Page 112 of Walking in Darkness

I could only imagine the ways he’d used it against her.

“Valeen showed you, Pax.” My words rushed in urgency as the truth weaved together. “She showed you that we belong together by allowing you to feel that I was in trouble. In danger. She gave you that sense that you had no other choice but to find me. And we already know together this power is far greater than we thought—and now, after what happened last night? I have to believe it is even stronger with the four of us together.”

No question our Nol was our greatest strength.

But there was power in these numbers.

Inus.

In this family.

Excitement burned a path through me, and I gasped as Pax stared at my healing wound for the longest time before his eyes flicked up to mine.

Awareness flared at the connection. Our breaths shortened and heaved.

“We’re stronger together. All of us,” he murmured.

“Yes.” Then I threw myself at him, lifted up high on my knees as I wound one arm around his neck and braided the other through the longer pieces of his stark-white hair. “Together,” I murmured.

He was sitting, a leg drawn up in front of him and an arm looped around my waist. His gorgeous face was turned up toward me as I gazed down at him.

Each of us held.

Kept.

Then all reservations broke.

He pushed up to capture my mouth.

In an instant, we were fire.

A frenzy.

Desperate hands and beseeching kisses.

He wore no shirt, his chest and back and abdomen bare, and I dug my nails into the designs that covered the rippling, sinewy muscles of his back as I struggled to get him closer.

Need rose up inside me. A tidal wave I had no intention of escaping.

“Aria,” he murmured at my lips.

My name praise.

Bliss.

Truth.

Calloused hands slid up under the enormous T-shirt I wore. He was careful not to touch my wound as he rushed his hands up my sides. Gliding over every rib until he was palming my breasts.

I arched into his touch.

Flames seared.

“I need you,” I begged. “I need your touch. Your love. Your belief.”

“And I need your everything,” he rumbled back, his lips devouring mine, his tongue delving deep.

That fire leaped.