Page 105 of Demon's Bane

I go to him.

Just a small shift over the pool’s stone edge, a lean into him, a gentle pull like gravity itself exists just here, between us.

My head on his shoulder. His arm around my waist. A wing tucked behind me. A sharing of breath and space and silence.

“Tell me,” Rhett murmurs. “Tell me what you wanted to earlier. What I was too stubborn to hear.”

Right away, I understand what he means. Talk about my complicated history with the Crescent Coven, all the reasons I thought I could relate to him.

I shake my head and lean closer into his side. “It doesn’t ma—”

My words cut off with Rhett’s low, pained rumble. “I’ll ask you not to finish that sentence, little mate. Or to ever think something that’s hurt you, something you’ve struggled with, doesn’t matter. It will always matter to me.”

Another wave of pressure behind my eyes, in my throat, and I take a few breaths to beat it back.

“I wanted to belong. When I was younger, I wanted so badly to have a place there. And it wasn’t all bad, growing up. There were… bright spots. Being friends with Allie. Feeling like I belonged to something bigger than myself.”

Rhett strokes a soothing hand over my back, waiting for me to find the words I need to continue.

“But I also know what it feels like to have no good choice but to move on. And how much it sucks to actually do it. But it’s been worth it for me. Setting up my shop and making a little home for other witches like me who’ve needed somewhere to belong.Having something that’s mine, something I chose and built for myself. A life that I’m proud of.”

Suddenly feeling too unsettled to stay where I am, I let out a harsh breath and pull my feet from the water. Standing, I run a frustrated hand through my hair and pace a few steps away.

“And I know all of this is a mess,” I say, voice coming out rough and broken now. “Everything. All of it. I know how complicated it is and I don’t know where we go from here. But I want… I want…”

Rhett stands as well and closes the space between us, hand catching my chin and turning my face up so I have to meet his eyes.

They’re wild, uncertain, maybe even a little afraid. Shining crimson catching the shifting, shimmering light.

“What do you want, Joan?”

Goddess, what a question.

And though it may be a mistake, I can’t stop myself from reaching for him.

I can’t stop myself from burying my hands in his hair, running them over the curve of his horns and pulling his mouth to mine.

I can’t stop the gasp I let out when his hands land on the hem of my shirt and tug it up, and I can’t stop myself from being just as demanding and selfish with his clothes.

We’re graceless and greedy as we strip each other bare, heedless of anything but our want and need, tripping over our own feet as we move toward the pool.

Rhett catches me in his arms and lifts me up against him as he wades us into the water. Legs wrapped around his waist, arms looped around his neck, with his cock pressed hard and hot against the bottom of my belly and his lips kissing every bit of bare skin they can find, I surrender.

To Rhett, to the steam and the wonder of this place, to my own insatiable need to have him close, consequences be damned.

Goddess, this is stupid. Letting ourselves do this, have this, distract ourselves from all the questions we can’t answer.

But if it’s all we have, if we really are approaching the fork in the road where neither of us is going to be willing to sacrifice our path forward, maybe it’s alright to take it.

Just for right now.

One more night.

I let out a startled yelp when Rhett lifts me out of the water and sets me down on the stone ledge where we were sitting just minutes ago. Even with the steam and the warmth of the pool heating it a little, the cool press of stone against my skin is still a shock. I squirm, trying to adjust, until Rhett grasps my hips in both his hands and leans in to nip at me just above my navel.

“Lie back, little mate.”

There’s no part of me able to resist a deep, graveled command like that, and even though I suck in a breath as more cold stone presses against my back, I obey.