Page 121 of Kill for a Kiss

Elle. My beautiful, sweet Elle. She walks to the edge, bare toes on the rock. Mist curls around her calves and the pink scars that line them. Proof of how far she’s come, of what she’s survived. I almost forget to breathe when I watch her shrug off the only piece of clothing she has on. My coat on her falls at her feet. She looks over at me with a shy kind of smile.

It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. It can’t. Because she’s mine now. Been mine for a while. It’s her, me, and the hush of water, with the flowing wind and the silent trees.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says softly, her voice nearly swallowed by the sound of the bubbling spring. “It’s beautiful.”

You are. But I don’t say that out loud. Because I don’t trust my voice when I can’t even breathe at the sight of her.

“Are you getting in?” she asks.

I can only nod. After stripping down, I step into the water first to test the temperature for her. The warmth seeps into my skin.

I offer her my hand. She takes it and follows after me, dipping in beside me. The surface barely covers her breasts. Her damp skin swiftly flushes from the heat, her eyes catching the gold of the rising sun.

I reach for her before I can stop myself, my fingers wrapping around her waist under the water. Her breath hitches. “Sterling, I…”

But I don’t let her finish. My mouth’s already on hers, tasting the spring’s steam and her sweetness. Her arms wind around my neck as she presses herself against me. Her skin slides against mine, legs going around my hips, and she sighs out this soft, helpless sound that drives me insane.

I slide my hands down her spine, pulling her tighter. Andfuck, I keep kissing her, indulging myself, happy as hell that I have her all to myself. She’s all mine, always was. And I’d give her everything, as long as she asked for it. But it would kill me to share her again.

She breaks the kiss only to press her lips to my jaw, then down my neck, moving with a hunger that burns hotter than the spring itself. Her breath comes fast and shallow against my skin, and I’m losing whatever control I have left. She moves onto my lap, sinking down on my cock. I’ve been ready for her. Always ready for her. I want to give her everything she wants. Whenever she wants. However she wants.

When she takes all of me in, I bite back a groan, one hand fisting into her hair, the other locking her against me beneath the water. Her hips rock, and I groan out loud this time.

“I don’t want to ever stop,” she whispers, her lips at my ear.

“You won’t have to,” I mumble, barely able to think, let alone talk.

She makes me speechless like my mind can’t function around her. But it doesn’t matter. All I need to think about is how she’s mine. And in this quiet pocket of the world, in this heat and steam and silence, we let go. Everything else can wait. Everything else can burn.

***

She’s tucked against me now, while we’re still in the water, her head resting on my shoulder, cheek damp from steam and sweat. Her fingers trace slow shapes over my chest, her other hand floating in the water, looking too content to move. I am too.

Mist moves over the water in ribbons. Elle always looked like she was too pretty to be real. But here, even more so. The hot spring tints her cheeks pink, makes her hair slick wet, and her body so suppleand pliant against mine.

I let my fingers drift over her spine, tracing the curve of her back. She shivers under my touch, moaning softly.

I could stay here forever, listening to her sounds, watching her eyelashes flutter when I brush my lips on her cheek.

She stirs a little, voice drowsy. “You’re staring again.”

I don’t deny it. “Yeah, I am.”

Her head lifts, those blue eyes meeting mine. “What are you thinking about?”

I could lie. But I don’t want to. Not with her. Not anymore. “That you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I say. “And I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

She smiles, her fingers sliding up to cup the side of my neck. Her lips find mine in a slow, aching kiss like she knows I needed that more than I needed air.

When we pull apart, she breathes against my lips. “You stayed by my side, Sterling. That’s what you did.”

My hand goes to the back of her head, guiding her to rest against me again. She melts into me, like we’re two parts of the same whole. Her breath settles and syncs with mine. And I think, if there’s any peace left in this broken world, it’s here. With her. In the quiet. In the heat. In the afterglow of something we finally didn’t have to fight for.

The hot spring hisses around us. The sun’s at high noon by now probably. And under the light, she’s glowing, glistening. Perched on my lap, her arms draped around my shoulders. I hold her like she’s everything. Because sheismy everything.

“I should’ve been by your side sooner,” I murmur, low and raw.

Elle’s breath catches, sharp and thin, but not in surprise. It’s like something inside her already knows what I’m really referring to. The first fire. Four years ago. I brace myself, but I need her to know.That I remember. That I’m willing to talk about it. Even if she ends up hating me.