Page 156 of A House of Gold
"It won't change this," I interrupt. "What we have. What we are."
"You can't know that."
"Yes, I can." I lean forward, kiss him softly. "Because I love you too. I've been trying not to. Trying to keep walls up, keep this transactional. But I love you. And that's not going away just because I'm going to be connected to the others."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I'm choosing you right now. In this moment. Before the bonds, before the battle, before everything gets complicated." I kiss him again, deeper this time. "I'm choosing you."
His control breaks.
He pulls me against him, kissing me. Desperate, consuming, trying to memorize the taste and feel of me before I belong to more than just him.
I kiss him back with equal desperation. Because tomorrow everything changes. Tomorrow, I become a weapon. And in a mere few hours, I bind myself to seven deadly sins.
But right now, this moment, I'm still just me. Still just Raven choosing to be with Croesus.
And if this is the last night we have like this, the last time it's just us before six others intrude, then I want to make it count.
"Stay," I whisper against his mouth. "Until it is time…. Just stay with me."
Through the binding, his love crashes over me like a wave.
"Always," he breathes.
We don't rush.
There's no frantic tearing of clothes, no desperate urgency. We've done desperate. We've done angry and possessive and claiming.
This time is different. This is goodbye to how things were and hello to something unknown.
Croesus undresses me slowly, reverently. Each piece of clothing removed with careful attention, like he's unwrapping something precious. His hands trace my skin, learning it, memorizing it, marking it with touch alone.
"You're beautiful," he murmurs, and through the binding I feel that he means it. Not in the way he finds his treasures beautiful, valuable, precious, to be hoarded. But beautiful in a way that hurts. That makes his chest ache. That reminds him what it means to want something beyond his reach.
"I'm right here," I tell him.
"For now." His hands slide up my sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. "Soon, you'll be everyone's. But right now..." He leans down, presses a kiss to my collarbone." Right now, you're mine."
"I'm always yours." I work at his shirt buttons, fumbling slightly. "The others won't change that."
"Won't they?"
I get his shirt open, push it off his shoulders. His skin is warm under my palms, solid and real. "No. Because what we have, it's more than a bond. More than proximity or necessity or any of the things that will tie me to the others."
"What is it, then?"
I trace the muscles of his chest, feel his heart beating strong beneath my fingers. "Choice. I chose you. I keep choosing you. And I'll keep choosing you even when there are six others."
He pulls me close, skin against skin, and I feel his fierce possessiveness warring with his love. He wants to keep me isolated, wants to be the only one I need. But he also wants me to survive. And survival means sharing.
"I'm going to be terrible at this," he warns. "Jealous. Possessive. Probably violent toward them when they touch you."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I recall you mentioning it once or twice." I push him back onto the bed, climb onto his lap. "But you're going to try anyway. Because you love me more than you hate sharing."
"Barely."
I laugh, and the sound breaks some of the tension in the room. His hands find my hips, steadying me as I settle against him.
