Page 183 of The Stolen Throne
Such an alpha thing to say, but it’s part of him and only makes me smile. “And you are mine.”
His smile steals my breath.
The tension inside me rises like a sandstorm growing overhead. I know it does in him, too, because his fingers tighten in my hair and eyes that were softly teasing turn ravenous. All the harsh beauty of his face becomes something dark. Sinfully, deliciously dark.
Then shadow rises up around us and I find myself in that pocket, that hiding place he’s created. Darkness that warms. That caresses. That surrounds.
He must catch the question in my eyes. “This is between you and me only, and the king’s Shadows inside me can’t see in here.”
Then his hands are sliding over my body. Slow hands, teasing in soft, silky caresses down my neck, the sensitive outer swell of my breast, the dip of my waist, come to rest at my hips.
This was what I want. To be in his arms always. To see the way he looks at me, unguarded, wholly focused, the same way I am with him. I want time. Time to know every part of him, every part of the man he is. The man he’s become.
And yet he’s always been mine. Yeah, we’re definitely going to have to talk about that.
“Kiss me,” Reven demands in a voice gone harsh.
Smiling sweetly, truly just for him, I rise on my tiptoes and brush my lips against his. Not pressing but teasing. Tormenting. I know his kisses now, but I want more. I want to know what makes him groan. What makes him shudder.
Reven groans low in his throat and takes over. He kisses me the way he did in the water garden. Gentler and somehow more urgent.
And yet, his touches are slow. As if, like me, he’s relishing every sensation, every intimacy. But what he’s not doing is holding back.
He’s pressing and nipping, and I’m reveling in the way he’s all around me. The scent of him—familiar, fresh like the creosus willows that manage to thrive in the deserts—surrounds me, the warmth of his skin, his hands on my body so tender. The shadows inside me, part of me, swirl and eddy and only add to the fire building inside. Even the shadows in which we hide are part of him, encompassing me in everything that is him.
I slide the tip of my tongue along his lower lip, tasting him.
He growls against me, and his kisses change, turning more desperate, more out of control. And I give in, give him everything.
Who needs air to breathe anyway?
“I need to see you,” he whispers against my mouth.
With an audacity I had no idea I possessed, I back up slowly, gaze on his, smiling as his hands reach for me convulsively. I shake my head and slowly, very slowly, start to undress. My boldness strains against what I do next, against the vulnerability I’m showing him. Gifting him. Because I unwrap the clothing from my body until I am standing before him in nothing but the breastband and underclothes covering the most intimate parts of me.
Nerves stay my hands there, though. I don’t know why. I’ve given him my body before. He’s seen me. But after the separation and then the enforced distance, this feels like we’re starting all over.
With a swallow, I flick my hand, dropping the breastband to the ground. The way he stares, all of the intensity inside him focused on me in an almost untamable way, tightens my stomach.
When I look at myself, I see a torso too short, curves too full, and each and every blemish on my skin. But Reven… I love the way he stares. Like I’m perfect. Even when I know I’m not.
“Keep looking at me like that and I might fall—”
With an fierce, guttural groan, he surrounds me, and we’re floating in the shadow. Vaguely, I know my world tips, but his lips are on mine and the heat of his body is everywhere. When the shadows disappear this time, not only are we lying down with the darkness cushioning us from the ground, his clothes and the rest of mine are gone.
That might be my favorite trick of his.
I’d tell him so, but I’m too caught up in the weight of him over me, in the utter and complete surrender of my body.
I’ve thought of that night we came together a thousand times. But if anything, my memory was being stingy.
I had no damn clue it could be like this with the right person.
No idea that the touch of him, the scent of him, weight of him would sear through me. Would send liquid heat flowing outward from my heart to every single nerve ending, every part of me.
Then those strong, capable fingers trail lower.
I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I wrap them around his arms. Not to stop him. Just to hold on. The corded muscles tense under my grip.
