Page 114 of Fate's Wicked Oath

“I don’t want you to last longer. I want you to feel”—I let out a soft pant—“everything.”

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, get ready.”

Holding my thigh against his side, he began to thrust harder, faster. On the verge of coming again, myself, my nails bit intohis shoulders, and perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I felt a murmuration of tension and heat in his skin, a ripple of awareness as his magic heightened, edging him closer.

“Come, Faren,” I whispered—a final command as I felt the tremors of my own orgasm take shape. “Come with me.”

He groaned, hips snapping forward. A pulse of heat—ofhim—hit that place inside me, sending me back to the heavens.

40

Ruinous

Faren

As Faren watched her come undone—again—he had the disturbing and life-altering realization that he’d never cherished anything as much as he cherishedthis. Her body. Her honesty. Her trust in him—and his trust in her. His heart felt suddenly swollen, about to burst. In all his thirty-six years as a touch magician—ever in tune with his body and emotions, the feelings that governed his existence—Faren had never felt anything as consuming as being with her. Beingchangedby her.

How devastating. How incredible.

41

A Hope and a Lie

Faren

Sometime in the night, the storm broke.

Faren woke with a beam of light slanting across his face, a yellow burst that filled his vision with warmth. Beside him, Mariana was asleep on her stomach, her face turned toward the window. Faren’s hand rested in the center of her back—the most contact her sensitive magic would allow. His other arm was folded awkwardly underneath his head and ached from being in one position all night, but he’d happily keep it there forever, if it meant that he could stay like this with her.

He’d never witnessed her breathe so deeply. With his fingers splayed between her shoulder blades, he couldfeelhow relaxed her body was in sleep, in bed with him. It felt like a miracle that she was still here; he’d been awake most the night, disbelieving. He’d half expected the sun not to rise, for all his hoping that this would never end.

But the sunwasup, shining through a break in the clouds, magnified by the window glass, heating his face. Faren turned his cheek, smiling into the splay of Mariana’s soft hair on herpillow, not yet ready for the day—but also bolstered by the ideas he’d been turning over in his mind while she slept. A plan to help them both.

When she stirred, it was with a sensuous lengthening of her spine.Fates help him, she even woke with grace. She turned languidly, her body rolling into his, their skin sticking and her shoulder poking his chest as she resettled on her back. Her eyes were distant at first, then searching, as she focused sleepily on his face.

He watched, rapt, as it dawned on her that last night had been real. A line formed between her eyebrows, and he waited helplessly for her to recoil or push him away. But then it smoothed, and the corners of her mouth tilted up, and creases materialized beside her eyes, forming a smile—an unguarded, happy smile—that he’d never forget.

Faren couldn’t help himself. He gripped the side of her neck, steadying her as he kissed her temple, the tip of her nose, the scar on her upper lip. He felt like he was holding the sunrise in his arms. Pure joy radiated through him, giving rise to an irrational sense of foreboding; it was a high that made him fear the fall.

Was there a name for such a feeling? A passion so strong that he feared its loss like a preemptive grief?

“The sun came up.” Mariana’s voice was a river breaking over rock. “Are you as disappointed as I am?”

“Yes,” he said. “I quite enjoyed being lost in the dark with you.”

Faren slid his hand across her bare ribs, craving closeness and hoping she didn’t mind. She turned into him, burying her face against his chest. He thought, at first, that she was making a move—but then, as he squeezed her closer, he felt a tremor ripple through her body. He eased his grip, thinking that so much skin contact might be too much for her—but she only clutched him tighter.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Her words were muffled by his skin. “I’m sad it’s over.”

“Over?” He smoothed her hair out of her face, meeting her eyes. “What do you mean?”

She blinked at him. Touched his throat—his Oath tattoo—with gentle fingers.

“Ah,” he said, turning onto his back and taking her with him, so that she was nestled against his body, one sensuous thigh draped over his. “I believe I have a solution for that, if you’d like to hear it.”

Her nod was hesitant.