not intrude on your privacy more than is necessary.”
“Good. Will I still be cold?” She bit her lip and shivered.
“Only if you wish to be. I promise to remain nearby to warm you if it becomes necessary.” He stepped forward and held out his hands, palms up.
Wimsah stepped toward him and slipped her hands into his. She looked up into his rainbow eyes as they darkened and he leaned in to kiss her.
Curls of heat began at her feet and worked upward as the energy of Roden moved into her. It wasn’t the flashing blaze of Resicor, but that had burned through her, not eased inside.
She held tightly to his hands as her skin tingled from the ground up. The energy level had just reached her breasts and was creeping toward her shoulders.
His mouth moved slowly over hers in a delicate and careful motion as if he was petrified to frighten her. When the energy reached her mouth, she let go of his hands and pressed them to his chest, sliding her hands up to wrap around the neck that flexed at her touch. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush with his body and the rest of the connection flared around them in a bright wave.
Their kisses picked up in intensity, and the world around them brightened as power danced in a glorious ball before shooting for the sky.
The cessation of heat was a shock, but Roden had left a pilot light inside her. She could call the psychic flames whenever she wanted to.
Benliar lifted his head and stepped back just enough to allow curls of heat between them to light the small space. “And so, you are now carrying a piece of Roden within you for the rest of your life. Even if you choose retirement, it will still be within you.”
“What about the kissing?” She blurted it out.
“What about it?”
“The kissing was nice. I liked the kissing.”
He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her back tight against him. “I can manage the kissing without Roden.”
She smiled and went up on her toes, kissing Benliar again. She paused, “I know there are a ton of Roden girls who are going to want to kill me, but right now, I don’t care. If I am going to be an Avatar and we are going to be together for a few hundred years, I think I should just jump and agree to share my DNA right now.”
He tensed, “Are you sure?”
“I have just had a planet bond to me. No, I am not sure, but I do want to feel something. It has been a very long time alone in my own mind. I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”
He leaped over the building with her in his arms and walked through a doorway that opened at his approach.
He settled her on the bed and stroked her dress up and over her body, pulling the shawl away and then twisting it into a rope.
She got a little nervous. “What are you going to do with that?”
He smiled. “What are we going to do? This is officially a three way. Roden wants you as much as I do.”
“That wasn’t really in my plans. I thought he would give me privacy.”
“He will stay out of your mind as much as possible. Mine is fair game.”
“So whatever we do tonight, he is a part of?”
“For now and forever.”
She nodded and sat up to unclasp her hair, pulling the long waves of silvery white down over her shoulder with a smile. “Where would you like to begin?”
Three hours of rolling, writhing and exhausting each other later, Spot managed to break into Benliar’s room and hop onto the bed with them.
Her back was pressed to Benliar’s chest and Spot came in and pressed to her chest.
They remained cuddled together until Benliar’s com chirped insistently and he rose to his feet, crossing the room as a wave of power spiralled upward and cleaned him up, including a few bite marks that Wim didn’t remember making.
“A ship has made it through our global shielding and is approaching a rural area known for its physicists.”
“You are heading out to defend your world?”
He grinned. “You can come too if you put on the suit we had made for