47

One Thing for Us

I’m lowered by an unseen force until my feet touch the ground softly, Reven still holding onto me, leaving us standing together in a quiet room with the candles alight around us.

I meet his eyes. “Is it over?”

He’s breathing hard, the only sound in the room. Some harsh emotion works over his face, too fast to pin it down, and he swallows. “Let me check.”

With gentle fingers, he pushes my clothing back, exposing the skin of my belly and revealing again the large silvery scar in my side. Breath punches from his lungs, expression rippling with awe. Almost like he can’t help himself, he brushes his fingers over the newly formed flesh.

I gasp at the contact as sparks of need flare from that one touch, absorbing into my bloodstream and arrowing straight for my core, the intensity nearly overwhelming.

Reven slowly pulls his hand away. Is he even aware of what that touch did to me? Did he feel it, too?

He straightens only to frame my face with his hands, his forehead against mine. “Thank the goddesses,” he whispers. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Those words, more than anything else—more than the connection, more than the spark from his touch—make me want things.

Want him. Just him.

I swallow and lift my hands to circle his wrists and brush my thumbs over his scars lightly. Then gasp as that sizzling reaction lights in my body again.

He shudders at the same time.

Then he’s slowly pulling me close, lips on mine…and I’m sinking into him.

Finally.

One arm slips down to band my waist, pulling me tight against him while the other splays in my hair, anchoring me as his mouth does wicked things to mine. And goddess help me, his fire sparks my own, which has lain smoldering close to the surface all this time. Tinder waiting for flint.

For his touch.

Just this once, I promise myself. Because the world is waiting outside this room. A world where we can’t. Where we shouldn’t.

Just one small thing for myself. And for him. For the Shadow who recognized evil. For the little girl who longed for a hug or a kind word from those who were blood kin. For the good man who tries to protect the world from the wickedness that lives inside him. For the resentful teen who hated leaving the desert to return to her secret royal duties. For the reluctant leader who would rather sacrifice himself than live. For the young woman whose only job is to die to save her sister.

My hands are buried in the silkiness of his hair, and the tension building inside me only feels better the closer I get, so I’m pressing against him hard.

“Princess.”

Goddess, that voice. Velvet over iron is how I will always, always think of it. A man of contradictions that I find as addicting as his mouth on mine.

“Don’t stop,” I whisper. “Don’t…don’t push me away.”

He stills. Though he doesn’t step away or let me go, the grip of his hand now at my hip bites into my flesh. His expression spasms, and he closes his eyes tight, breathing hard, his forehead furrowing.

I can’t mistake the debate raging inside him. He’s going to stop. I can see it as he lifts his head before he even opens his mouth.

“What if this is wrong?” His gaze is tortured. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“I want this. I want you. You, the real man in my arms.” The words are both plea and demand. “Even if it’s just for a moment.”

Holy fires of hell. If I thought he was intense before, the look that comes over him now is near to feral—all craving and leashed desperation—and I might just burn up as I stand here, breath held, waiting. “You’re tearing me apart. Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

I want what’s coming next.

I curl my arms around his shoulders, burying my face in his chest, breathing in the scent of home, and press a kiss to his corded neck. “I mean it.”

He’s still stiff against me, still fighting it. I won’t push anymore because I’ve been pushed into so many corners in my life and hated it. Resented it. That’s the last thing I want for him. Disappointment threatens to drive a stake through my heart.

“Okay,” I whisper and loosen my arms. “It’s okay. We can stop—”

He groans and sort of surges against me, one hand smoothing over my backside, urging me up on my toes.

“I won’t let them touch you,” he whispers. An assurance. A promise.

I fit against him so perfectly, like a lock and key. He cants his head, claiming my mouth again, swallowing the catch in my breath, the whimper of relief.

This kiss, though—this is softer, slower, and deliciously deeper. Like he’s given himself permission to indulge in something he shouldn’t and has decided to enjoy every single second, every nuance of what he’s taking. What he’s giving.

I trust him with my own fear, silencing all the previous voices in my head that might speak out against this. All the worries about that connection of shadow, about what he needs from me versus what he wants. Because his body is telling me everything I need to know, the hard ridge of him pressing into my softness.

Reven wants me. He wants me.

He licks at my lower lip, then draws it between his teeth and licks again, and my breath hitches into him. At the same time, the fingers at my backside slowly start inching my dress up, the cool night air caressing my exposed skin like a lover’s hand.

Too slow, though. He’s taking his time exploring, like he’s never touched a woman before. Agonizing. I will that hand higher.

I’m moving against him without reason or thought, little sounds coming from some place I didn’t know existed inside me until now, whimpers of need and pleasure, and he swallows them all, feeding groans of his own back to me.

Will he take this further?

He reaches bare skin, his fingers skating over the back of my thigh, then higher, tracking the line of my underclothes before slipping inside to trace the crease of my ass, though he stops short of where I want those questing fingers to go. Where every nuance is pulsing. Throbbing.

I moan against his mouth, the sound greedy. Out of control. “Keep going,” I both beg and demand against his lips. “Want me to show you the spot?”

He shakes with laughter against me. Jackass. “I’m having fun figuring it out,” he murmurs.

I would demand he pick up the pace, except I don’t want to stop what he’s suddenly doing to my mouth with his—commanding, plundering, owning.

Breathing, by the way, is overrated.

Then he’s pulling his hand away and I’m protesting. He steps back, chest heaving, and I wonder if he’s reaching for more control, my heart tripping, body tensing to run as I wait to see if a different face emerges.

But it doesn’t.

Reven comes back to me and whisks my clothes over my head, then his shirt is off, followed just as quickly by the undoing of my breast band. I watch his face, a tiny part of me worrying he won’t like what he sees. I’m too chesty. Too short.

The flare of color over those angled cheekbones, the way his gaze drinks in every part of me, tells me he more than likes what he’s uncovered. And the fact that he does only sends more heat through me, rushing and pooling and gathering. Is it possible to reach fulfillment from a mere look?

“Goddess save me.” The words seem almost dragged from him. Then he shakes his head, lips forming a sinful smile. “Definitely trouble.”