Page 37

THIRTY-SEVEN

Fiona

M y heart was still pounding a rapid staccato when Reed carefully lowered us both to the bed, cradling me from behind in the utterly perfect big spoon, despite the fact that we were both slicked with sweat. My mind and heart were spinning, but his arms around me were the perfect anchor in that moment.

He was, without a doubt, the most attentive lover I’d ever had. Actually, calling the men I’d been with in the past lovers might not really be accurate, now that I’d experienced what I had with Reed. He’d read my every need, pulled sensations from my body I didn’t know I was even capable of feeling. That in and of itself was a lot to process. It was… like really experiencing sex for the first time. All the times before felt faded, less than in comparison to the burning fire between us.

To the connection between us.

And then he fucking bit me . I reached up with trembling fingers to touch the tender spot at the base of my neck. It was sore but not painful. He rumbled, that gravelly sound deep in his chest that I found so soothing, and gently tugged my fingers away from the spot. And then he kissed away the ache, holding my hand with his.

After a few more minutes, when both of us seemed to have come down from the postorgasmic high, he kissed my temple and murmured, “Do you want to take a shower with me?”

I nodded, still too lost in my own head for words.

He slipped away, and I instantly regretted the loss of his warm, steady presence behind me, but a second later, I heard the shower running, and then he was back, scooping me out of bed like a damsel in a fairy tale.

“Reed, I can walk.” It was a weak protest, and the look he shot me said he knew it as well as I did. I traced the perfect arch of his eyebrow, marveling in the fact that just a few short weeks ago, I didn’t even know this man, and now…

Now he felt like the safest place in the world, my landing place, my home . The realization froze my breath in my lungs.

How could it be, so quickly? It was illogical, and my very-human upbringing wanted to rail against it. Too much, too fast, too uncertain.

But it was all so intensely real between us.

He carried me right into the shower, waiting for me to test the water with my fingertips and give a nod of approval before setting me on my feet under the hot stream. It was a sweet gesture, a level of care I’d never experienced before.

And that was before he grabbed my favorite bottle of bodywash and began to lather it up between his palms.

He washed me tenderly, tracing every line of my body like it was precious to him, working tired muscles with strong fingers, soothing away aches with gentle caresses.

My eyes were full of tears by the time he carefully backed me under the stream of water, rinsing away the soap, but not the love he’d put into the actions.

Because that’s what this was. It was time to call a spade a spade—I loved this man.

This stubborn, difficult, incredible man. With every fiber of my heart and soul, I loved him.

The tears spilled over, and he frowned. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry, Fiona, I never meant to take it too fast, or too far, I… Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make it better, please.”

He cupped my cheeks with torment in his eyes, and I shook my head.

“No, you didn’t hurt me, it was perfect. You’re perfect. These are happy tears.”

He blinked a few times, as if the idea of a woman crying because she felt so happy and loved was alien to him. Hell, maybe it was.

But when I stretched up on my toes and pressed a kiss to his lips, he melted, wrapping me up in the best hug of my life.

We stayed there, wrapped up in each other’s arms in the shower until our fingers and toes were like prunes and the water was starting to turn cold.

He stepped out first, still in caretaker mode as he held up a towel for me. But when he moved to wrap it around my back, he froze.

After a moment where he stayed rooted in place, I started to get worried. “Reed? What’s wrong?”

“Your back— you’ve got mate marks.” The reverence in his voice had goose bumps skittering up my arms.

I stepped around him to the fogged-up mirror, swiping at it with my palm so I could try to get a look at what he was seeing.

At first, I didn’t see anything, until he finally found his legs again, moving beside me and tugging the towel out of my grip. I gasped when I saw them, the thin blue lines tracing over my back. It was beautiful, swirling and tempestuous, a raging storm perfectly captured across the expanse of my lower back. There was striking lightning in the negative space, the lash of wind and rain—but somehow, it was beautiful.

It made me think of the poem by Dorothy Parker.

“This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm. I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; they sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.” I whispered the lines of Fair Weather , the words encompassing much more now than they did the day I first read them in a college literature class in my early twenties.

I turned slowly to meet Reed’s steady gaze. “Does this mean that you also have marks?”

He nodded, eyes boring into mine with so much emotion, I couldn’t possibly untangle it all.

“Can I see them?”

He stroked my cheek with his thumb and then turned, dropping his own towel. At any other time, I’d probably be distracted by the glorious perfection of his heavily muscled ass, but the beautiful blue marks that wove around his waist had caught my attention fully.

His marks weren’t identical; the color was, the feeling they evoked was the same. But his were more the suggestion of a tempest, swirling waves, plunging seas, all hinted at in the swirling depths, as if the storm had softened, melded against his heat into something serene. They started on his back, twirling over the dimples on either side of his spine, but continued around to his front, where a swirling vortex of blue was imprinted up the left side of his chest, ending at the top of his rib cage.

I traced the lines with my fingertips, the warmth in my chest at seeing our two magics intertwined was… so much. Overwhelming in its absolute perfection. I stopped with my hand over his heart, the steady thrumming beat soothing to my tumultuous feelings. He was always so steady, and I needed that more than I’d realized.

Despite all logic, all odds, we somehow were the perfect match. My magic was wild, raging for freedom. His was calm, steadfast. Two halves of one perfect whole. It couldn’t be anything but fate.

When I finally looked up again, my eyes had gone misty for the second time. “They’re perfect, just like us.” I blew out a breath, steeling myself for what I was about to say. “I love you, Reed. I know it’s too soon and too much all too quickly. But damn it all to hell, I love you . It’s like you’re everything I didn’t know I was missing, bringing out all the best parts of me with who you are.”

“I love you too,” he whispered, the words soft as a caress and twice as tender. “But the difference is, I’ve known it since the second you fell into my arms, the second you looked at me with those mismatched eyes. You’d been haunting me for months, taking up my dreams, begging me to save you. I’ll spend every day of forever doing exactly that, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about you needing to save me.”

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Don’t worry, Stormy. You’re saving me too.”

There was truth in those words, a rightness.

We were saving each other.