At the sight of him the bond flared again.
“Ziyka,” he rasped, almost teasingly, his eyes riveting to mine.
“Wolfe, I needed?—”
“Me.” The look he gave me was daring. Daring me to lie or tell the truth. “You need me. That’s right, isn’t it?”
The air around us sizzled with unspoken need, every stolen glance throughout the night pulling the thread tighter until I thought I might shatter.
My lips parted. I gazed deep into his eyes and I decided to tell the truth.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I want you.”
He stepped closer, closing the distance between us, then he pressed a finger to my cheek. “Need. Want. Two sides of the same coin. Which do you want from me, Ziyka?”
The sounded simple. But it wasn’t. It was the crux of our relationship. The solution to my confusion. I just had to choose one. But I couldn’t pick, so I gave the answer that came straight from my heart.
“Can I have both? I want both. Need both. From you.”
He nodded once. “Yes. You can have both. Fromme.”
The words barely settled before something shifted between us and the fragile restraint, we’d both been holding splintered all at once.
His hand tightened at my cheek and his breath faltered, then his gaze dropped to my mouth like he’d been fighting the urge for far too long.
Then he lowered his head.
Not slowly, like at our wedding. Like he couldn’t stop himself.
His lips found mine in a kiss that stole the air from my lungs and the world beyond the stone arch disappeared.
Chapter 45
Elariya
“The Bond”
The bond surged violently to life, warm and urgent and desperate. Ignited by the kiss.
The kiss was a claiming. A desperate and utterly consuming claiming.
Wolfe kissed me like he was starving and drowning, and I was his salvation. He tasted like unrestrained passion and sin, desire and longing.
His teeth grazed my bottom lip before he soothed it with his tongue, and I couldn't stop the whimper that escaped me. The sound seemed to undo him completely.
He backed me against the nearest surface — a wall, a pillar, I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
He pinned me there with the solid weight of his body and gripped my waist with his other hand, hauling me against him.
I gasped against his lips, and he took the opening, deepening the kiss with a hunger that made my knees buckle.
Heat flooded through me, so potent I clutched at his shoulders to keep myself from turning to ash. My fingers on his skin earned a low, approving groan from deep in his chest that sent liquid fire pooling low in my belly.
"Elariya." My name was a growl of pleasure on his lips. "Mine," he breathed against my mouth, the word vibrating through me. "You're mine, Ziyka."
“Always,” I breathed.
Wolfe pulled me closer as if even inches between us were unbearable, and his mouth slashed across mine in a fiery kiss that left me numb.
