Page 41

Finally

The second our lips meet, I just…melt. All of the anger and sadness fades away as he claims me, fills the hole inside me, not with love, not with knowing we belong to each other. This is carnal. It’s pure need to be touched and feel less alone because of it.

For him, too?

I surge into his kiss on a whimper. I don’t care why, or if he’ll ever remember our past.

Goddess, I’ve missed this.

I’ve missed Reven in ways I didn’t know were possible. I expected it in the bigger ways, his absence heavy on me as I made decisions, or at night by myself in the quiet. But it’s the small moments that were slowly killing me. A look. A brush of a hand. The warmth of him standing next to me.

And this.

Being able to kiss him like this. No holding back. Easy and effortless and…us.

Only this isn’t us. Not really.

“We should stop,” Reven groans.

Any response I might have made is stilled by his lips, by the tease of his tongue, and the way he sweeps his hands up my back, pulling me so close that there’s not even a hint of space separating us.

We can talk later, figure it out later. Right now, need—pent up and shaken up and woken up—is everything.

Never stopping what our mouths are doing, I manage to get my hands between us and start undoing his shirt. I’m plucking ineffectually at a button when his large hand covers both of mine, stopping me.

“You understand I’m not him. I’m not—”

“I understand.”

I hardly get the words out before he’s kissing me again. Only this time, maybe because we’ve both agreed how far this is going, it’s like we’ve both been untethered, his kisses become urgent, desperate, and air is going to be a problem in a second. I don’t care.

Lips on mine, Reven knocks my hands away from his shirt and whips it off and I’m in his arms again, reveling in the way I can touch him like this, even if it’s just for tonight, my fingertips relearning and memorizing the tautness of his skin, the ridges of muscles, the breadth of his shoulders.

He trails kisses across my jaw, and I lean my head to the side so he can feather his lips down my neck. At the curve where my neck and shoulder meet, he sucks. I quiver, already throbbing for him. His bold hands quickly draw my fancy dress over my head, leaving me in only a wisp of underclothes.

His hands are everywhere, then. Spanning my waist. Over my hips. Cupping my backside as he presses into me. Only those questing fingers stop short of where I want him to touch.

“If you’re going to tease me all night”—I reach a hand between us and run it down the hard ridges of his stomach, but also not far enough down—“two can play that game.”

He buries his face in my neck and groans, his body trembling against me.

That’s when I remember that for me, this is familiar, but for him…

In holding so tightly onto the history already between us, I forgot that in his mind, it’s his first time all over again. First desire. First kiss. All of it.

My heart expands with extra love for this man. I love that I’m his first again and making it special for him just shot to the top of my priority list.

Before I can slow us down, give him time to tease and explore and discover all he wants at his pace, his mouth is on mine again. Commanding. Insistent. And not even a little bit hesitant. He knows what he wants.

With hungry little noises, I give him back kiss for kiss. Goddess, I love the way he kisses me.

In his arms—regardless of whether the touches are sweet and tender or rough and ready, regardless of what he remembers—I’m home. I’m where I’m supposed to be.

I nip at his lip.

On a guttural sound, mouth still pressed against mine, he removes the rest of his clothes. Then he’s gathering me closer again. Reven bends me over his arm at my back, lips trailing across my jaw, down my neck, and lower. A teasing finger slips the material of my band down under my breast, exposing me to the night air.

He pauses, staring down at me, his throat working. With a reverence that sends heat tumbling through every inch of me, he traces a fingertip over the swell. Teasing torture as he makes smaller and smaller circles. I stare, transfixed and holding my breath, watching his hands upon my body, my stomach clenching. Everything clenching.

Except again, he teases, coming closer, but not close enough.

The third time he does this, I whimper. The crooked, searing smile that brings to his face knocks any breath left in my body right out.

Then he lowers his head, mouth right where I want it, and I gasp at the sensation that reaches inside me, tension building and surging. Like lightning waking every single nerve and stringing them together into one single swell of sensation.

“ Reven ,” I moan.

“I know,” he says against my skin. “I feel it, too.”

He stands us both upright and, with hands visibly shaking, quickly removes the last of my clothing while backing me out of the garden and into my bedroom.

As soon as I’m standing before him, vulnerable and needy, any small moment of self-consciousness is swallowed by the heat of his eyes as he runs his fascinated, hot gaze over my body. As if he’s memorizing every curve, every dip, the moonlight on my skin. The same way I’m memorizing this moment with him just in case we don’t get another one. I didn’t do that enough before. I believed we’d have more time, and I was wrong.

The skin tightens over his cheekbones as he looks at me. “The goddesses formed you in their image when they made you, Meren,” he says, his voice a rasp that might as well be a physical touch.

The way my skin flushes everywhere sets a smile to his lips that is pure Reven, intense in a way that sends more heat everywhere.

An emotion shifts over his features. One too swift for me to be able to name it. One that sends a small flutter of panic through me at the mere thought of not reaching the end of this must show in my expression or my voice when I say his name.

Understanding flares in his eyes. Urgency lines every move as he sweeps me into his arms, kissing me like he can’t stop. Before I can take a breath, we’re lying among the silky sheets of the bed.

He settles between my thighs, his weight over me both ratcheting my need for him higher while also feeling so very, very right.

“I’ve dreamed of you like this,” he says in a low, need-filled voice between kisses. “Memories, maybe. I didn’t know Shadows could dream, but I did. I do…”

At the sound I make—raw, impatient need—he rocks his body against mine, rubbing against a spot that has me gasping. I lift my legs around him, settling him even more into me. He kisses his way down my neck, and like he can’t help himself, sucks the delicate skin there. Hard.

Marking me. Claiming me. Even if it’s primal.

I claim him right back.

With a smile I can feel, he lifts his head and then slows his rocking, that friction stilling, and a small sound of disappointment escapes me. I need more, not less. Before I can demand it, he resumes the canting of his hips. Sensation sizzles along every nerve ending, filling my body with a building rush and a pulsing ache at my core that sends tension thrumming and growing inside me. Until he stops again. At my frown, he starts again. Only to stop again when I moan. Then does that again. And again. And each new round layers more tension until I’m bursting at the seams with it.

My entire existence narrows to turquoise eyes and the joining of our bodies.

“ Please ,” I beg when he slows again.

In a fluid move, he rolls so that he’s the one lying on his back among the pillows and I’m straddling him. I end up with my hands propped on his chest, my eyes wide.

His smile is pure sin…and a dare. “Go ahead.”

I’m so wrapped up in his voice that I almost miss the words. But as soon as they sink in, a flush turns every inch of me bright red. “You want me to…”

I can’t even finish the sentence. I’m not used to discussing such things, even in the middle of doing those exact things.

“I want you to.”

Hot both inside and out, I wonder if I’m bold enough.

Slowly, I lower my body, leaning on my hands for leverage, holding my breath.

A flush matching my own burns over his skin once we are joined. My body is full of him, merged with him, at one with him. At his choked groan, I smile. I guess I’m doing this right.

“Yes,” Reven says in a voice that has gone hard and strained. “Just like that.”

That does it. Tips me past the point of control.

I move. I move and he moves with me. A dance that I know intimately now. A dance that his body knows, even if his mind doesn’t. Our connection, ruined or not, sparks bright and wonderful between us.

“Hells, Meren,” he sighs.

With a grin, I lean forward and chase my own pleasure as well as his with every move, every kiss, every breath, every pounding, erratic heartbeat.

Building and building and building.

Our gazes lock. I want to memorize this moment. Get lost in it. I know too well now how precious and few these moments can be.

He’s with me every step of the way. Reven and only Reven.

“Goddess,” he rumbles.

Then his hands are at my hips, urging me, giving him leverage.

Sensation riots through me, and I grip him, holding on for dear life as we drive each other higher and higher and higher. With one hand, he presses and teases that precious point on my body that is all things sensation.

The tension pulls in tighter, then bursts outward in an explosion of pure pleasure. I fling my head back on a cry of release, Reven’s shout joining mine as he reaches his own pinnacle.

Our movements slow gradually until we’re both lying, sweat slicked and replete in each other’s arms, breathing hard. He presses the softest, sweetest kiss to my shoulder, then adjusts us, his arm at my waist curling around to lift me and settle us both back within the pillows facing each other.

Exhaustion and an utter sense of safety and belonging pull me deeper toward dreamland. I know we should talk. I know there are probably things to be said. Hardly keeping my eyes open, I offer him a sleepy smile, then lift a hand to trace his lips.

In this moment, it’s all I feel. No fears. No doubts. No worries. Just love. This man… This amazing man who has given, and worked, and sacrificed—I would do anything for him.

“I’ll always choose you.” I think I say the words, or maybe not?

I want to tell him more. To see some kind of change in him toward me, maybe. But sleep is dragging me under, and all I can do is curl into him and let go.