Page 42

I’m right on the edge, painfully teetering.

I don’t reach between my legs and push myself over by circling my clit.

I let Dravin take me there with every thrust, and finally, when I’m so close that I can feel the pleasure creeping into my limbs, saturating all my cells, I look behind me, watching him in all his masculine glory as he rears up over me, his torso slicked with sweat, the veins in his arms and neck flexing as he holds onto me, eyes closed in intense concentration.

Watching his glorious body in all its glory and power behind me, feeling how painfully full he makes me as he drives into me, knowing that I’m being fucked by a modern day warrior… it brings me to the brink.

I cry out his name as the pleasure smashes into me, chanting it over and over as the pleasure twists and dances and wrings me near senseless.

I arch back into him so he can drive harder into me, meeting him stroke for stroke even though it almost hurts now because the pleasure that I’m coming down from is still strong and it leaves me tingling and sensitive.

“Come inside me,” I pant. “You know everything about me, and it was you who had that pharmacy drop off a year’s supply of birth control and then another year right before I left. You know that I’m on it.”

“I know,” he admits tightly, sucking in air loudly. “I just didn’t want to be disrespectful before.”

I nearly come all over again from his kindness. His sweet, good heart.

He drives into me harder and harder, like he’s writing his name in me from the inside out, marking me.

Maybe my joke about having my insides rearranged wasn’t such a joke.

In this position, he can drive in deep .

I’d tell him if it hurts. It doesn’t. Not in a bad way.

I know he’d ease up and lose the climax he’s chasing and that would be just fine with him because he’s so fucking decent that me coming would be more than enough for him.

I arch against him until he sinks his fingers into my hips and comes.

His cock kicks inside of me as he stills, over and over again, the heat of him flooding through me.

I’ll never get enough of his ragged breathing, those huge gulps of air like he needs to drink me in so that he can survive.

I’m more than strong enough to hold myself up, but I also crave the gentle way he pulls out of me and folds me in his arms, holding me like I’m made of glass.

We both know that I’m so much stronger. It’s nice how Dravin gets the dichotomy so well.

Even the strongest, toughest, hardest of people can recognize the beauty in the softness.

After all this turmoil and warring with myself and with him, this moment of peace and quiet and just being is pure bliss.

“Thank you,” he breathes against my temple. He sets his lips there and speaks the words right into my skin like a brand. “Thank you for fighting for me. I can be stubborn.”

“Incredibly pigheaded,” I agree.

I feel him smile against my skin. “Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. For believing in me and trusting me. For changing your mind. For being you and for being you with me. For all the gifts you’ve given me.”

I have to turn around and face him. This is way too tender and intimate to let him go on speaking to me while I’m turned facing the wall.

I also really want to kiss him.

I bathe his face in kisses. Every part of him, including all his scars.

I trace the raised whirls on his shoulder that have to be an old bullet wound.

The ones on his arms, the few on his chest, the jagged one near his hip.

And after, I guide him around so that I can kiss every single one on his neck and back as well.

I trace the outline of his ink, so fresh and still probably healing, even though it looks perfect.

It would have been midnight black in here if he’d turned out the lights.

I’m glad he didn’t. I can appreciate the artwork this way.

Both the tattoo and him. Every single bit of him is beautiful magic. He’s the living artwork.

The tattoo on his back is just a bonus. It starts from the base of his neck and runs all the way down to include his hard ass.

I saw it in the shower, but I love this new angle.

The Greek gods in all their glory and fury, lightning and clouds, pillars and waves, moon and clouds are so realistic that they’re just like the sculptures that seem to just be holding their breath while you’re watching.

“What gifts?” I ask as I trace my lips over his shoulder.

“You’ve shared so much with me. Not just your body, but your artistry, your humor, your faith, your tenderness, your care, and your vision. I feel incredibly undeserving of it, even if you’ll tell me that I’m not.”

“You’re not,” I agree, trailing my lips down the ink, kissing over Zeus’ face and heading towards Poseidon.

“But I’m starting to think that your needing time and space and all your refusals are about more than just self-doubt.

You’re far too smart for that. You keep saying you want to give me a choice. What does that really mean?”

“I have the skillset that would allow me to end our problems. I wouldn’t have to go down there myself and put a bullet in anyone’s head, but it would be the same thing.”

My lips are frozen against his back. Here I thought he meant that we existed in this sort of bubble. Partly we do, but the worst thing I can think of is him bursting it like that. “I don’t want you to do that.”

“I know.”

“Even if they deserve it. No matter how much I want those men to die, I know what it would do to you, knowing that you orchestrated it.”

He turns around, still gentle because of the post bliss high that hasn’t faded, but the severity of being so brutally honest carves deep lines around his eyes and his beautiful mouth.

It was made for smiling, not drawing thin like this.

“I made a vow to myself, that I would never use my training or my knowledge to hurt someone who hadn’t hurt someone else first. True evil is something else entirely, though.

And they did hurt someone first. I would be justified, I think, even in my own head. ”

“You said it would likely happen eventually. That the threat would eliminate itself.”

“It might take years. What kind of a life is it for you if you constantly have to run and hide and start over, over and over and over again. How is that reality? How can we be anything if life dictates the terms?”

I slide down beside him so that we’re face to face. I have to be touching him, so I plant my hand on his shoulder. There’s no hiding now. Nothing that we’re keeping from each other. This is soul to soul. It’s painful and frightening, baring yourself like this, but with him, I know I’m safe.

“Life is always dictating the terms. I don’t want that for you.

Even if you can justify it in your head, you can’t justify it to your soul.

You might look like a born killer on the outside, but on the inside, it’s only light and goodness.

” He snorts at that, but there’s no way I’m letting him hide from himself.

“If you’ve made peace with the things you had to do in the name of duty, that’s one thing.

This isn’t duty. This isn’t the kind of life I want for you.

We’ll be okay. Eventually. I have faith in that. ”

“If it’s necessary, I’ll do it. I’ll protect you, whatever the cost to myself. You asked me to swear it to you. That’s what I’m swearing. That you will always be safe with me. That I would die for you.”

“I know that. But live instead.” I know that’s fucking cheesy, but when we’re talking like this, it’s a plea straight from the depths of me.

He smiles, breaking some of the tension. “I will. I’ll only act if we’re backed into a corner with no other way out. Only then.” He kisses me tenderly. It makes me less likely to tear out of my own skin. “When it comes down to it, I’ll always choose you.”

“Because you’re obsessed with me,” I deadpan. I’ve said that before and not in a nice way. I don’t want him to remember only that when he goes back to it. I want him to hear me saying it now, right here, like this.

“Yeah.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

“In a way, I guess I fell in love with you from Marcus’ stories.

Not that kind of love, but… admiration. He never talked about you until you were in college.

He told me about how he forced you to stay after your mom died.

About how artistic you were. How you created the most amazing things from nothing.

How growing up, even when you two really did have nothing, there was still joy, and that was often solely because of your spirit. ”

“And his. His too,” I protest, but my heart is beating hard at Dravin’s admission.

“He made it possible to dream by providing for and protecting our family before he left, and then after, he was the one who sent money for college. When I wanted to leave, he forced me to stay. He wouldn’t let me give up on myself.

He couldn’t be there physically for me when I was at my lowest point, but he was there in the way he could be.

” I duck my head, the motion sending hot tears trickling down my cheeks.

My throat is a bed of spikes, but I speak past it anyway.

“I’ll have regrets forever, but I know I have to let then go. ”

Dravin’s hands bracket my face, his thumbs swiping away the moisture. “He’d want you to. He never stopped loving you and he knew that you never stopped loving him.”