Page 116 of Wicked Sea and Sky

“How much I need you.”

He tensed against me, heart pounding.

“How much I want you, Gavin.”

Silence. The world stopped. A different world started turning.

“Say that again.” His tone was hoarse, the words so low the wind almost drowned them out.

I slid my palm along the side of his jaw. “I rely on you. I need you. And I want you so much, it hurts.”

He didn’t move, so I kissed him.

I tasted the faint sweetness of honey on his lips. Felt the rigidness still ruling his body, and the disbelief warring with my words.

I kissed him deeper, the battle not won even though his breaths were broken, chest falling beneath my hand as if I’d pushed him from the castle wall. Maybe I had, throwing back words he'd given me in anger, but had only proved to be true.

He pulled back, cradling my face in both hands. His forehead dropped to mine.

“Stop. You have no idea—” His voice cracked. Then a wrecked sound tore from his throat. “I shouldn’t want you this much, Marin. And you shouldn’t let me. You’ll need ahundred pairs of shackles now, because this time, I won’t wait for the key. I’ll never get enough of you. Never let you go.”

“Then show me, thief.”

Gavin groaned and crushed his mouth to mine. He wasn’t careful or tethered. His kiss was wild and desperate. I met it head-on, threading my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer.

He deepened the kiss, rolling me beneath him, his body pressing me down into the bedroll. I gasped, arching into him as he dragged his lips down the column of my throat.

“Gavin—”

He caught my mouth again, more urgent, his heart hammering against my skin. I’d never been kissed like this, like he might shatter if we stopped. As if I held his heart in my hands, and he was begging me with his mouth, his fingers, and his ragged breaths to give him mine.

I had.I do.

He skimmed his fingers under the hemline of my shirt, sliding over my skin. The roughness of his calloused hands—hands that rebuilt my home, that anchored me to the vine, that flipped a coin always in his favor—made me tremble. I instinctively rolled my hips into his.

I swallowed his groan, reaching for his shirt, edging it up his back. He stripped it off, breathing heavily.

My gaze raked over his muscled chest, firelight turning his skin gold. He was striking. A force. Strength wrapped tightly around the most devoted heart.

Slowly, I peeled my shirt off, tossing it aside as I lay back. Watching him. Watching the way his gaze went liquid as he tracked the curve of my breasts, the dip of my stomach.

The longest look of my life.

His voice was barely leashed. “I’ve seen gold. Gemstones that men would kill for. But nothing—nothing—has ever stolen my breath like you.”

My lips curled. “Charmer.”

He shook his head, something raw flashing through his eyes. “Charmed.”

I was. Endlessly.

Gavin pressed his body against mine, our remaining clothes landing in a pile a little too close to the fire. We were going to burn down the outpost and end up sleeping in the rain after all, but I didn’t care.

He kissed me once, claiming my lips as his rough palm cupped my breast, thumb grazing over my hardened nipple. I hummed low in my throat as a jolt of heat rushed through me.

Then he explored me with his mouth, mapping every sensitive spot, lingering at every sharp inhale, branding me with the gentle scrape of his teeth. He pressed his hardness against me, and the heat between my thighs burned hotter.

The map led him south. His mouth traced a languid path down my stomach, his tongue swirling around my navel, making me moan.