Page 29

LILY

I stood in the kitchen and washed the tomatoes under the running water. They had flecks of dirt from their home in the garden, and I watched the debris wash away until the red skin was shiny and bright. I patted each one dry with the linen.

There was a sudden spark in the air, an energy I couldn’t describe, a hum so quiet I wasn’t sure if I actually heard it…

or simply heard my imagination. “I feel you.” I spoke aloud, possibly to no one, but possibly to the man who had slowly consumed me piece by piece.

I lifted my chin and looked out the window over the sink.

It was dark outside, so the glass was a mirror to the room behind me.

I could see the silhouette of a muscular man leaning against the counter behind me, arms crossed over his chest, his muscles so defined they were noticeable even in the distorted reflection. “I feel your unease.”

I dried my hands on the edge of the linen that supported the tomatoes then turned around to face him. The beautiful and enigmatic man who was slowly taking my soul even though he promised not to touch it.

His ankles were crossed, and he let the cabinets and counters support his weight.

He was very real, his presence so distinct I felt it without sight or sound.

But to anyone else who walked in here, he was just a ghost. His dark eyes took me in with sympathy, but the rest of his expression was hard as steel.

I crossed the tile floor of the kitchen and moved into him.

His arms dropped when I came close, ready to envelop me in those thick muscles and cocoon me.

My hands glided over his chest to his shoulders, and his hand automatically slid into my hair while he hooked his other arm around the small of my back.

I no longer jerked when he appeared out of thin air. I was never surprised by his visit, not when I suspected he was always there, always watching me. Like he’d come home to me after a hard day in the fields or service in the army.

He cradled my cheek as he looked into my face, his eyes softening further once I was in his embrace. His callused thumb swiped over my soft skin as he held me close.

My shoulders had been heavy from my brother’s burden, but they suddenly felt lighter when Wrath was there, carrying everything for me with his immense strength.

When he entered the room, everything felt warmer, the air lighter.

The man who’d propositioned me into bed had become my lover, and not a kind of lover I’d had before.

Words weren’t exchanged, but he somehow comforted me in silence, giving me a look that was both tender and authoritative. The dinner I’d wanted to prepare was abandoned, and now all I wanted to eat was this hunk of man.

“Were you there?” I whispered. “When I spoke to him?”

His eyes were locked on my face. “Yes.”

“When are you not there?” He was the shadow cast by the sun in the morning, the shadow from the torches that burned in the dark. Always with me, always watching.

“When you can’t feel me.”

“But why do you watch?”

A long stare ensued, his eyes drinking mine in as he tried to find the words to form an answer.

“Because you’re the only thing that brings me joy.

” His thumb left my face, and his hand sank deeper into the hair at the back of my neck.

“The way your hair moves in the breeze. The hardness in your eyes when you’re provoked.

The way they soften when you look upon someone you love.

You’re protected by the invisible armor you wear, but I notice its absence in the presence of your mother and father.

I’ve come to know your life through your perspective, come to know you better than through any conversation we could have.

And knowing you…settles the cracks in my heart. ”

A flush of joy and pain rushed through my heart simultaneously. My feet didn’t leave the floor, but I felt myself fall forward. Fall forward into this man who wasn’t even real, who didn’t truly draw breath the way I did.

“You’re the most exceptional woman I’ve ever met, Lily Rothschild.”

He didn’t compliment my appearance like most men did. He complimented my character, seemed entranced by it, and it was the first time a man had done so…besides my father.

I rose on my tiptoes and caught his lips with my mouth. Our mouths came together with the softness of clouds, but it still caused a firestorm in my veins. The heat between us was scalding, but it burned my body deep beneath the flesh.

He met my desire with his own. With sheathed intensity, he kissed me slowly, felt my lips with purpose. Then his big arms lifted me, and he carried me to the couch in front of the fire. He dropped down into the seat and pulled me on top of him, like he wanted me to do the work tonight.

He pulled my shirt over my head and exposed my tits. The second they were within sight, he bathed them in kisses, worshipping my body like I was a statue of a goddess. He didn’t take a bite of my flesh, but he devoured me like a meal he’d been craving all day.

He removed my panties and left my socks, and I tugged off his trousers before I straddled him once more, a beast of a man underneath me, almost too big to ride. I gripped his shoulders for balance, and he guided himself inside me, the arousal and desperation a cloud in his gaze.

I’d seen men want me, seen the flames of desire burn in their eyes, but the look Wrath gave me was different. Like he wanted more than my body, but my mind, my soul, my entire essence.

When we came together, I winced and whimpered because his entry was also intrusive. But then my slickness did its job, and the pain turned into pleasure. It was a tight fit—any more girth would have been a deal breaker for me.

He gripped my hips and then my ass, guiding me on top of him, showing me the way he wanted me to rock my hips to take him. His eyes were on mine, and his breaths slowly increased like he needed air the way I did. His stare burned in molten flames, and he clutched me harder as we moved together.

His hand went to my throat, and he squeezed as I continued to ride his length. “ Xivin …” With his quiet confidence, he possessed me, made me his without my cooperation. He’d slowly taken me piece by piece, deepened a connection that was supposed to be only flesh.

My arms circled his neck, and I brought my body closer to his, my tits grazing his hard chest as I moved, feeling our lungs ache for breath at the same time.

My fingers dug into the back of his hair, and I felt my body grind against his harder.

He was the sexiest man I’d had in my bed, the sexiest man who had been underneath me with muscle on muscle, with a height that really did make him a monster, and he was the dirtiest secret I’d ever kept.

I’d bedded him enough to know his tells, and I knew he stood on the same threshold but was kind enough to wait for me to walk through first. His dick was harder than stone and loaded like a cannon ready to fire.

I came first, slathering his dick in my cream, digging my nails into flesh covered in sweat.

He felt bigger as I squeezed, felt thicker than the trunk of an ancient tree.

My eyes closed briefly before I found his again, seeing the same intensity as the moment when we met—when he’d looked like he’d wanted to kill me.

He gripped me harder than he probably meant to and gave his final pumps, making me grind harder against him as he released his desire deep inside me.

His hands were so big on my petite body, powerful enough to kill me with a single squeeze.

But when he held me, it felt safe rather than threatening, felt like home rather than a foreign place.

He finished with a quiet moan then sank into the cushion as he relaxed, but his eyes were still hard on mine like his desire hadn’t been satiated. A single round was never enough for him. If anything, it was a warm-up.

He scooped his hands underneath my thighs and lifted me as he stood, before he carried me toward the bedroom, his hard dick still crammed inside me and ready for another go.

He rolled me onto the bed and moved with me, forcing me open and tilting my pelvis as far as it could go.

Then he pounded into me so hard it was like he hadn’t had me in a week, let alone seconds.

I lay in bed with him beside me, the fire in the hearth keeping out the winter cold, but it was his body that kept the heat right against my skin, made the sheets feel like spring sunshine.

I trailed my fingers over his thick arm, following one of the rivers of his veins, a vein that no longer carried blood.

As always, he stayed. Never had somewhere else to be. “I can tell it’s still bothering you.”

My fingers left his arm, and I met his stare.

“I can listen.”

“I don’t want to bore you with my family problems.”

“Your problems are my problems.”

“Are they?” I whispered. “Because you’re dead and I’m alive.”

He stared into my eyes for a while. “You make me feel alive.”

This was not the Wrath I’d met weeks ago.

He didn’t come to me in his king’s uniform and his heavy sword.

He didn’t come to me with contention and distance.

Now, he came to me like…he was the closest person to me.

“My loyalty is ripped in two. I want to defend my father the way he’s always defended me, but that’s hard to do. ”

“Because your brother’s claims are true.”

My eyes shifted away, partly in shame. “Admitting that to Hawk will just make it worse.”

“An admission on your part won’t change the situation.” His big hand skated over my body, feeling my soft skin under the sheets, following the swell of my hip to the valley of my waist. “This issue doesn’t concern you.”