His hand was so very gentle, so inutterably sweet as he wiped the tears from her cheeks, and if she hadn't already known with the whole of her being that she had found the mate to her soul in him, she knew it now. On the kiss went, with his sighing and his moan, and then her own high-pitched and quavering whimper as he began to draw back from her. It was not just that it hurt - although it did, his shaft dragging against the raw and bleeding tender skin that had torn asunder around him - but that she didn't want to lose him, to feel him withdrawing from her.<br/><br/>But then he plunged more smoothly back in, and while that hurt too, like a burning ring at her entrance... there was more to it than just pain. She felt full, completed with him buried within her body and enfolded in her arms. He touched parts of her body and soul that had lain dormant, waiting only for him, and she welcomed him there unreservedly.<br/><br/>In spite of the pain, she squirmed a little beneath his weight, and then arched experimentally to feel how it moved him within her, prompting her to break the kiss with a low and whispery moan.