“Because you almost died?”
“Because I was afraid I might never see you again.”
Maddy stopped stitching a moment and looked at me.
I couldn’t see her face with her behind me. I tried to gauge her expression. What would it be? Shock? Surprise? Horror?
I couldn’t stand not knowing, so I turned around to look.
Her eyes shimmered and made her chestnut brown eyes gleam even brighter and with greater vibrancy than I’d ever seen them before.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She wiped her tears away with the palms of her hands.
“I’m not crying because I’m upset,” she said. “I’m crying because today I felt the same way. You came this close to dying and I never got to tell you how much I love you.”
“My love,” I said. “I could be blind and know how much you love me. It’s written on your face. It’s in your gestures every time you look at me. The same way it’s written on mine when I look at you.”
I reached out and touched her. I had to. She was the air in my lungs and the food in my belly. I needed to touch her, to be a part of her.
To be one with her.
I cupped her face in my hand and pressed my lips against hers. She kissed me back with heat and passion that neither of us could deny.
And we didn’t want to deny it. We needed to be together. Right here. Right now.
The kiss turned passionate as she responded to me. Then she pulled back.
“We can’t,” she said.
“Oh, but we can,” I said, pressing myself against her again.
I knew she wanted to. It was in her kiss, in the way she looked at me, the way she touched me.
“You’re still hurt,” she said.
“Making love will make it better,” I said.
She rolled her eyes.
“That’s what all men think,” she said. “I won’t do it if it’ll give you pain.”
“Listen to me,” I said, “we Titans are not like you humans. We heal faster than you. We’re stronger than you.”
“All right, don’t rub it in.”
“And joining with our one true love really does make us stronger.”
She looked at me with a keen sense of uncertainty. I just smiled at her and gently kissed her on her fingertips.
“Really, truly, my love,” I said. “Help me. And in the process, maybe I can help you. Multiple times.”
I pressed my lips to hers again, and this time, though she stiffened in my arms, she didn’t pull away. She gave in to me, fell into me, and she was mine.
The lovemaking this time was not fast and frantic. A piece of her still believed she might hurt me. She rode me first, bucking gently and rubbing herself against me back and forth, and when I didn’t flinch or stagger, she began to ride me up and down.
Once again, I was struck with how gorgeous she was.
We made love like it might be our last day alive. If we failed to reach that shuttlecraft in time, it might well be.
She hesitated when I made to climb on top of her but I insisted. She opened herself up to me as I drove myself hard into her, taking her, savoring her.
Relishing her.
And when I finally came, it was while I looked her in the eye, the two of us joined in that one special moment, joined beneath the broken ceiling of a shattered barn somewhere in the depths of the galaxy.
Just us in this intimate moment.
We lay on the hastily-made bed she’d fashioned for me on the floor. We stared up through a hole in the roof at the starry night sky. Where we hoped to be in a few short hours.
I still had some gaps in the escape we made earlier. Not all of it made sense.
“How did you manage to get me in the cart you found at the side of the road?” I said.
“With a lot of difficulty,” Maddy said. “I put the arjath beside the cart and then loosened the ropes so I could scoop my legs under you and use them as a ramp to slowly side you down into the cart bed.”
I took her hands in mine and hissed through my teeth when I saw the redraw marks across her palms and the tiny green flecks of rope fibers that had embedded in her skin. I pressed my lips to her soft palms and felt at her until I came to the fibers with my tongue.
She pulled back but I didn’t let go.
“It’s ticklish,” she said.
“You didn’t complain earlier,” I said.
“You weren’t playing with my hands earlier.”
“The lips and tongue are the most delicate parts of the body… Well, one of them. I can feel the fibers in your skin and gently tease the fibers out one by one.”
“My hands are dirty.”
“There’s nothing about you that’s not dirty. That’s why I like you.”
“Like? What happened to love?”
“That was before sex.”
Maddy balled up her fist to punch me in the face. She struck me in the chest and I laughed. It was such a weak and fragile punch—though I imagined it was meant that way—and I wrapped my arms around her. I held her close even though she tried to block me with her clenched fists and weedy arms.
“You know how much you mean to me,” I said.
“A lot less after sex, apparently,” she said.
She frowned at me but couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. She got the joke. She released her arms and let me take her hands again. I plucked out another half a dozen fibers before I was done with the first palm. Then I got to work on the second.
“I’m impressed you managed to get me in
