Spock rose stiffly from the desk, grimly noting once more that he was far from young. He carefully straightened and then wearily looked down at the mountains of embassy work still due. But after seventeen point seven hours of battling through treaty proposals, their counters; endless demands from any number of officials, negotiation requests, scheduling VIP conferences. . . . Even his Vulcan patience had finally reached its limit.

Especially as for the first time in nearly a year Saavik was home.

He could almost hear Leonard McCoy's disgust.

Damn fool Vulcan—get your priorities straight!

Spock turned to the chronometer. Perhaps. . . . The hope sighed away. 0200. She sleeps. Which, logically, he should as well.

At least he would be able to lay beside her the remainder of the night.

The thought lightened him and he left the estate's office.

He did not bother calling for lights as he moved through the darkness—he knew the ancestral home well—passing his father's shut door, Sarek had been summoned to give Vulcan's judgment in a Council meeting before the Federation President and would not return for another month; and down the stone hall to their room.

He paused just outside of the open door.

She had opened the slit windows earlier and now the desert's night breeze stirred the room, smelling of a cool dryness and the spicy tang of the lae'r scrub. The starlight fell through the windows in white shafts almost ethereally and pooled about Saavik's sleeping form, turning her deep chestnut hair to near black and her fair skin to a translucent white. She had flung herself on her back in her dreams, her thick hair spread out across a pillow and one hand resting upon his side of their bed. He had brought her a Drenalian sleeping shift his last trade negotiations in that system and she wore it now, its fine smooth silk lay against the curves of her breasts and hips. She must have been restless earlier, for the silk had drawn up over her thighs.

She was so very beautiful.

And suddenly he did not feel so old any more.

He left his ambassadorial robes on a chair and slid into their bed, gathering her into his arms.

She woke to his mouth and he felt a rush of pleasure as he realized she smiled beneath him before she drew him down against her.

She was a most . . . passionate lover and when at last dawn bathed them in growing light, Spock found himself seriously questioning the logic or the sanity of being away from her.

Even Reunification seemed cold and empty. A dreamer's dream.

Saavik chuckled softly and turned to draw her mouth along the edge of his jaw. I am pleased you find me so distracting.

Spock's eyebrow lifted and he stroked her fair skin deliberately, slowly, feeling her response as clear as her voice in his mind. He calculated rapidly and altered his motions to maximize her arousal.

The low noise she made in her throat told him his calculations had been correct.

But Reunification must be.

He sighed. We will only be parted more often. And longer.

A very Romulan glint showed in her eyes and she caressed him more intimately.

You speak as a human; we are bound, are we not?

His breath quickened beneath her hands.

She felt his desire and brushed his mouth with hers.

And there is now.