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mysterious alchemy of feelings that I had never truly imagined was possible among humans. He didn’t speak. The water pounded down on us, hot as blood, and at last, at last, he lifted me by the waist, strong arms flexing and shedding water in bright silver streams, and braced my back against the warm, damp tile wall.
    “Ready?” he asked me. I didn’t know what he was asking, but I nodded. I knew in principle, of course, but knowing and feeling were proving to be completely different things. “I’ll go slow.”
    I had expected pleasure, not a searing, startling flash of razor-edged pain, and cried out more in panic than delight, putting my hands flat against his chest in protest. Luis froze, shocked, and held himself very still as I regulated my breathing again. In the next instant the pain wasn’t as great, but the surprise remained. I felt betrayed by my body, which had led me to suppose this would be nothing but sweet sensation.
    Luis seemed just as astonished. After a few long seconds, he said, “Jesus, Cass, you didn’t tell me you were a virgin . I didn’t think ...” He pulled in a deep breath, and I saw he was angry at himself. “Stupid. Of course you’re a virgin. You came straight into human flesh—you haven’t been with anybody—”
    He was right. I hadn’t been in this compromising, exceptionally intimate and vulnerable position with anyone else since my rebirth in human skin. I was, in many ways, more virginal than any human woman or girl, and yet I felt—not at all ignorant or unready.
    Just betrayed by my own biology.
    “It’s all right,” I said, and kept my voice low and steady, staring into Luis’s warm, cinnamon-colored eyes. “I’m all right.”
    “No, I hurt you. I didn’t mean—”
    I wrapped my legs around his waist and slowly, inexorably pulled him closer. Farther into my body, until we were completely joined. Then I fitted my hands around his face and smiled. “Since taking human form, I’ve had a great deal of pain,” I said. “That was a ... momentary discomfort. It’s done. Now help me forget it.”
    He made a groaning sound low in his throat and dropped his head forward, into the warm space between my shoulder and neck. I felt his legs trembling, and then, by slow, gentle increments, he began to move.
    “Tell me if I—” He was, even now, struggling to be gentle with me. With me , a being so old and powerful that even fellow Djinn had always treated me with caution. It made me laugh, and it made me warm with sweetness toward him. I solved his hesitancy by showing him my own urgent need, a furious bonfire of lust and heat, passion and delight.
    No one had ever described what it felt like, to be consumed in that fire together, in an all-consuming, mind-destroying blur of hands and mouths, thrusts and silky caresses.
    There were no words, and no real equivalent in the Djinn world. It was a humbling realization, one that made me understand, finally, why so many of my kind found solace in human form.
    The world broke apart into sounds, and lights, and colors, frantic racing hearts and sweating skin, and then a slow, featherlight spiraling descent from an aetheric height I hadn’t known humans could scale. When Luis finally let me slip away, we stayed in the sheltering heat of the pounding water until it turned cool on our skin.
    He shut it off, and we looked at each through the fog of steam still in the air.
    Luis smiled. It was a beautiful, unguarded expression, and I saw in that moment that he truly had loved me for some time now—months, perhaps. I felt the same tide of emotion inside my own body, and felt a similar wild, uncontrolled smile bend my lips. I ached in odd places, felt strangely warm in others, and a lassitude had settled in that made me want to curl up on the damp tile floor and sleep. All that stopped me was the knowledge that there was a warm, waiting bed just a few steps away.
    Luis dried us both with a burst of power, and I followed him to the