Page 123

“I think it happened when you reminded me that I know how to feel a hug,” she answers.

For such a large physique, the god wrapped around her quavers, lighter than a fletching. “Fuck, Sorrow. All you had to do was just say so.”

“When was I supposed to do that? Anyway, what would you have said back?”

“Condemnation, I would have said two centuries worth of things.”

The words crack out of him, long suppressed. He cannot mean…can he? But then she remembers another telling fact.

Her words splinter. “While we’re at it, why didn’tyouever tellme?”

“Those two centuries of things?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me where to find my arrow?”

Envy’s fingers stall in her hair. “Oh,” he draws out.

“Oh,” she parrots.

“How did you…” His words trail off, replaced by a shy baritone. “Come now. You’re a spitfire, if there ever was one. Don’t you know why I took it?”

“Not unless I’m clairvoyant,” she says.

“Then turn around and let me say this to your face.” Sorrow flops over, cocooned in his arms, his welted features swarming her vision. “Don’t you know that you’re every emotion I’ve ever felt? And then some?”

“Envy.”

“Not done yet.” He drops his forehead against hers, the digits of his left hand climbing into her scalp, those hazel eyes piercing hers. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the Peaks, since the day before we first parted ways into the mortal world. I asked if you’d miss me, and you told me to get lost. I loved you then. I love you now. I love your jibes and your cranky attitude. I’ve loved your desire to heal others and your courage in the face of pain.”

His free fingers undo the buttons of her vest. “I have loved your maddening wardrobe and glitter stars.”

The garment slides from her shoulders, his touch coasting down her breasts, the nipples puckering under his palms. “I love your preference for comfort food.”

Envy licks the seam of her mouth, prompting a mewl from her throat. “I love that you hide as much as you reveal.” With that, he leans over Sorrow, gently urging her farther into the bed. His digits slip beneath the skirt, skimming up her thigh, nudging them to spread.

“I love that you don’t care what others think, but you care how they feel,” Envy pants, his pupils exploding as he reaches the intimate patch of hair.

When his thumb presses into the sensitive crest, Sorrow arches into him, her eyes fluttering to stay open. A delicious haze fogs her mind. Wetness seeps out of her and coats his hand, making them both moan.

He toys with the folds, coaxing them open. Flexing his fingers, he pries her apart and starts to pump two digits into Sorrow, splaying her wider. “I loved you when I couldn’t stand you,” he rasps. “I loved you when I couldn’t stay away from you. I loved you when I was jealous of you. I loved you when you humiliated me in front of our people, all those years ago on a target range.”

His black mane hangs around his face, and his lips quirk as they blaze a trail across her body. “I loved you when you compromised my innocence.”

On a weepy, aroused laugh, Sorrow pitches her knees high. She writhes across the bed, her pelvis lurching upward to meet the depths of his fingers.

Ravenous, Envy watches her. “I’m still in love with you.” He withdraws from Sorrow’s passage and rolls on top of her. As her thighs clamp around his hips, his gaze pins her to the bed. “I plan to fall in love with you every day, for the rest of my misbegotten life.”

“Then let me love you back,” Sorrow pants, undoing the mulberry buttons of his black, high-necked shirt, exposing a burnished torso and a rapid pulse at his throat.

Envy’s heart rams against her own. They lay tangled, their hands roaming fretfully, hectically.

Andrew once said something remarkable to Love, which she’d repeated to the rest of them. What had it been?

A messy love is an authentic love.

Sorrow and Envy kiss messily. His mouth collides with hers, their lips rushing against one another. At the contact, a tidal wave of sensation builds, throbbing deep within her. It’s a lit fuse, an aching throb of adrenaline.

As their mouths cant and fold, her tongue dashes against his, each stroke hitting a spot below her navel. The craving escalates until they’re peeling her skirt down her calves, chucking his shirt aside, and kicking his trousers to the ground.