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I could let the rest of it go for her. I didn’t think that was a claim I would ever be able to make, that I could ever care for anyone that much, that I could ever need someone in this way, but I did. I would let the rest of the Graves burn, would hand it all over to someone else if that was what it took to have her, to keep her safe, to keep her with me.

I kept the words inside, not because I was afraid of them. She already knew how I felt, how serious I was, but I didn’t want to burden her, didn’t want to force her to take on that sort of pressure.

Grey was the sort of girl who liked to run, and I was sick of chasing her. So I swallowed those declarations, not wanting to risk sending her running again just because I was a little too upfront. She required slow movements—after all, it had taken us five years to get here, to reach this point.

I could wait as long as it took to go further, to have more of her.

So I raked my teeth across her pulse, my end close, chasing the little sounds she made. I held off just long enough to feel her cunt tighten around me, to feel her squeeze down on my shaft.

She held me closer with that arm, her fingers digging into my shoulder, gripping me as though afraid I’d disappear if she didn’t.

Stupid woman.Nothing could have dragged me away.

I followed her over that edge, came deep inside her as though that were a claim. It had taken far too long to get back to this point with her, to achieve this level of comfort again, and this felt like some sort of final proof that things had returned to normal.

No, better than normal.

I wasn’t hiding anything from her.

Well, nothing important, at least, nothing that was going to get her killed.

I pressed my face against her neck, riding out the aftershocks, the way her still-squeezing cunt tightened around my cock and made me wonder if round two was possible.

No matter what we faced here, I knew I’d do everything it took to make sure we got back safely.

That was a promise I damned well intended to keep.

Chapter Eighteen

The worst thing about spur-of-the-moment sex was just how filthy it got a person. Without a shower afterward—or enough wet wipes—proper cleanup proved impossible.

I wondered for a moment if I could have shifted to my crow form. Wouldn’t that work? Those flames that licked across my skin during my change might destroy anything that didn’t belong, right?

Except, I’d changed before and still had blood on me, so that didn’t seem like it would work.

I sat on the ground, my fingers tracing a crystal in the boulders around us. We’d set up in a spot just outside of a cave entrance—Porter had said he sensed nothing had been there in the past week or so. A fire roared and we circled around it, the warmth helping as the temperature had fallen with the passing hours.

No one had mentioned my little outing with Kelvin, either. I wouldn’t say they weren’t aware of it—they all had exceptional hearing, after all—but they hadn’t addressed it.

I’d prefer that, of course. I thought I’d been able to stay quiet, but that was probably not that realistic. I wasn’t quiet at the best of times, so there was no way I could have managed it duringthat.

And who could blame me? It had felt way too good for me to even think I could hold back.

“You’re blushing,” Porter said from across the fire, sitting on one of the boulders rather than the dirt as I was.

“Just the heat from the fire,” I lied.

He lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.

Ruben cast a glare in Kelvin’s direction—so much for people pretending they’d heard nothing.

Kelvin, of course, didn’t look sorry. If anything, he seemed even prouder as he was scolded for his behavior. He was probably that kid in class who always got himself in trouble and only grinned through the lectures because he knew damn well he was going to do it again.

“Why are there so many crystals?” I asked to distract us as I pointed at the shimmering gems inside all the rocks around us.

“They hum with power,” Porter said. “I think they help to contain it here, to hold it.”

“There are so many different colors, though.”