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Her heartbeat suspended, waiting for the rest of her world to be torn away when he admitted it had all been a mistake. Grasped his face, she pushed him away. “What?”

He sighed and stepped back, giving her more space, but his hands remained on her hips. “I want to marry you, Tarley, but I can’t if it means forcing you to marry. Forcing you to choose me because of a treaty, that sacrifice, it’s wrong. You have a life, a family, and what kind of monster would I be to force you into–” He stopped and disconnected, running a hand through his hair as he sighed.

She wished she could see him more clearly in the dark. “You still want to be with me?” she asked, her heartbeat changing from fear to something more vital.

“More than anything. But as you and me. Tarley and Lachlan. Not Kaloma and Jast. I want you, Tarley, just like this. I want your anger, your passion, your stubbornness, your pride, your arguments, your kisses. I want your love. Because that’s what I know—and maybe I don’t deserve it—but I fucking love you.” He grabbed her hips with a hand, then stood there in the darkness, silent and waiting.

Her heart began beating faster and more frenzied, the anger and fear gone and making way for need and longing, for that vitality she had yet to identify. Rather than ponder it, she closed the distance between them.

“Say something,” he said. “Put me out–”

She hushed him with a finger pressed to his lips. “Not yet.” Sliding her hands into his hair, she pushed him up against the wall of the hedge and pressed her mouth to his.

He moaned her name into her mouth.

“I said to be quiet,” she ordered him. “I need you to understand my answer.” She wanted this moment with him. “Behavior speaks the truth, yes?” She slid her tongue across his lips and ran her hands over his shoulders, down his arms as she tilted her head.

He groaned, his hands leaving hers and jerking her against him. His mouth opened wider, and his tongue collided with hers. His palms found her face, framing it as he kissed her first with fire, then with tenderness.

“I need you,” she said between kisses, reaching between them, grabbing at his pants to unfasten them. “I want you.”

“Here?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her answer, pushing her hands away to unbutton his trousers, mouth pressed to hers, walking her back until she was pressed against the hedge once more.

“Yes. Here.” She pulled up her skirt, the rustle equal in sound to her panted breaths. “Please—I want this. You and me. Lachlan–”

“Tarley. You mean it? You choose me? This?” He reached down, grasped her ass, and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, wishing her dress away, her skirts pushed up, an explosion of fabric between them.

His erection pressed against her core, and she moaned. “Yes. Lachlan. Please. Don’t make me wait.”

“Fuck, Tarley,” he said, his hand sliding between them over her underclothes, finding that place that made her gasp. “Hold on,” he said against her mouth.

“There,” she gasped and gripped his shoulders, tilting her hips toward his touch. “There.”

“I’ve been fantasizing about this all day.” He tore through her undergarment, ruining the fabric.

Under different circumstances, his forcefulness might have bothered her, but not then, not with him. She loved it. Loved that Lachlan’s need met her own. The wildness was consuming them both, burning through what was between them like a wildfire, and Tarley wanted more, moaning, moving against him, holding the nape of his neck with one hand and a shoulder with another. “Make me yours, Lachlan.”

He groaned at her words. “Mine,” he ground out. His body pressed against hers, holding her in place, though there was much to be desired in the hedge’s support. “You’re mine, Tarley.” As the silky tip of his cock pressed against her entrance, he slid the head up to connect with the origin of her pleasure. “What do you feel?”

“You. Gods, Lachlan. Inside me–”

“What do you feel?” he repeated, sliding his head back and forth.

“Stars,” she breathed into his ear and tilted her hips into the sensation. Images of Lachlan flashed in her mind’s eye as pleasure rolled through her like rapids on the River Grimz. “So much. Too much.”

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“Don’t leave me,” she said. “I’ll follow you–”

“I’ll follow you.”

She cried out against the skin of his cheek.

“Come for me, love.”

Lachlan continued to use his cock on her until she gasped, “I’m coming, Lach. Please!”

Then he reached around to grip her shoulders and pressed her down onto him, burying himself all the way until the skin of his hips met hers.