“I’m here,” he said, his gaze locked on mine. “Evermore, Wildfire. Evermore.”
This wasLore, all the parts of the man I'd married and fallen in love with combined into one.
His palms remained on my hips, and when he lifted his eyes tomeet mine, I stared into his unguarded expression, finding no denial there. No secrets. No holding anything back.
“You.” His voice came out low and scraped raw. “Are the reason I’m whole. You saved me. I will never spend a day without loving you as you deserve.”
His words cracked open spaces inside me I'd sealed tightly after my loss. The fates could be cruel, but they also could be kind. They'd given me not only one love but two, and for this, I'd thank them forever.
“Lore,” I whispered. “I love you. Always you.”
He rose gracefully, but the heat in his gaze solidified into something more feral, something darker. Before I could react, I found myself with my back pressed to the wall, my hands over my head, and his big body caging mine. This was the aggressive, demanding, and hungry man I knew well. A predator pinning its equal.
He stroked his knuckles along the column of my neck, his eyes locked on his hand. Bending close, he ran his nose from the shell of my ear to my chest. His breath burned my skin, sending shivers rolling through me.
“You smell amazing,” he rasped, dragging his head back up to press a kiss below my jaw. None of this was tender. It wasn’t meant to be. This was a branding. “Every bit of you is mine to taste.”
The promise in his voice stole more than the air from my lungs; it swept away the ground beneath me and every thought from my head.
“Lore—” His name was all I could manage before his lips brushed my cheek, then my jaw again.
“I’m going to lick,” he growled, “every bit of you. And then I’m going to start at the top and lick you again.”
I laughed, the sound catching as he pressed closer, letting me feel every heated intention humming through his body.
“We’re covered in borgon blood,” I said, though when his free hand slid to rest between my thighs, I doubted even that mattered. “Sweat. And we reek.”
He pulled back enough to look down at me, that impossible grin curling his lips. It was pure Lore. Whole. Impossibly smug. And insufferably endearing. “I have a solution for that.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he flitted us to the bathing chamber. The air was warmer here, scented faintly with soap and herbs. A flick of his fingers, and the enormous tub filled, steam curling in lazy spirals across the surface.
He stepped back and unbuckled his weapon’s belt at his waist. A flick of his hand and it was gone, tossed aside to thud on the floor.
“Well, Wildfire.” His gaze locked on mine, daring me as he ran a thumb down the fastenings of his pants. “What do you say about bathing together?”
“Show me what it means to be yours.”
42
Lore
“Iintend to,” I growled. My cock was on fire, thrusting against the front of my pants.
Reyla tilted her head and when she ran the tip of her tongue across her lower lip, I worried I’d explode. “I believe I should get undressed, don’t you?”
Such sweet seduction. I couldn’t wait to be with her—finally.
She watched me with a sultry smirk as she ran her fingertip over the hilt of one of her blades. The action was casual, but it set my heart aflame. She unfastened the sheath at her waist and laid the twin daggers I'd given her on the side table with a soft click.
“Do you realize,” she tugged the strap of a smaller blade's sheath away from her thigh, “how filthy these are now?” A delicate frown filled her face. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the drag of her hands over her weaponry, her touch light, reverent even as sheremoved one after another. She shrugged out of the straps fastened across her chest, the ones pinning her sword against her back, and raised her gaze to meet mine. “The sheaths too. I’ll need to clean them properly later.”
“Later,” I echoed, my voice rough, nearly feral. My chest twitched as I watched her work, stripping down her arsenal, leaving only this exposed woman I adored behind. She was teasing me, filling the air with tension I could taste.
But then her hands faltered. A slight tremor passed through her as she lifted her fingers to unfasten her leather tunic.
That tremble undid me, and it humbled me in a way nothing ever had. Not borgons. Not the threat of my throat being carved wide open. Not even the curse itself.
She wanted me. I had no doubt about that.
