped in a large towel, she walked jaggedly back and forth across the bedroom floor. “Broken things inside my head.” She held the sides of that head. “The screaming part is awake.” A whimper escaped her control. “Mad. Mad. Mad.”

Canto was already in his chair, having pulled on a pair of sweatpants in the interim. Intercepting her, he gripped her hips and said, “Focus on the calming exercise the empath taught you.”

“I can’t remember!” It came out a scream, panic jabbering inside her. “I’m mad! I’m mad! I’m mad!” A singsong litany. “Insane murderous Payal who stabs people and isn’t sorry. Mad. Mad. Mad.”

Hauling her down into his lap, he crushed her in his arms. “Shh. You’re safe. And you’re not mad. You just have to learn to deal with a kind of mental paralysis, as I had to do with my legs.”

Payal clung to that imagery with feral claws. “You’ve adapted.”

“Using tools. Remember?” He continued to squeeze her close, as if aware that being contained this way by him, warm and safe, helped her find coherence. “You need the help of the framework your E has started to teach you. Reach for it.”

Wet heat in her eyes. “I can’t. It’s lost in the chaos.” Pieces of a thousand memories and thoughts floated in her mind.

“Hold on to our bond.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “Use it, use me, as you made me use you to handle my pain.”