“That’s it, Princess,” he growls. “Come for me.” His demand shatters me. “Fuck. You’re so goddamn pretty.”
He swells inside me, and with one last hard thrust, he climaxes—and it’s glorious to watch.
Quinn drops his forehead to mine. His hair curtains around us in thick, damp ropes. “Fucking say it.”
I tilt my head and kiss him quickly. “I love you.” Another kiss, this one on the tip of his nose. “I love you so very much, Quinn Redgrave.” Resting back down, I place my palm on his back and feel the punch of his raging heart. “I love you with all of my soul.”
He breathes me in. “I need…” But his sentence trails off, and he shakes his head.
Quinn isn’t ready yet, and that’s fine.
We have the rest of our lives for him to say it back to me.
But right now… The cold is an icy wave crashing over me when Quinn shoots to his feet. I can’t don my clothes because I’m covered in blood—
“Quinn!” I’m scooped up into his arms and carried to the lake.
“You look like a human sacrifice.”
That remark earns him a roll of my eyes. “I wonder who it was who painted me in his blood.”
“It’s the best thing I’ve seen you wear.” His smirk is too seductive for his own good. “Unfortunately, I can’t deliver you back to Wren and Dax like this.”
I barely have time to gasp at the shock of icy water when Quinn leaves me in the lake to retrieve his soap bar. He returns to gently—tenderly—wash me from head to foot. My hair will take forever to dry, but I don’t dare voice a single word of protest. Not even at how long he’s keeping me in this frigid river. How can I complain when it feels wonderful to be cared for by this man?
When he scrubs between my legs, he grins at my wince. “If we didn’t have to ride out at dawn, I’d fuck you again, right now, in this lake.”
“S-some of us can a-actually feel the cold.” Trembling, I remind him I’m not immune to the elements.
He gives me a peculiar look. “Who said I can’t?”
“You d-don’t seem c-c-old.”
“Rapunzel, I’m freezing.” He kisses my icy lips. “My training conditioned me to ignore the discomfort.”
Discomfort? I’m on the verge of shivering to death, and he calls it discomfort.
Thankfully, Quinn cleans me quickly and, after giving himself a fast wash, carries me to the bank. He wraps me in his cloak and rubs me down to get me dry.
I’m only slightly warmer.
Quinn pulls on his clothing as well, then marches back to me. “Tonight, you gave me a gift.”
Frowning, I tilt my head, my cheeks burning with a blush as I shift my gaze to the trenches we left in the dirt. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Quinn hooks a finger under my chin and redirects my gaze to his perfectly imperfect face. “What you said.”
“Ah, that.” I flick my eyes downward. “I won’t take it back.”
He releases my chin to tug the hood over my wet hair. “My black heart would break if you did.”
For a moment, I think he’s teasing. But I see the truth of his words reflected in his eyes. “I do love you, Quinn.” I snake my hand from the cloak and place my palm on his damp chest. “And your heart isn’t the hunk of stone you want the world to believe it is. But I’ll keep that secret between us.”
I’ve learned a thing or two about Quinn Redgrave while I’ve known him. He is short on words but long on actions. He gave up his soul, knowing the cost was an eternity of pain for the power to defeat a rotten king. Quinn can easily crush a man with his bare hands, yet he’s gentle with me unless I need him to be rough. Despite that, he holds his strength in check, even knowing my body is indestructible. He worries for his sister. Oh, yes; he thinks we don’t know, but we do. Wren, Dax, and me… We know his fear for Eleanor eats away at him and how her suffering sits at the forefront of his mind.
A man with a withered heart would have no care at all.
But he does.
