Page 165 of Harbinger

I think he always will.

And maybe I’m ready to let him.

My heart aches with a deep, breathless pull that feels dangerously like hope. I can’t shut him out anymore. I’m not sure I ever truly have.

Slipping a hand into his hair, I grab hold of him. I might never let go. “Will you just shut up and kiss me already?”

The words snap the last thread of restraint between us, and his mouth crashes into mine. It’s not the quiet, tentative brush of a first kiss. No, he kisses me as if he’s been holding his breath and I’m his oxygen. There’s agony behind it, but it’s the sweetest kind of pain. It throbs through my skin and bones and sinew.

Bishop shifts, his strong arms drawing me closer, demanding but gentle, as I fit perfectly against him.

Desire grows roots and spreads, reaching every single nerve in my body. It moves slowly at first, unfurling with the patience of something that’s been waiting long enough below the surface to take its time. Then it charges through me, blazing to life everywhere he touches. Aching with absence everywhere he doesn’t. His tongue sweeps in and claims my mouth like I belong to him, like I’ve belonged to him since …

The weight of a hundred restrained moments presses into this one.

This didn’t happen over a few weeks of training. He’s been waiting. Enduring every measured distance. Every step he didn’t take. Held in check through every touch that lingered too long. I break away, panting against his mouth.

“How long?” I ask, as my eyes search his for the answer.

“Since the fucking bird,” he rasps, dragging his lips across my jaw before he plants a kiss behind my ear.

The confession steals my breath, the memory rewriting itself into what I didn’t see that night … even though I was drawn to him, too. Past that altar, I saw him. Not the sacrifice.

Just him.

And his gaze fixed on mine across the altar, too, as if we’d both sensed something dangerous and inevitable in the same breath, even if neither of us understood it then.

His mouth trails down, the hands on my hips sliding under me, fingers digging slightly into my skin as if he needs to know that tonight I’m the one who’s real. Shifting forward, he urges my legs around his waist and tugs me closer. I gasp as my body locks around him like I’m falling.

Falling hard and apart and into him all at once.

His cock brushes against me, and a whimper slips from me like a confession. Any remaining pretense shatters, and I dissolve against him. Bishop cradles my back, lifting me slightly out of the water. “I’ve got you.”

But before his words settle, he leans and plants a kiss over the mark on my chest. I tense as he whispers against my scarred skin, “It’s a tragedy that you hide this. That anyone made you think you had to.”

My pulse kicks up, and for one glorious moment, I see myself like he sees me. Reflected in the dark mirror of his eyes, I’m not broken or cursed. I’m not the girl he whisked away or the omen people whisper about in lowered voices. That feels like a story told about another life. Because the woman looking back at me isn’t hiding.

She’s fierce and luminous and wanted.

Bishop moves down, mouth capturing my breast and sucking my nipple between his teeth greedily. I cry out with relief as a hint of pain threads through my exhilaration.

He releases it, lips brushing the tender tip as he murmurs, “You have no idea how hard it is to keep myself from looking at these during training.” His tongue swirls, circling until my nipple contracts to a hard peak. “How hard it is to even think when all I want to do is this.”

His hands glide down my back, pulling me gently closer.

But I don’t want tender. I want more. Need more.

I groan as his teeth tug my nipple again. “You don’t have to be so gentle.”

I’ve denied myself too long for that.

He draws back slightly, a shadow falling across his face. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I’d tell him to stop worrying about me, but I might as well ask him to stop breathing. So, I dip a hand into the water, reaching between us to find he’s already hard. My hand closes around his cock, and every thought in my head scatters.

I thought his vestiges were impressive.

Bishop groans as I stroke the length of him. Between the silky feeling of him against my palm and that sound, I’m barely holding myself together.