Page 39 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

“How could I ever forget?” He huffs a quick laugh against my skin, and I hate that I know exactly the grin that goes along with it.

My hands move across his form. Not even another predator walking into the oasis would keep me from squirming up against his solid body, his skin bare and hot against me. My body wants his, and the more I teeter that line, the more it rejoices.

“I would like to kiss you again under circumstances where we don’t think we are about to die,” he teases, his lips moving against the skin just below my ear as he speaks.

I move closer to him, attempting to hide the stupid, giddy smile I can’t shake. “But we are currently in a circumstance just like that.”

“No, I never truly believed we would die this time.” His large hand travels up to the back of my neck so smoothly, I gasp.

“Perfectly safe.” I lean into his breath on my skin. “That’s why you pounced on me before I could even dress.”

He groans in response, sending a shock wave all the way down to my core.

I have to grip him tightly to keep my knees from buckling.

And then he’s angling my head to look at him, his darkened eyes piercing through me and pinning me in place.

His whole body trembles like he is holding back, forcing himself to stay in control.

“Tell me to stop, Callia. Tell me not to kiss you again.” And after a shuttering breath, he adds, “Tell me it was a mistake the first time you kissed me.”

I’m practically panting as he stares down at me, waiting for me to decide whether we cross this line.

I could easily tell him to stop, and I know without a doubt he would back off instantly, and not only that, but he would understand.

I love that about him, how patient he has been since he made his feelings known.

But I don’t want to push him away. I can’t keep lying to myself, stuffing down what I feel about him.

Because, First Mother save me, I don’t think I can ever see him as just a friend again.

My entire body ignites when I admit that truth even inside my own mind, and the tension between us irrevocably shifts further. I slide my hand to his strong jaw, now peppered with the dark shadow of a beard growing in.

He leans into my palm like it’s an oasis all on its own, closing his lids and gulping on heaving breaths.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

His eyes shoot open briefly, stricken with pain, but he nods in understanding.

“No, August, I can’t say those things. I can’t tell you to stop or that kissing you was a mistake.”

My words are cut off as he collides with me, a flashy grin the last thing I see as he presses into my lips, hard and desperate. He kisses me deeply, his tongue beckoning me to open for him, and when it slides against mine, I almost come undone, whimpering and pulling him further into me.

His calloused fingertips dig into my hip, the other holding me at the nape of the neck, perfectly trapped for his devouring.

But I can’t help but squirm against his body, chasing the friction of his hard skin against my nipples, lost somewhere between savoring the head-spinning kiss and wanting so much more.

He breaks away with a devilish smile and then nips his way down my chin and neck. I gasp when his tongue runs over what feels like an exposed nerve connecting the spot under my ear to the ones currently firing between my legs.

And if that didn’t make the thin fabric of my undergarments wet enough, the way he murmurs my name does.

I squeeze my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the throbbing now in sync with each of his nips against my skin.

“I have never been more scared in my life.” His teeth dig in lightly, followed by a gentle kiss. “When I put you in that escape pod, it was the hardest thing I have ever done, and perhaps it was a bad call, an unfair one. But I was blinded by the thought of them getting to you.”

I cling to him as he kisses his way back up to my mouth, so slow my toes curl as I only half-listen to his words.

But then he holds my chin, his face like it was that day on the ship, calm and serious but holding all other emotions in his eyes. “Callia, my heart did not beat again until I heard your voice on that ridge.”

He speaks of emotions so freely, it aches.

This is not lust or circumstance; it’s something else entirely and it terrifies me.

For reasons I do not know, my eyes line with moisture, mixing with all the other, more primal needs surging through me.

He kisses me again, slower this time when he notices how overcome I am by his confession.

I angle my pelvis against the hard bulge in his pants, and he presses it against the mound of my sex in return. The thin fabric between us seems like a steel wall that I have to tear down or I will suffocate.

I slide my palm from his back, across his tapered side to his waistband.

His vibrating rumble of approval does nothing but encourage me to begin unfastening the belt holding it all together.

I claw at it blind and bite his lip until his fingers click something, and his cock springs free, hot and scorching between us.

His hips buck upward slightly, like an involuntary action, our dewy skin allowing him to slide his hard member up my naval.

I pull back shamelessly, wanting to see him. The flared tip is already dripping in a bead of his pre-release. It bobs with his panting breaths, jutting straight out and kissing against my skin with fiery heat.

“Can I touch you?” I whisper.

His breath hitches, his hooded eyes watching me with a feral edge I have not seen before as he slowly nods.

I trace my fingertips upward from the dark curls of his base, running over the veins that dance up his thick shaft. He hisses through his teeth when I run my thumb over the weeping tip, smearing the moisture along the underside.

“Calliape.” He shudders against my neck, nestling against it, cupping one of my breasts with his large, calloused palm, stroking his thumb against the sensitive peak. “By the three worlds, you are beautiful.”

The way he pants against me sends me plummeting back into a frantic wave of neediness. I clasp my fingers around his cock in a tight ring and stroke him down to the base.

He emits a sound deep in his throat, a choking groan that makes me repeat the action just to hear it again, to hear him losing control.

My core clenches around nothing, a dull ache blooming with each of his masculine moans.

“August.” My own voice is so breathy and desperate, I barely recognize it. “I need you.” I bite the bottom of his ear, stroking his entire impressive length again.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, his mouth hangs open, hips jutting upward, stealing another thrust into the ring of my palm.

Suddenly, he is quaking against me, panting heavily and body rigid.

He thrusts against my stomach with rasping breaths, like he can’t control the movement.

“Callia, I— Fuuuck.”

Molten liquid shoots upward between us, painting my navel with his unexpected release.

I gasp in surprise as he shudders again and again.

He finally sinks into me and braces his weight on the tree and makes an apologetic groan.