His lips traveled down my neck, each kiss growing more needy. He braced one hand beside my head, fingers coiling in my hair as hiskisses turned to bites against my skin. He cupped my breast, thumb circling, and took the other between his lips. I arched into him, trying not to think of all the other times we had done exactly this.
Instead, I locked that emotion away and focused on carnal need—on the heat building between my thighs and the want surging through my body.
I reached for the buckle of Malakai’s pants, demandingly. He held himself on one elbow, sliding them down his legs. The thud of fabric against the floor made me freeze.
Because this was the last time.
He traced the outline of my undergarments, fingers toying with the lace at my waist.
We weren’t waiting, weren’t stringing this out. He slipped that lace down my thighs, gripped my hips and pulled me to the edge of the bed. He positioned himself against me, waiting for me to say this was what I wanted.
I nodded, because I was ready.
I was ready for what we were about to do, but not what came after. I’d never be ready to lose Malakai, but we’d lost each other long ago, and now we made a choice.
And I loved us both too much to hold on.
He pressed into me slowly, leaning down to kiss me—tenderly at first, a hand cupping my cheek. Then hurriedly.
It was impossible for me to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks, staining the silk comforter below us. Malakai’s own mixed with them as he moved, shared sorrow fueling each roll of our hips and gasp of pleasure.
As I dragged kisses across his collarbone, nipping at his shoulder, I knew that young love was wholly over, but a piece of me would always love Malakai. He owned the memories of my heart, but that was the problem. He was holding on to it wrongfully. I’d been caught on a leash.
Still, while I blamed Malakai’s actions for allowing us to get here, I didn’t find him wholly responsible. The true devil was fate. Her cruel hands had wound our life-strings around her fists until they were hers to snap.
The love that had once burned so brightly it dulled the stars in the sky…it was nothing more than smoke.
I hated fate for it. For taking what was good and twisting it. Warping it. Destroying it. Never mind the fact that this was the right decision, it was still a heartrending one, and I didn’t have to be happy for it.
I dragged my nails down his chest, pressing my heels into the small of his back to drive him deeper. I tasted honeysuckle and leather with every inch of my body and rode higher toward my climax, knowing there would only be a few more minutes of us being one.
But I hadn’t been his for a long time.
Malakai’s hands tightened around my hips. He buried himself in me repeatedly, and these were not the slow, sensuous strokes of the boy I fell in love with, nor were they the passionate, indulgent thrusts of the man he had become. Each one was a confirmation—a promise from both of us. Because as our tears coated our cheeks, salt flavoring our kisses, we said goodbye to what was once beautiful.
For the last time, Malakai and I went over the edge together in a burst of passion that tapered into a spinning black hole.
He collapsed against me. We remained chest to chest, sweat sticking to our bodies and panting breaths filling the room. When he rolled off of me, I almost curled into his side out of habit, but instead we looked at each other until our breathing stilled.
Malakai pushed himself onto his elbow, pressed one kiss to my temple, and whispered, “Until the stars stop shining.”
Then, he turned away.
Exactly as we both knew he must.
I didn’t look at him as he pulled on his clothes and left the room, but when the door shut, I stumbled to the bathing chamber on legs that could barely support me and slammed into the counter, hands white-knuckled on marble.
That bed—I didn’t want to be in that bed any longer. Not the one we had shared. Not the one that would only remind me of every fight, everydistraction, up until this last time.
I turned on the tap, but I didn’t wait for the tub to fill. Instead, I sank to the floor, curling my knees to my chest, and drowned in memories.
Tears came in forceful sobs this time. There was no stopping the howls that wracked my naked, sweat-stained body.
But I didn’t only cry for the love I lost. I didn’t only cry for the future that now seemed darker than a starless night.
It might be selfish, but I cried for the scraps my heart had become, and the possibility that I’d never repair it.
Chapter Twenty-One
