We both moaned. He held my waist and dug his fingers lightly into my hips. I pressed my hands over his and gripped them.

This felt different from usual. He filled me fuller, tighter, relieving the yearnings from every fiber inside me. I flexed my inner muscles, clenching him as I raised my hips and sat back down again, captivated by the sensation. Another light groan escaped him, and he cupped my buttocks and squeezed.

“Did you learn this from your dreams too?” He almost gritted out the words.

I didn’t. I was only trying to mimic the same thing he always did to me, and from the look of him, it must’ve worked.

“Do you like it?” I asked instead, keeping up the rhythm.

“Like it?” He locked eyes with me. His gaze was dark, but something glinted from within it, roaring with heat. “You have no idea how bewitching you are right now, Qing-er. You can make a man die for you.”

I laughed softly. “I don’t want or need dead men at my feet,” I bent over and kissed him. “I only need you, and very much alive.”

It was just a joke, but somehow my words seemed to have touched him differently than I intended. His palm moved up behind my head before I could pull away, holding me in for a deep, lingering kiss.

“I’m yours for as long as I breathe,” he whispered in the end.

The sudden solemness in his voice caught me off guard, and I forgot to move for a moment. “Bai Ye …” I stared at him. Framed in the shimmering moonlight and the silky gloss of his hair, he looked almost divine, but his eyes couldn’t be more human, mixed with a thousand emotions that I was only starting to understand.

He simply smiled at my puzzlement. “Don’t stop,” his hands slid back to my waist, “I promise I will stay alive long enough to do my part.”

He tightened his hold on me and nudged gently, guiding my hips in a pulsing pattern back and forth. It wasn’t the same motion that I was used to, but I followed his lead, using my waist to bring myself to and fro. I felt him shifting along within me, hitting all the places that I didn’t know he could before, and as my speed picked up, so did the bursts of stirring sensations.

I gasped. Heat pulsed and built up fast, and I felt a light sweat starting to break on my back. “Do I do this … do this in your dreams?” My question was a staccato of pants and puffs.

He chuckled. “This, and much more.”

The warmth of his palms grazed upward until he cupped my breasts. My whole body tensed, anticipating his caress. He did not disappoint. His fingers did their wonders, answering to all my unsaid asks and wants, rousing fire in rhythm with the flames beneath me. I leaned back and clenched his wrists, half to steady myself and half in encouragement, letting my moans roam free.

I knew his gaze never left me, and I knew how lubricious a sight I must have made of myself, but I was not ashamed of any of it. He was mine. I was his. I knew he burned for me just as much as I did for him, and it felt right, like the way it was always meant to be.

He squeezed me harder. I rode him faster. Our breaths were heavy and loud in the quiet of the night, and I loved every sound of it. He let me take full control of the pace, only reaching up firmer into me when my pitch started to change, and finally with one last rock of my hips, the sensations overtook me. My legs gave in, and I collapsed onto him. All I could do was pant and shudder.

“Qing-er,” he caught me in his arms and kissed me, “not so soon yet.”

I was still gasping for air when he turned us over to the side, lifted my thigh over his waist, and sank back in.

My tremors hadn’t yet faded, and I cried a quivering scream at the swell of him returning inside me. He felt almost foreign against my spasms, and the residual shudders intensified, taking me in a shock. “Bai Ye …” I attempted to speak through chattering teeth, “How …”

How was he still able to do this?

He only smiled and steadied my shaking body with both arms, holding me in such a tight embrace that I could barely breathe. “Qing-er,” his lips scorched my ear, “you make this such a hard choice … I can’t decide if I prefer to have all of you in front of my eyes, or all of you in my arms.”

Why choose? I thought silently with the small part of me that hadn’t yet burned to ashes. I wanted it all. I wanted him in front of me, behind me, beside me, in my arms, and all around. I wanted him everywhere so that I could savor different parts of him one after one, then all over again.

His thrust was slower than usual, but even the slightest impact felt sharp against my still sensitive body, rekindling the wild sensations that lingered. I whimpered. I spread my legs wide around him, then curled my knees tight against him. I didn’t know which was the way I wanted, except that I wanted him, and I wanted the euphoric feeling to take over me once more.

“Bai Ye,” I panted against his cheek and closed my shivering arms around him, “you were right about … um … spending more time … like this … every day …”

He grunted a half groan. With one last hard thrust and an echo of my trembling cry, a gush of heat filled me, finally driving the sweet torture to an end. We both stilled in each other’s arms, gasping as if near-drowning.

So this was how it was supposed to feel.