“I have yearned to be free for as long as I can recall,” he murmured, his diamond eyes glittering with honesty and openness, letting her see straight into his soul.

God! He was beautiful. In every possible way.

“Yet, I find freedom in your arms,” he said low, setting his forehead against hers.

“I find release through belonging.”

He nuzzled her mouth with his own as he was wont to do, closed and chaste but infinitely intimate.

“You free me, Brigid. You own me too. I find…”

She felt him smile against her lips, and she couldn’t help her mirroring reply.

“I do not mind being owned by you.”

He looked up at her through his lashes in a wholly masculine way. Half innocent little boy, half seductive predator.

“Have I answered to your satisfaction?”

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed with an enormous grin, hugging him to her tight, pulling his body deeper into hers.

And unable to stop the wince and groan that came with the invasion into her tender flesh.

He sighed and began to disentangle himself from her imprisoning limbs.

“No!” she protested. “Don’t go. We still have an hour before we set back out. I want you inside me…”

Slowly but inexorably, he pulled out of her, making her want to sob at the emptiness he left behind. She tried to keep him inside, but her strength couldn’t possibly match his. He would only stay if he wanted to.

“I want to,” he said, as if he read her mind.

“There is nothing I want more. But the journey ahead will be too hard on your sore body. Let me soothe you now.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” she squeaked when he meandered down her body until his head was between her thighs.

He smiled a serpentine smile, diamond eyes glinting devilishly.

“Shh, Brigid. Let me.”

And, for the next half hour, Brigid discovered one of Sai’s many hidden talents—the ability to take away all her aches and pains with the skill of his tongue and healing saliva. The same ability that made her dissolve in ecstasy a half dozen times as well.

He made every cell, every fiber, come alive within her. Fair burst with incandescent pleasure.

Eventually, she insisted on returning the favor, reversing their positions until she was the one between his thighs, her tongue licking up and down the vein-wrapped column of his sex.

“Bri…” he groaned, his fingers tightening in her hair, half trying to pull her closer, half trying to push her away.

She loved the shortened version of her name that he didn’t even seem to notice he said. It made her feel like a different person. Perhaps a combination of Titania and Brigid. The faerie and the human.

Until she was simply herself.

Just Bri.

“Yes?” she asked innocently, gently mouthing the plump head of him and licking around the glans, lapping up the pearls of sweetness from his swollen slit.

“Don’t tease me,” he rasped low, his eyes all pupils now, dark and intent.

“Take me with your mouth. Do it now.”