Page 83 of Dragon Cursed
He paused.His breath was hot against her core.
She thought he was going to put his mouth on her again.He didn’t.He continued his ascent — his mouth tracing a path over her stomach, the curve of her ribs, the hollow of her throat.He wasmappingher.Claiming every inch.He pressed a kiss to the place between her breasts where the pendant lay.
The pendant was warm.
The pendant was always warm now.
He kissed the pulse at her throat.He kissed her jaw.He kissed the corner of her mouth, the bow of her upper lip, and only then — finally — he kissed hermouth.
It was a slow deep kiss.
A tasting.
A sharing of the very essence of her desire.
He pulled back just enough to look at her.His eyes had gone full green.The dragon was still present, under the surface but the man was fully here, and the man was looking down at her like he was trying to understand something he couldn’t name.
"You are different tonight."
Her breath caught."How?"
"I don’t know."His thumb dragged across her lower lip."You are — you are letting me have all of you.You are not holding anything back.You have never not held something back,a chuisle.Tonight I cannot find the place where you hold yourself."
She had to close her eyes.
She had to close her eyes because if she didn’t, he would see her break.He would see what tomorrow was.He would understand.
"It's the wine," she whispered."It's the wine, Alsander.Go on."
“I don’t believe you, but I won’t force you to tell me something you don’t want to share.”He looked at her another long moment.
Then he settled between her thighs and the thick, hard head of his cock nudged against her entrance, and she stopped having to lie because she stopped being able to think.
He didn’t push in.Not yet.He rested there, his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged.
She lifted her hand to his face.
She had to say it.
She had to say it because she might not get to say it again, and the last time she had said it to him she had said it on the back of his dragon, with the wind taking the words, and she didn’t know if she had said it since.She thought about the days they had shared.The mornings.The kitchen.The flight.She had said it twice, perhaps.Three times.
It wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
"I love you."
A shudder ran through his powerful frame — a tremor of an emotion so vast it terrified them both.He groaned.A low, guttural sound of pure surrender.
"I love you, Alsander.I love you."
"Mo chroí." His voice broke on the old word."Mo chroí, mo chroí, my heart, my heart— "
"I have loved you since the moment I saw you.I will love you past — past anything that comes for us.Whatever happens.Whatever happens.Do you hear me?"
"I hear you."His forehead was pressed to hers."I hear you,a chuisle.I will love you until the world ends.I will love you past it.Whatever I am, whatever I become — if this thing tomorrow takes me, if I die in that shrine, I will die loving you."
She realized with a start that Alsander was saying his own goodbye.He thinks he’s going to die.But it is not him it takes.
