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said for the third time.
    This wasn’t lovemaking, and it wasn’t just sex. He wasn’t sure there was a word for where they were at that moment.
    And he didn’t care.
    Lifting his head, he licked her throat as he shifted her hips and sheathed himself inside her. Then he purred, “I guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”

    Daemon watched his hand as he poured a cup of coffee, pleased to see that the uncontrollable shakes had settled down to little tremors.
    Their mating had been a combination of unrestrained arousal mixed with dollops of fear, which, because of the woman, had intensified his excitement. Sex that was savage and yet still tender, that was all physical and yet was possible only because of the depth of their feelings for each other. When they were done, Jaenelle had staggered into the bathroom, and he, braced by self-discipline and sheer stubbornness, had stumbled his way to the bathroom in the adjoining Consort’s suite. In safe privacy, he had braced his hands against the shower walls, and while the hot water poured over him, his body shook in response to what he’d been doing in bed with the woman who was his wife and Queen.
    He sincerely hoped they would enjoy each other like that again in the future. And he hoped, just as sincerely, that it wouldn’t be anytime soon.
    “I thought men liked morning sex,” Jaenelle said, looking baffled.
    “We do,” Daemon replied. Of course, “sex” was a pale word to describe what they had been doing, but he wasn’t about to debate her choice of words. Especially since she was watching the hand holding the coffee cup. Had noted the tremors. “Of course we do.”
    The baffled look changed to something that was almost angry, almost hostile. “You said it didn’t matter. You said you could accept that I no longer wore Ebony Jewels, was no longer dominant.”
    Her quiet intensity alarmed him. He set the cup down. “It doesn’t matter. I can accept it. What is this about?”
    “It’s about that.” She waved a hand to indicate his own. “It’s about pretending that you were with a witch who was stronger than you, and now acting all shaky and nervous.”
    Sweetheart, you didn’t see the look in your eyes when we were in bed. But he saw the problem now. Despite having gotten married twice—once in a private ceremony and again in a public ceremony a few weeks later—she still wasn’t certain he had accepted the choice she had made.
    After he’d dealt with the witches who had tried to stop the wedding by hurting her, Jaenelle had brought him to the Misty Place and shown him the truth. So he knew she could have been exactly the same as she had been before she’d sacrificed herself to save Kaeleer. She could have worn the Ebony Jewels again instead of Twilight’s Dawn, which had only a hint of Black. But she hadn’t wanted that much power, had never wanted to be so different and so distant from everyone else. And everyone around her, everyone who had loved her, was still adjusting to what they thought of as a loss.
    “I’ll agree with the part about my being shaky, but I’ll dispute the accusation that I’m pretending to be nervous.” He put enough punch in his voice to assure he’d have her attention.
    “Men pretend sometimes. You can’t tell me they don’t.”
    He acknowledged that fact with a nod. “Sometimes a man does pretend he’s a little intimidated by the woman he’s bedding, even if he’s the one wearing the darker Jewels.” And sometimes it wasn’t pretense; men just didn’t argue with women’s incorrect assessment—mostly because they figured women wouldn’t understand that the power that was sometimes being wielded had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewels.
    To give himself a moment to collect his thoughts, he picked up the cup and took a sip of coffee.
    Damn. If he’d known they were going to have this kind of discussion, he would have put a warming spell on the cup. He swallowed the cold coffee and set the cup