Page 83 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

"Is it?" Finally she turns, and there's real fear behind her eyes — not the practiced calm she wears for the town, not the steady authority of the lighthouse keeper. Just Reina, afraid, the way I haven't seen her since the night the wave nearly took me. "Finn, if tomorrow goes wrong —"

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

"No," I admit. "I don't. But I know that whatever happens tomorrow, I'm not facing it without telling you something first."

She goes still. The wind pulls a strand of hair loose across her face and she doesn't move to fix it, just watches me with an intensity that makes my chest tight.

"I love you." The words come out steadier than I expect, like they've been waiting weeks for permission. "Not because of the bond. Not because fate decided we belonged together before either of us got a say in it. I love you because you're the bravest person I've ever met, because you'd rather burn your own reputation to the ground than let someone else take the blame, because you make me want to stay in one place. Whatever happens tomorrow, I needed you to hear that tonight."

Her breath catches audibly. For a moment she doesn't say anything at all, and the silence stretches long enough that my pulse starts climbing with something close to fear.

"I love you too." Her voice breaks on it, tears finally spilling over despite the smile breaking across her face. "I've loved you since the tunnel, maybe before. I was just too scared to say it out loud. Too scared that loving you back would mean I had something else to lose."

"You're not going to lose me."

"You can't promise that."

"No," I say again, closing the distance between us, framing her face in both hands.

"But I can promise that whatever tomorrow brings, I'm not facing it as anything less than completely yours. Bond and all. No more pretending this is just fate making the decision for us."

"Finn—"

"I accept it," I say, before she can finish whatever she was going to say. "All of it. The bond, the fight tomorrow, whatever comes after. I choose you, Reina. Completely. Tonight and every night after."

She kisses me before I finish the sentence, both hands fisting in my jacket, the force of it nearly knocking me back a step. Everything that's been building for weeks — the fear, the longing, the love neither of us let ourselves name until tonight — breaks loose at once, and I kiss her back with everything I have, the wind off the water doing nothing to cool the heat building between us.

"Come inside," she breathes against my mouth. "I don't want to waste a single hour we might have left pretending I don't need you."

I don't need telling twice.

I get her back down the cliff path and into the lighthouse with hands that aren't quite steady, both of us shedding jackets and boots in the entryway, trading kisses on every step up the narrow stairs like we're afraid stopping even for a second might cost us something neither of us can afford to lose. By the time we reach the small round room at the top, the storm-light sweeping its slow gold arc past the window, there's nothing measured left in either of us — just twelve hours until everything we've fought for either holds or falls apart, and the desperate, devotional need to meet it as one.

"Look at me," I demand, easing her back onto the bed, my voice rough with everything I just said outside and everything I still haven't found words for. "I want you to see exactly how much I mean it."

"I see you." Her hand finds my jaw, thumb tracing along my cheekbone with a tenderness that undoes me more than urgency ever could. "Finn, I've always seen you."

I undress her slowly this time, despite the storm of feeling crashing through both of us. I kiss every inch of skin I uncover — her collarbone, the curve of her ribs, the soft plane of her stomach — mapping her like I'm trying to commit every detail to memory in case tomorrow tries to take this from me. The silver-blue lines of her magic glow faint and steady beneath my mouth, answering my touch the way they always do, like her body's been speaking a language only I can hear since the moment the bond locked into place.

"Finn." Her fingers thread into my hair, voice already wrecked. "Please. I need to feel close to you. All the way."

"You have me." I work lower, settling between her thighs, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee before working my way up with deliberate, devoted slowness. "Every part of me. Tonight and after."

She's gasping within minutes, hips rising to meet my mouth, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other tangled in my hair, the small round room filling with her voice and the slow sweep of the beacon outside. I don't stop until she breaks apart beneath me, crying out into the quiet with a rawness that has nothing left to hide behind.

I settle over her after, framing her face with both hands, silver-gray eyes gone dark with everything she just gave me. "I'm not going anywhere tomorrow," I tell her. "We're walking into that fight together, and we're walking out of it together. I need you to believe that."

"I believe you." Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me down to her. "Now stop talking and show me how much you meant what you said outside."

My gaze sweeps through her body, mapping every layer like a starved predator before I sink my throbbing penis into her on one slow, devoted stroke, and the sound she makes — half my name, half something broken open with love instead of fear — goes straight through my chest like the bond itself just tightened another notch. She's slick and trembling and impossibly tight around me, her back arching to take every inch, her nails already biting crescents into my shoulders.

"Finn." Her voice cracks. "You are stretching me apart…”

I heave deeply, catching my breath as she tightens around me. It's strange how tight she is, the warmness wraps around me firmly, pulling me apart with intense pleasure.

The ecstatic rush sips into my veins causing a subconscious growl to emanate from my chest.