Page 39 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Seven

Riva

T he instant Andreas’s question hits me, I choke up. “I?—”

No other sound will emerge.

There are things I haven’t told them about our failed escape attempt, yes—and reasons I haven’t, too.

Andreas combs his fingers through my unknotted hair before trailing them down my arm from shoulder to elbow. His other hand shifts to grip mine where I reached for him.

“Maybe if you explain it to me, I can make the other guys understand. I know you wouldn’t have hurt any of us on purpose.”

Tears well up behind my eyes. For a second, I can’t even breathe. I grapple with the impulse to wrench myself away from him—because I’m not really sure I deserve the compassion he’s offering.

But he just admitted his own worries to me. He told me stories when I asked.

How can I shut him out when he’s the only one who’s even tried to let me in?

I want someone to know. My mind balks against the admission, but at the same time I have the sense of relief just beyond my fingertips.

I start slowly, my body braced to jerk myself back if the territory starts to feel too treacherous.

“It all happened the way I already told you. Until—we got outside, and we were waiting for the rest of you, and it seemed like no one was anywhere nearby. And I just—it was so stupid, doing it right then—but I’d wanted to for so long, and it felt so good being so close to getting free?—”

My voice fades out. Andreas waits, a patience to his silence that doesn’t feel like pressure.

“I kissed him,” I whisper, and suddenly I’m blinking back tears that have overflowed.

“I kissed Griffin instead of keeping watch or checking the surroundings, and the second we stopped kissing, they shot him, just like that, he was just gone , and I— I couldn’t even stay with him or say anything to him while he died because they tackled me and dragged me away. ”

A sob cuts off anything else I would have said. My head droops.

Both of Andreas’s arms come around me. He hugs me close like he did in the car before, but an incredulous note colors his tone when he speaks. “Is that the big mistake you’ve been feeling so guilty about?”

“I screwed up,” I mumble between hitches of breath as I fight to regain control over my emotions.

“What kind of idiot goes for a kiss when we were in the middle of the most dangerous mission we could possibly attempt—when everyone’s lives were on the line— I wanted all of us out there more than anything, and I gambled it all away for a few seconds of… of that .”

“You said you’d wanted to for a long time,” Andreas says hoarsely.

“Yeah.” My voice drops even lower. “I loved him. So fucking much. But it didn’t do him any good in the end, did it?”

I pause, and then raise my head to meet Andreas’s gaze.

He looks strangely stricken in that first moment despite his reassuring words, but he appears to yank his reaction under control. “Of course you did. And it makes sense. You thought you were safe. If you cared about him that much?—”

All at once, it feels incredibly important to make one thing crystal clear. Griffin took my secret to his grave, but maybe it never should have been a secret to begin with.

Maybe if my guys had known all along how much my world revolved around them, they never could have believed I’d have betrayed them.

“I loved all of you,” I interrupt, with enough force that Andreas’s mouth snaps shut.

I rub my hand over my face, wiping away the dampness on my cheeks.

“I wanted to kiss all of you. I wanted to have what that old man you saw had with his wife—with all of you, for just as many decades or even more. But nothing could happen while we were in the facility anyway, and I had no idea how you’d all react.

Griffin knew, because he always knew how everyone was feeling, but I couldn’t figure out what to say to the rest of you. ”

Andreas’s eyes have widened. Whatever discomfort he was struggling with before, I can’t see any trace of it now.

He raises his hand to the side of my face and strokes his thumb over my cheekbone. A little of his usual good humor dances like a spark in his eyes.

“I can’t help noticing you’re using the past tense,” he says. “I guess we haven’t been so loveable lately, huh?”

His tone isn’t exactly playful. There’s too much pain mixed into it too.

I tip my head into his touch, still holding his gaze.

“Things have gotten pretty messed up. But I still think we all belong together. We just have to make it back to where we were before—or maybe it’s that we need to figure out something new that works with who we are now.

But we’re blood. That’ll always be true.

I’ve loved you basically my whole life, Drey.

A couple of weeks isn’t going to erase that. ”

The relief I tasted before floods me, sweeping through my nerves and washing away the weight I’ve been carrying as if now I could float right into the air.

This is freedom. This is escape. Part of the answer was inside me all along.

Andreas’s jaw works, a less familiar emotion shimmering in his eyes. Then he slides his fingers down to my chin and draws my mouth to his.

I’m not prepared for the maelstrom that hits me with the meeting of our lips. Heat flares between us, and my fingers clutch at the front of his borrowed shirt like I’m holding on to him for dear life.

All the hunger that’s simmered up inside me every time we’ve touched fills my body. It propels me closer, pressing my mouth harder against his with an urgency that burns right down the center of me.

But that heat isn’t enough to sear away the icy jolt of panic that hits me at the same time. Even as I cling on to Andreas, my spine stiffens.

I want to fall right into him, and I want to wrench myself away before some horrific catastrophe crashes down on us.

Andreas tips his head to break the kiss with his forehead resting against mine. He caresses my jaw like he did my cheek moments ago, over and over in a gentle motion as my pulse races with the spike of frantic adrenaline.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “See? Nothing horrible is happening. You can’t ruin anything with a kiss. It wasn’t your fault then, and you aren’t screwing things up now either. I promise.”

My breath hitches with a strange mix of anguish and affection. He understands, and… he’s right. There’s no blast of gunshots or thunder of footsteps barging into the house.

Nothing about this moment feels like a mistake.

My fingers tighten in his shirt, and I’m yanking him back to me before I have a chance to hesitate in doubt. And if any doubts had been rising up about whether he only kissed me to prove a point, the rough sound that escapes him and urgency with which his mouth claims mine erase them in an instant.

Once we’ve started again, we can’t seem to stop. Our lips collide over and over, every kiss even more addictive than the last. I’m inhaling him, downing him like the sweetest of cocktails, and I can’t get enough.

A heady energy flows through my limbs, as if the smoky stuff that trails out of us when we bleed is reaching from my veins to pull him even closer. As if it’s seeping out of our skin and melding us together, breath to breath and blood to blood, in a way no normal human beings could experience.

Andreas’s fingers delve into the strands of my hair he so recently untangled. His other hand slides down the side of my body, marking a scorching trail all the way to my hip.

Then he lifts me right onto his lap, grasping the skirt of the dress as it pools around my thighs so I can straddle him. He sucks my lower lip between his teeth with the slightest prick of pain that sparks into something so much more delicious.

He could eat me whole, and I wouldn’t mind one bit. I want to be lost in him, completely intermeshed.

“Riva,” he murmurs between kisses. “Wanted you for so long. Loved you for so long. You’re ours—and mine. All mine.”

I let out a whimper of agreement that he drinks straight from my mouth. His hand glides up beneath my dress to cup my bare breast.

The swipe of his thumb over my nipple has me gasping and rocking in his lap. Andreas groans, his other hand dropping to push me closer against him—against the bulge that meets my pussy through our clothes.

The press of him against me sets off a jolt of pleasure so intense it sweeps through my mind. I’m barely thinking any more, barely aware of anything except the roar of unfulfilled need. The tendrils of smoke in my blood writhe as they reach out toward him.

I didn’t know that it could feel like this—that I could ache for someone so badly I’m almost sobbing with the sensation. The desperate impulse to sate my hunger has me pushing even closer against him.

“Riva,” Andreas mutters again, followed by a series of muffled swear words as he tips us over on the bed. His mouth brands my neck, my shoulder, and my collarbone before he yanks my dress up high enough to close his lips over the peak of my breast.

I cry out, my pussy outright throbbing now. My fingers rake down his chest and up under his shirt, claiming the lean planes of muscle as he devours me.

“Drey, please,” I gasp out.

“Fuck,” he rasps again with a blissful wash of breath over my nipple, and shoves his hand down between us. At the first stroke of his thumb over my clit, I jerk against his touch.

Bliss sings through my core and amplifies the siren call within me that’s wailing for more.

It isn’t enough—we could be even closer—every particle of my body is quivering with need and wrenching at me?—

I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I’ve seen enough poised Hollywood versions of this moment to understand the gist of what’s required. My hand gropes at the fly at the loose waist of his jeans, and I manage to pop the button.

We’re meant for this. We belong together. For the longest time, I’ve known that down to my bones, and the anticipation of finally uniting in the most concrete possible way resonates through my soul.