She turned to him in the night. It was rare for her to do so unless the nightmares were chasing her. When she slept, she slept deep and unprotected. She knew he needed it, needed to feel her wrapped around him in the dark, the intimacy of it that stated more truly than words what they'd come to be to each other.

Her mouth found his, offered, while her hands roamed up the solid length of his back, down again to his hips.

They shifted on the wide bed, a tangle of limbs, of warm flesh, of breath beginning to quicken with each touch.

The tased of her-lips, troat, breasts-seemed to fill him, at it usually did, even as it stirred hunger for more. Her hearbeat under his hand, under his mouth, and her first sign of pleasure trailed off into a quiet moan.

She arched against him, strength and surrender. Opened for him, invitation and demand.

He slipped inside her-hot and wet and waiting-and it was he who moaned as she closed around him. Shadows in dark, their bodes rose and fell together, a slow, silky rhythm to draw out the night.

Pleasuring her, pleasuring himself, his hands slipped under her hips, lifted her. Gave her more.

She locked herself around him, rode the edge. And when she felt herself begin to fall, she said his name. "Cannan."

When he lifted his head, saw the gleam of her eyes, open, on him. "Genesis." He replied, letting himself fall with her.


Into the night, in the dark, she lay beside him, listening to her breathe. She knew the varied and sundry reasons some one would kill. But non more fierce, none more vital than to hold safe what she loved.