He nodded. “Yes. And so are you.”

She turned back to the mirror. “I am lost. I thought . . . I would be free, but I am lost.”

“I know and I’m so sorry. I’ve been where you are and it sucks.”

“Tell me.”

“I, ah, I . . . can’t.” He was not going to lose it in front of her. And somehow, talking about the lab was going to make him feel more naked than if he actually were naked. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Elyn drew in a deep breath. Then she reached across the space between them and took his hand. As she closed her eyes, he couldn’t believe she was touching him—

The bolt of electricity flashed through his body, and in the aftermath, he was immobile and totally numb, yet still standing. Then came the fluttering. At first, he thought it was something physical, but then he realized what was happening was in his brain. It was as if his thoughts were being shuffled, a deck of cards.

And then Elyn gasped.

In the midst of his strange fugue state, Nate focused on her eyes as they widened and the color drained out of her face. Tears formed and fell onto her cheeks, flowing down and dropping off the sides of her jaw. The shaking came after that, her mouth parting with the lower lip starting to tremble. With her free hand, she covered her—

Elyn dropped her hold on him and took a stumbling step back, her hip banging into the sink.

As the numb feeling drained out of Nate’s feet, sure as if it were a tangible level of some kind of liquid, he was aware of a great shame flooding into his void.

It turned out that however painful the lab had been, having Elyn horrified by him was a worse agony.

Clearing his throat, he focused on the boxes out in her room. “Well, I’ll just get started on these.”

Turning away from her, he—

Elyn jumped in front and embraced him so hard, he had no breath in his lungs.

“Oh . . . Nate,” she said in a voice that cracked. “Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe. What they did to you. To your mahmen. They hurt you.”

Nate was so shocked by the contact, by her scent, by her . . . everything . . . that the content of her words didn’t register. But then he caught up with everything.

Her hands were smoothing over his back. “I am so sorry.”

Nate wanted to hold her back. So he did—but things went further than he intended. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, opened up the internal lockbox he kept his horrible memories in . . . and went into his pain.

It had been a while since he had done that, the rhythm of his nights and days, the normalcy of life with Sarah and Murhder, obscuring his past—and thank fuck for it. Yet Elyn called that which he staunchly ignored to the forefront.

And somehow, though it was agony, her sympathy eased him in ways no amount of therapy with Mrs. Mary had.

Down on the first floor, people kept talking, and laughing, and making cookies.

Up in Elyn’s bathroom, the world stopped as two broken people became whole again. Through the magic of not being alone.

Sahvage put his shirt on the sink counter and focused on Mae. She was standing on the far side of the kitchen table, one hand gripping the gun he’d gotten for her, the other floating in the breeze like it was looking for something to do.

And what do you know, he had some suggestions for that—and she was clearly open to them: Her delicious scent gave her away. Her eyes, as they traveled down his bare chest, gave her away. The way she breathed . . . gave her away.

“Tell me, what do you want to see, Mae?”

Please God, let Tallah sleep for another hour, he thought. Two. Eight. Because the way Mae was staring at him? They had things to do together that did not need an audience or any kind of interruption.

“What do you want, Mae.” No question this time. “Do you want me to close this door?”

She answered that one without touching anything or moving. The wooden panel that separated them, the one that offered only a seam of sight for her, moved so that it opened more. So that she could see him properly.

All of him.

Sahvage certainly hadn’t willed the change of its position, and there sure as shit weren’t any drafts that could have done that.

So she had. Because what he wanted to show her was what she wanted to lay her eyes on.

And far be it for him to disappoint a female of worth.

His hands went to his belt, and he pulled the leather strap free of its buckle and tongue. Then he popped the button and waited with the zipper.

Mae’s chest was rising faster and faster, and her eyes were locked on what he was doing. And the scent of her arousal was getting thicker.

Which made him want to go slow as molasses—so this on-theverge, which was both torture and pleasure, would last forever.

“Is this what you want?” he asked in a growl.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Well, wasn’t that the right answer.

Sahvage lowered the zipper—and his erection took it from there, bursting free of the lock-and-key it had been straining against, the thick arousal jutting straight out from his hips. As he let his pants go, they dropped to his feet.

She bit her lower lip and moaned. But she didn’t come over.

And that was hot.

“Do you want me to touch it?” he said in a low voice.

When she nodded, he took his hand and wrapped his palm around his shaft. He groaned—he couldn’t help it. He wanted it to be her doing the grip, and he wanted to be kissing her while she stroked him—and that was why this got to him so much. As he rode himself up and down, while watching her watch him, his mind spun with what it was going to be like when it was her. When Mae’s hand was on him. When she was making him come—

Fucking hot as fuck.

And she must have felt the same way because she tucked the gun away and came forward. With every step she took, he stroked. Stroked. Stroked. As she arrived at the door, he prayed she entered.

She did.

Over the threshold. Door closing behind her.

Except she leaned back against it, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at him. “Now is not the time.”

Her voice was incredibly disappointed, and what do you know. That shit speared through him like a sword.

Sahvage halted his hand, but did not release his hold. “I find myself wanting to argue the point. But as you can see, I’m a little self-interested at the moment.”

Mae’s pink tongue, her delicious, erotic, pink tongue, traveled across her lower lip. Then she nipped that soft flesh with her fangs, biting down like she was swallowing a moan.

“What if Tallah wakes up?” she whispered.

“I stop.”

There was a pause. And then, thank the frickin’ Scribe Virgin, Mae nodded. “I just want to see . . . what you look like.”

Bracing his free hand on the wall, he had a feeling he was going to need the help with his balance. “When I come?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Tell me what you want. You know, just so I’m sure I get it right.”

“I want you . . . to make yourself . . .”

“What,” he demanded.

“Come.”

That word leaving her lips made the world tilt and spin. And he wasn’t losing his chance. Even though he wanted his hands on her body, and he wanted to pleasure her, if this was as far as they were going? Fine. He was totally fucking into it.