Page 89 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

I remove my hand from his, and instead, grab his chin in my fingers to turn him to look at me. “Love is not bullshi?—”

The words die on my lips. Out across the sky in our peripheral vision a vibrant flash catches our attention. We turn and watch an incandescent trail of light streak across the star-studded sky. My breath is stuck in my chest as the shooting star fades into the black of the night.

Darian stumbles back onto his forearms, his boots kicking at the cliff’s edge as he fights to find his feet, showering rocks down into the valley below.

I reach out for him. “Darian?—”

“I-I’ve got to go,” he croaks, avoiding my gaze as he stands.

“Wait!”

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he growls and quickly walks back toward Nightfort.

I watch him for a moment. Unsure if I should press on or leave him be. My gaze lowers to the ground, where my hand was resting on his. He had been in such a hurry, he left his flask. I snatch it off the ground along with his shackles and head back toward Nightfort.

Anxiety weighs in my stomach like a bag of stones with each step. Now that I released him from his binds, where is he even going to go? My room?

I burst through the door of Cyrus’ old residence room and find Darian gathering his knapsack before he slings it over his shoulder.

He turns his head slightly but not completely looking at me. “Don’t close that door?—”

I close the door, my shoulders falling back against the wood.

“Can you fucking listen for once in your godsdamned life?” He swivels, his eyes meeting mine with an intensity that makes me pause.

I flinch, frozen at the spot and unsure how to respond. But I try anyway and hold out his flask. “Look, you left this?—”

“You think I give a flip-flying shit about alcohol?” He seems to grow larger as he thunders toward me and snatches the flask out of my hand.

I toss his shackles off to the ground, irritation flaring inside me at the contrast of this callousness in comparison to our vulnerable moment just minutes before. “What is your problem?”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

He throws the flask at the wall, the glass shattering inside the leather container. I shrink, inching backward and finding myself bracing against the wall. My left hand instinctively dips down to my sword.

He swivels to face me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. His brows are drawn down and tight, chest heaving with each breath as he tries—and struggles—to maintain any semblance of self-composure.

“You! You are my fucking problem!” He prowls forward and stops only inches from me. When he dips his head to stare me in the eyes, his hair falls into his face, strands partially hiding his glare.

His hands seem to move with a mind of their own, accentuating every word with a flick of his wrist and clench of his fingers.

“You are so godsdamned infuriating and incredibly fucking foolish. It’s a heavens-sent miracle you haven’t died yet, as it should have happened ten times over at this point.

You put so many people in danger, all because you think it’s the morally right choice. You fuck up everything !”

My fear spikes at the volume of his voice, but my anger simmers beneath the surface. Even if I don’t want to accept it, his brutal truth hits home.

He sweeps the hair out of his eyes and pins it at his templates, tightly, until he slides his hands down his face, his expression still fuming. “And I hate everything about you?—”

“Good, I hate you, too!” I throw back, my eyes narrowing. “You are a massive fucking asshole!”

“Shut up! I’m not done! I hate the way you can’t seem to keep your fucking opinions to yourself.

I hate that you can’t seem to recognize when you’re in danger, and when you do, you still charge in head fucking first!

I hate the way you have all this determination despite not wanting to take the help you need from other people.

And I can’t fucking stand, ” he screams, “the way your lip pokes out when you’re mad. ”

The anger in his eyes swirls into an entirely different emotion, his voice softening, “Or…or the way it quivers when you’re sad…”

The only thing filling the silence is his heavy breathing. And the pounding of my heart. The realization settles over me. He hates the way I make him feel .

He slams two fingers against his heart, so hard that my own chest hurts, and his voice cracks. “And yet, I can’t fucking hate you. No matter how… fucking …hard…I try. You’ll destroy my life, and everything I’ve worked for, and…for some godsforsaken reason…I would let you?—”

I swallow up the last bit of space between us and crush myself against him, pressing my lips to his. We turn into a tangle of greedy hands and melting mouths.

I just want him to touch me.

Have his lips on mine.

Every second he isn’t touching me is unbearable.

His hands grip the back of my skull hard enough to make my scalp scream. His own desire is feverish as he claims my mouth, holding me to him like he’s scared to let me go.

My hands frantically pull at his shirt, untying the top of it with a messy, frenzied speed in case he changes his mind.

He gasps surprise into my mouth, and jerkily begins to rip his jacket off, shrugging the material off his shoulders as his lips are locked onto mine.

We break apart as I unlace my own top, and rather impatiently, he brushes my hands aside.

Quickly, he removes the article of clothing at three times the speed I would have been able to.

He tosses my shirt off carelessly, followed by all the other articles of clothing separating us.

Once we are both naked, I push back into him with a kiss until we fall onto the bed.

I land on top of him, my hair swinging forward and curtaining the both of us in this experience far different from what it has been before.

He might have wanted me all the times before, but now?

Now he needs me. He tucks my hair behind my ear, and I can see it in his eyes. How he holds my gaze. And kisses me.

Gone is his usual bravado and arrogance. His expression is deadly serious, like this means something to him. Like this isn’t just some silly fantasy way to pass the time or form of manipulation.

I kiss him with everything he’s supposed to hate about me. Fueled by every desire to shove those things he hates in his face. Giving him every reminder of why we wouldn’t work. Why this is just sex.

I bite his bottom lip and tug at it, hoping to convey what this is supposed to mean for both of us. This is just sex. It doesn’t need to be more.

He groans, then holds the back of my head in one hand and braces his other hand against my lower back before he rolls himself on top of me. But as he hovers over me, his muscled arms on either side of my head and his brown locks sweeping down toward me over those soft green eyes…

Face to face.

It shouldn’t be this tempting, but…the way he looks at me stirs something within my chest. It makes me completely forget what I just tried to convince him we were doing here.

He pushes up away from me to kneel, then grabs behind my bent knee. Pulling it across my body to roll me onto my hands and knees. Our silent agreement. Just. Sex.

I catch his forearm, removing his grasp from my leg and sliding my hip back open. “Not tonight,” I whisper. “I want you to see me.”

A wave of shock and hesitation washes over his features, and before he can argue with me, I pull him into another kiss.

Every muscle in him relaxes, bit by bit, as if he’s surrendering himself to me.

I swipe his lips open with my tongue, and we turn into a slow spiral of heat.

Without breaking our kiss, I reach down between us and grab his hardened cock and pull him to me.

Arching my hips up in a silent plea, he obliges, dipping low to sink himself inside of me.

I wrap my legs around his waist, locking my ankles.

Rather than fucking me with unmatched vigor and carnal need, he breaks our kiss and rolls his hips into me. Slowly. Burrowing each inch deeper inside of me with every staggered breath we share. He moans as he fills me to the brim, until our bodies are completely flush with one another.

He hangs his head before pulling out slowly and gliding into me again.

I snake my fingers into his hair as he adopts a steady motion.

He must feel my legs trembling around his waist because he flicks his attention to me and shifts up to grab my ankles.

Gently, he directs me to bend my knees to my chest. He arches over me again and is back to rolling himself inside of me.

And oh, Gods, does it do something to me. At a depth and angle I’ve never experienced, I come undone around him. My cries drip from my lips as stars cloud my vision, and wave after wave of ecstasy rolls over me.

His face tenses, his jaw nearly wired shut as he squeezes his eyes closed.

As if he’s close to his own climax. I slide my legs out from between our chests to bracket his hips once more, locking my ankles again at his lower back.

He groans at the new position, his head hanging low and avoiding my eye contact.

“Hey…” I breathe, my heart racing, the words fumbling out before I can stop myself as I grab his face in my hands. “I want to see you, too…”

He flicks his eyes up to me, locking into my stare. Pinning me with his eye contact, where it feels wrong to move. Wrong to even breathe . Not that I wanted to.

I nod, understanding just how close he is. “It’s okay,” I whisper.

His forehead bumps mine as he gently rests his head against me, his hips still rocking slowly. His mouth parts into something fragile. Every angled, angry line of tension etched into his face from the hardened years melts as his eyes blink slowly. And yet, he doesn’t look away.

He doesn’t look away.

He looks at me .

All at once, I see him. Everything he’s tried to hide, every corridor of horrific secrets and monstrous flaws.

A chasm of pain masked by violence and sarcasm and sex.

Every distant flicker of happiness, every shimmer of hope and longing, all swept into one abyss of green.

The green of new beginnings. Of the forest. Of the trees I once called home, and of the one place that made me feel safe.

Yet, here he is.

And I can’t move away.

I can’t look away.

He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t pummel me straight into the mattress hard enough for my eyes to flutter closed. To be sore the next morning. He rocks into me gently, with each push and withdrawal deliberate and intimate.

All the times before, we chased the highs. Climbing each step with fury and haste, minds centered only on the pleasure that shocked our entire nervous system. But this is something different.

Instead, we settle into something deep and slow. Quiet. Controlled and gentle. Something I can’t quite comprehend. We focus on sharing breaths, touching like if we let go, it will break something within us. I’m lost. But not lost in myself and fleshly pleasure.

I’m lost in him.

I touch his face, my fingertips skimming his stubbled cheek, as if we own every second in the world at this moment. As if there’s nothing else in the kingdom but him and I.

The times before felt like flying. But this? This feels the opposite.

It feels like falling.

I stretch forward, brushing my lips against his. We kiss, slow and easy. I hold onto him, settling into the intimacy.

When he finally breaks away from my lips, his dark lashes flutter, and his breath rasps out, “Katerina.”

My name, without taunt, sends a chill up my spine. I speak onto his lips, “Come undone for me. Show me who you really are, for tonight I am yours.”

He laces his fingers into mine and holds onto me with a need that breathes security.

His forehead tilts down to rest against mine, his eyes fluttering.

Those carved muscles tense, and he slides his hips flush against mine, unraveling before me.

Something between a soft moan and whimper slips off his beautiful lips. He can’t help squeezing his eyes shut.

We hang there in the silence for a long moment, filled only with our pounding hearts and heavy breaths. When he opens his eyes again, he kisses me. Slowly, easily. I loop my arms around his neck, locking him to me.

For the rest of the night, we take our time.

Each climax he unleashes in me is unhurried, gentle, and purposeful.

Until I finally pull him into me, holding his head to my heart racing for him in my naked chest. His weight is comfortably heavy on me as I rake my fingers through his hair, until both of us fall fast asleep.