Page 148 of Caution to the Wind

My heart fuckin’ leapt in my chest, tryin’ to get closer to her. Urgin’ me to wrench her into my arms and smother her smart mouth with mine.

I wasn’t much of a talker, nothin’ like King with his poetry or Nova with his charm. But these words needed to be said. I owed her them even though she’d never think to ask.

“I did,” I agreed, lowerin’ myself to my knees in the boat, two bodies and a bench seat between us, but at least we were more on level. “Your love language is throwin’ yourself in the face of danger to save your loved ones from somethin’ so slight as a paper cut.”

“Murder and revenge are a hell of a lot more serious than a paper cut,” she retorted, and I was still gettin’ it wrong ’cause I meant that as a compliment. “Doing anything for the people you love isn’t just something I hold in theory, Axe-Man. You and Cleo deserve action.”

“So do you,” I told her solemnly as I took her face in my hands. There was still blood caught between the grooves on my fingers. “I’m tryin’ to give you words, but I’ve never been much good at that. Maybe, you’ll understand what I’m tryin’ to tell you better like this.”

Her skin was soft against the calluses of my fingertips, her mouth a dark bud unfurlin’ at the centre of her luminous, moon-kissed face. I watched her eyes widen almost comically as I bent closer, and she realized what I was plannin’ to do.

But she didn’t stop me.

No, instead, the moment my lips touched hers, she loosed a soft sigh like a silk ribbon unspoolin’ between us. I caged it between our mouths when my lips closed on hers and then, with one slick slide of my tongue between her teeth, I fed my own groan back to her.

Cherry blossom in my nose, sweetness like cool water in my mouth, the smoothness of unblemished skin on my palms, satin hair under my fingertips. My senses were filled with her ’til I felt like I was drownin’, six feet beneath the waters lappin’ at the side of the boat.

It would’ve been a happy death, submerged in the depths of Mei Zhen Marchand.

I slid my hand over her cheekbone into her hair to cup the back of her skull and tilt her so I could take the kiss deeper, plunder into her mouth just to feel her whimper.

Why had I waited so long to fuckin’ kiss her?

’Cause now that I had, I knew I’d never wanna stop.

When I pulled away, she chased after my lips, fistin’ her hands into my shirt to keep me close. I chuckled low and pressed my forehead to hers so those big obsidian eyes took up my entire world view.

“I forgive you,” I told her. “In case that wasn’t clear. In case it wasn’t obvious that there’s nothin’ to forgive you for. In case you still needed to hear it.”

She breathed softly as she stared into my eyes, lickin’ her lips nervously like she didn’t believe me.

I’d given her a fuck ton of reasons not to.

“I don’t hate you, Rocky,” I said, and the words were too simple, a contradiction of the cruel ways I’d treated her, of the promises I’d made to hate her forever.

But they felt like more than that.

I don’t hate you ’cause I love you.

Only I wasn’t ready to say those words ’cause I was worried I didn’t know what the fuck they meant anymore.

I wanted to be her friend like before. I wanted to be her lover like we were now.

But there was somethin’ in me screamin’ for more.

Screamin’ for everythin’.

The same instinct that had encouraged me to ink my possession into the sweet skin of her ass. The same instinct that urged me to mark her up with my tongue and teeth so anyone lookin’ at all her beauty would know it belonged to me.

And I couldn’t bring myself to accept that. Not after life had taught me love was a built-in tragedy. Not when it showed me through Kate and Cleo what happened to the human heart when it was foolish enough to wish for the fantasy of some kinda happily ever after.

Not when Mei’d left us once before and had no plans to stay.

With Cleo recoverin’, the triad at our doorstep, and Kate’s death so close to avenged, I couldn’t focus on somethin’ so selfish and risky as my own feelings.

Even more than that, though, a part of me knew if Mei left again, or if, fuck, life saw fit to take another woman from me, I’d never recover.

Mei’s eyes were glazed with tears as she looked at me. Her fingers uncurled from my shirt and shifted up into my beard and then the hair over my ears. She studied every plane and angle of my face, a face she’d have to have memorized after spendin’ years drawin’ it for the Off-White Knight.