But this tie between them was something so much stronger than all that.

“I need you,” she said in a voice she had never heard come out of herself before.

Trez’s black eyes flashed peridot, and he asked no questions, made no comment. Instead, he brought his lips down on hers with a punishing passion, the heat re-flaring between them, branding her, branding them.

Groaning into his mouth, she rolled over onto the unforgiving concrete floor and pulled him on top of her. And to make sure she was very clear about where she wanted him, she parted her legs and he fit perfectly between them, his heavy weight crushing her into the hard floor, not that she cared about her spine’s protest.

“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Faster. I need you…”

Her hands were sloppy as she pulled his silk shirt out of his slacks and stroked up his rib cage and then down his lower back. Without her having to ask, he started to ride her through their clothes, his pelvis thrusting, his mammoth erection rubbing her in a place that ached for him.

It was just as in her dreams, the two of them lock and key, their bodies taking over, their minds set free. In this dim light, in this unknown place, the distinction between what was real and what had come to her in her sleep was blurred, until she wasn’t sure whether she was in the dream or here in this club. What she was crystal clear on?

The male she was making love with.

Oh, and the fact that she did not want this to stop. Ever.

Breaking off the kiss, Trez rolled over and brought her onto his hips. Then he stared up at her in shock and wonder—and pure, unadulterated lust. He was breathing hard, and his eyes, as they bored into hers, were both focused and strangely rattled.

He felt it, too, she thought.

“I know you,” she whispered. “And I’ve wanted you for so long.”

Dear God, what was she saying—

“Yes…” he breathed. “Yes.”

Trez seemed to sag in his own skin, and she could have sworn that a sheen of tears made his stare luminous. Then his body started to shake.

“I have to…” He cleared his throat. “I have to… be in you.”

“I need you.”

Bending down to him, she pressed her mouth to his, and then it was on, as she lifted up off him and his hands went to his slacks. With equal haste, she took care of her side of things, wrenching her own waistband open, tearing her own zipper down. Ripping, yanking, it was as if some other force had taken over her body, but it was a force that came from within her.

It was nothing foreign. Nothing that alarmed her.

An energy was moving through her, connecting her to him, amplifying her need for him, and him alone.

As if they had been separated and this was a reunion instead of a first time.

With impatience, she kicked off one of her boots and then dragged her pants down. It was awkward maneuvering her clothes, but she didn’t care. Neither did he. They were going at breakneck speed, her sex ready and open for him, his arousal hard and desperate—

The second she was free from her constraints, he stood himself up and she sat down—

They both shouted. And then she remembered no particulars, and absolutely everything about the stretching, the filling, the sex that roared to life. As she rode him, she was fully present and out of her mind, her body moving on its own, following a rhythm they jointly fell into.

“Oh, God,” he groaned as he tried to recapture her mouth.

It was impossible. Faster, faster, her going up and down, him thrusting up, the releases they were finding unstoppable forces of nature.

As an orgasm lightning’d through her, emanating out from her core, Therese gasped and then moaned. She tried to keep going, but she couldn’t seem to move right. It was okay, though. Trez kept pumping.

Even as he started to fill her up.

* * *

The fit was the same.

As Trez began to orgasm and then kept it up, his cock releasing jets into the body of the female on top of him, he was completely overwhelmed by the fact that not only did Therese look like his shellan, she felt the same, too. Her body was the same. The way their sexes locked and held… it was all the same. She even tasted the same.

It was his queen.

And she knew it, too. Somehow, she had made the connection as well.

Closing his eyes, he soaked up the sensations, refilling his empty spaces with them, his aching loneliness erased, the cold he’d been meat-lockered into falling away in the rush of warmth. With every crest of pleasure, and each pumping thrust, he was made whole… and when the desperation finally began to ebb, his first thought was that he just wanted to keep going. He wanted them both to get fully naked. He wanted her skin on his. He wanted to put his mouth all over her.

Except then he realized where they were. Their pants down. Still joined.

Trez stared up at the face above his. His female was almost too beautiful to look at, her dark hair loose and curling up, its binding lost, her lips red from his kisses, her face flushed and glowing. She was the most resplendent thing he had ever seen.

“You’re back,” he whispered.

“I haven’t left.” She lowered herself down and kissed him softly. “I’m here.”

“Yes, you are.” He took one of her hands and placed it on his heart. “You’ve always been here.”

Therese seemed briefly confused, but the expression didn’t last. “I must be crazy. How do I feel like I know you? Like we’ve done this before—”

“Because we have.”

“In my dreams, right?” She smiled slowly. “In my dreams.”

“Do I come to you?” he said, his heart starting to pound. “Did you see me when you were sleeping?”

As he waited for her to reply, he had the sense that he was on the precipice of a great revelation, something that would explain everything—the way she looked, the way she felt, the fact that he felt no guilt at all for what they had just done.

Because he did not feel as if he had been disloyal at all.

Because it had been his queen.

Her eyes searched his face. “It was absolutely you. In my dreams. You are the one who has come to me as a shadow.”

“Yes, it was me. That was me.” He didn’t know what he was saying, but this made sense… even as it made no sense. “Tell me about the dream.”

“It always starts the same. I am lying in a bed in a room I’ve never been in before. I don’t recognize anything around me, and every time I have the dream, I don’t remember where I am. There is a single candle on the nightstand, and a soft, warm breeze blows it out. The door opens, and a figure is there. I am not afraid, however, even though I can’t see the face.” With fingertips that trembled, she traced his brows, his cheeks, his jaw. “It is you, though. You come to me… and we make love. It is only when we are together that the room becomes familiar. It’s rustic and antique, and I am safe… with you.”

“You will always be safe with me.”

“I believe you—”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Trez wrenched his head to the side. “Xhex! I told you—”

“Oh, that you, boss?”

Shit. “Hey, Big Rob.” He put his forefinger to his lips and shhh’d. “What’s going on?”

“This door won’t open.”

No, shit. “What do you need?”

Blah, blah, blah. Something about liquor boxes.

“Listen, Big Rob,” he said, “I’ll be out in a minute. I’m helping someone. Are the police still there?”

“Yup.”

“Just hang with Alex, okay?” Alex being the name Xhex used in the human world.

“Okay, boss.”

Okay. Okay. Right. Right.

Meanwhile, Therese was dismounting him, his still-erect cock slapping down on his lower belly, the change in temperature along its shaft and on its head a really frickin’ unpleasant shock. To make matters worse, his female was efficient in her re-dressing, which was good considering someone might be able to get in the other way, but also a disappointment because duh.

Still, they couldn’t stay here forever, could they.

Sure, they could, a voice suggested in his head as she stood up and rezipped her slacks. They absolutely could. Forever—

Therese looked around. And cursed.

“Later, Big Rob,” he said as he got to his feet and put his pants in place. Turning to Therese, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“My purse.” She moved in a circle, as if the thing might be on the floor. “I think I—yup, I lost my purse when I was trying to get away from the fight.”

“We’ll find it.” As she looked at the door they entered, he shook his head. “No, let’s go the other way.”

He was not about to come out of the back into a crowd of his security personnel, the human police, and whatever arrestees were cuffed—with her. She was glowing in the way of a female who had just been properly serviced by her male, and not only was he in absolutely no hurry to share that glorious sight with anybody, he didn’t want people to judge her, either.

His reputation preceded him, especially with his staff and the working girls. They all knew the way he had been, and would never believe that he hadn’t restarted his philandering.

Trez took her hand. “Follow me.”

When she tugged at him, he stopped and looked down into her face.

His female smiled in a shy, secret way. “I… ah…”

Trez found himself smiling back at her. Then he gave her a quick kiss on that mouth. “Yes,” he whispered. “I feel the same way.”

CHAPTER TEN

Therese stuck close behind Trez as they made fast time down the corridor. Part of her was still back in the sex they’d had, reliving the moments that had been too quick, yet vivid enough to last a lifetime. The other part of her was in a panic over her bag.

All that tip money. Ten hundreds in cash.

What were the chances that, even if they found her purse, any of that load hadn’t been lifted? Nil. But that wasn’t the only thing that had been in there that she hated to lose.