And... a bed. A bed and a blanket to cover them, a blanket that was theirs together.

What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down.

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.

..and when he let her go, it was as if she had been filled and didn't realize it until he pulled away and the absence rushed back in.

Her heart was gasping, empty. Whatever resistance had been in her, she gave it up. Her hands knew what they wanted: They wanted Akiva, the spark and heat of him. Even in the warmth of the Moroccan spring, she was cold, as if the only thing with a chance of warming her was him.

What she had shared with Akiva could not be touched by shame. Madrigal lifted her voice to say, "We dreamed together of the world remade.

It didn't matter; by now she knew she loved him in any skin. In her book there was another tale - one of the original eighteen - of a dragon who had a human wife, and Neve had never understood it before, at least from the wifes point of view. Love was love. But she hoped that he was not a dragon.

Having hope was like dangling himself over a chasm and putting the rope in her hands. She could annihilate him if she wanted to.

Her soul felt alive more than ever before. Sarai almost forget that she wasn't.