His lips hadn't even left mine before the anchor connection erupted into something new—a thousand tuning forks striking at once, vibrating through my bones, my blood, my core. The static that had kept Darian at a distance for twelve years dissolved completely, leaving nothing between us but raw sensation.
"Fuck," I whispered against his mouth. Not eloquent, but honest.
His fingers threaded through my hair, palm cradling the back of my head. Through our connection, I felt his restraint—rigid control warring with primal need. The dual frequencies created a dissonance that was almost painful.
"You're holding back," I murmured.
His eyes darkened to that midnight amber. "Force of habit."
I traced the ridge of scar tissue along his collarbone, feeling the anchor link pulse brighter with skin-to-skin contact. "Bad habit. The static is gone, but you're still—"
"Calculating?" A ghost of a smile curved his lips. "Tactical assessment is second nature."
"Stop assessing." I moved my hand to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. "Start feeling."
This time when our lips met, I felt the moment his control fractured. The anchor between us flared impossibly brighter, a symphony of complementary tones merging into something new. His hands slid down my sides, leaving trails of heat that registered as crimson streaks across my senses.
We stumbled backward, my legs hitting the edge of his sofa. He lowered me down with a control that belied the storm of need pulsing through our connection. His body covered mine, solid and warm, his weight a delicious pressure.
"Still being tactical?" I challenged, feeling the careful way he moved.
"Some habits—" his voice was rough against my ear "—keep us from breaking valuable things."
The words sank into me with unexpected weight. Through our connection, I caught a flash of memory—a young Darian, hands shaking as someone (his father? an instructor?) berated him for lack of control, for damage done in a moment of unchecked emotion.
"I'm not breakable," I said, pressing my fingertips into his shoulders.
His laugh was low, barely more than a vibration against my throat. "Everyone is breakable. That's the first lesson they taught us."
I shifted beneath him, creating a friction that made his breath catch. "What was the second lesson?"
"To find the breaking point." His teeth grazed my earlobe, sending a shiver through me that registered as electric blue. "And use it."
"Is that what this is?" I asked, suddenly unsure. "You finding my breaking point?"
He pulled back, eyes meeting mine with an intensity that made my chest tight. Through our connection, I felt his response before he spoke—genuine surprise, a flash of hurt, then understanding.
"No." The word was simple but layered with truth I could feel through our link. "This is me finding mine."
The honesty of it caught me off guard. Darian was many things—calculating, controlled, manipulative when necessary—but in this moment, with his static barrier completely gone and his consciousness laid bare through our connection, I felt the genuine vulnerability beneath his words.
"Then stop holding back," I said, and pulled him down to me.
What happened next wasn't the careful, choreographed encounter I'd half expected. It was messy, urgent, almost desperate—his hands everywhere, my fingers fumbling with buttons, both of us too impatient for finesse. Clothes fell away, discarded without care. When his skin finally pressed against mine, the anchor connection between us flared so bright I had to close my eyes against the sensory overload.
It wasn't just physical pleasure, though God knew there was plenty of that. It was the merging of our frequencies on a level I hadn't known was possible. Every touch, every sound, every sensation amplified through our connection, creating a feedback loop of shared experience. I couldn't tell where my pleasure ended and his began.
His lips traced a path down my neck, across my collarbone, lower. My back arched in response, a gasp escaping me. Through our link, I felt his satisfaction at the sound, his desire to pull more reactions from me. His mouth moved lower still, and rational thought scattered like dust.
"Let me hear you," he murmured against my skin, and I realized I'd been biting my lip, holding back sounds.
"Wasn't sure if tactical intimacy called for noise," I managed, breathless.
He laughed against my hip bone, the vibration sending a shiver through me. "Nothing tactical about this anymore."
And he was right. Whatever clinical purpose had started this had burned away, leaving something raw and honest in its place. When his mouth moved between my thighs, I stopped trying to be quiet. My cry echoed in the vast space of his penthouse, and through our connection, I felt his fierce pleasure at the sound.
I lost track of time, lost in the dual sensation of physical pleasure and psychic connection. When I finally came apart under his touch, the anchor between us pulsed with such intensity that for a moment, I could see every frequency in the room—not just hear them, but actually see them, rippling out from us in concentric circles of light and sound.
"Jesus," I gasped when I could speak again. "Did you—"
"Yes." His voice was strained, his eyes wide with something between awe and alarm. "I saw it too."
I reached for him, pulling him up to me, needing his weight, his heat. "What the hell was that?"
"Frequency synchronization." His breath was hot against my neck. "A side effect of the anchor strengthening."
"Some side effect," I muttered, then gasped as he shifted against me, the hard length of him pressing exactly where I needed him.
His control was fraying; I could feel it through our link—the tightly wound restraint unraveling thread by thread. "Emira," he said, my name half question, half warning.
In answer, I wrapped my legs around his hips, drawing him closer. "Don't you dare get tactical on me now."
Something in him broke loose at that—the last threads of restraint snapping. When he finally pushed into me, the anchor between us exploded into something transcendent. It wasn't just pleasure—it was completion, as if some part of me that had been searching had finally found its match.
We moved together, finding a rhythm that felt both new and inevitable. Through our connection, I felt everything he felt—his pleasure, his wonder, the way each movement sent shockwaves of sensation through him. And I knew he felt the same from me, creating an endless circuit of shared experience.
When release finally came, it wasn't just physical—it was a complete fusion of our frequencies, our separate consciousnesses briefly merging into something greater than the sum of its parts. For a moment that stretched into eternity, I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. I saw through his eyes, felt through his senses, existed as part of something larger than myself.
Then reality crashed back, and I was gasping beneath him, my body trembling with aftershocks, our anchor connection humming at a frequency I'd never experienced before—steady, unbreakable, impossibly strong.
"Fuck," he breathed, his forehead pressed against mine. Through our link, I felt his amazement, mirroring my own.
"Eloquent," I teased, throwing his earlier assessment back at him.
He laughed—a genuine sound I'd rarely heard from him—and rolled to his side, keeping one arm draped across my waist. "Words seem... inadequate."
I turned to face him, studying the planes of his face in the dim light. Without the static barrier between us, I could read every nuance of his emotional frequency—wonder, satisfaction, vulnerability, and something deeper I wasn't ready to name.
"So," I said, tracing the line of his jaw with my fingertip. "Did we strengthen the anchor enough, or do we need to try again?"
His lips curved into a smile that registered as amber warmth through our connection. "I think we've established a solid foundation. But reinforcement is always advisable."
"How tactical of you." I pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, feeling the anchor pulse brighter at the contact.
"Old habits." His hand slid up my spine, leaving trails of heat in its wake. "But I'm developing some new ones."
I shifted closer, feeling the steady thrum of our connection—stronger now, clearer, a perfect harmony of complementary frequencies. "Like what?"
"Like this." He pulled me flush against him, one hand tangling in my hair as his mouth found mine again. Through our anchor, I felt his desire building once more, echoing my own.
Tactical or not, we had three days to prepare for whatever Lilith and Marcus threw at us. And suddenly, strengthening our connection felt a lot less like a chore and a lot more like necessity—primal and urgent and impossible to resist.
We had work to do.