Then she kissed him, and he stopped caring. Had he run all that way, he thought his mouth would have been dry as dust. Hers was warm and moist and sweet. His hand slid between her legs. She was warm and moist there, too. She made a small sound of pleasure, down deep in her throat. Her hand closed on him. He made the same sound, only an octave deeper.

He was disappointed when she broke off the kiss, but only for a moment. Limber as an eel, she bent to take him in her mouth. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a woman do that before without being asked. He also wasn’t sure how much he could stand without exploding.

The thought had hardly crossed his mind before she pushed him down and over onto his back and impaled herself on him. She rode him like a racehorse. She made that pleased noise again when his hands closed on her breasts. She teased his nipples, too. He hadn’t thought they were especially sensitive, but they were, they were.

As his pleasure rose toward the crest that said he would have to come soon, he decided he would rather drive things himself. When he rolled the two of them over, Velona let out a startled yip and then laughed. So did he. He poised himself above her and thrust home again and again.

Her breath came faster than it had when she was running. Her face went slack with pleasure. She gasped. “Pemsel! Hasso Pemsel!” she cried in a high, shrill voice. Her nails scored his back. A wordless groan escaped him at the same time. He drove deep one last time, and tried to stay at the peak forever.

Whether he wanted it to or not, the world returned, the way it always does. Velona said something to him. He couldn’t understand it, of course. But he understood when she mimed pushing him off her. He had to be squashing her, and that ragged shift wasn’t much to protect her from the ground. He went back onto his knees.