“I’m sorry.” I drop a kiss to the raven and the wolf, and he shudders.
He shifts, then clears his throat. “The mountain is ours. You must’ve guessed that.”
“I wouldn’t have dared hope.” I trace my finger over the thin thread of red that bleeds from the base of the mountain. “Is this blood?”
“No. That’s the day I saw you kiss Danika, after hoping you didn’t abandon me. I thought I’d lost you to her.” His mouth quirks, but it’s not from amusement. “Turns out, I didn’t.”
“You never did.” I take his hand and slip it beneath the towel to my inner thigh, then press it against where my lone tattoo is. “These are coordinates.”
“Coordinates?”
“Yes, to the cave we spent the night in.” I swallow. “I had this done because I couldn’t allow that time to just disappear. I wanted to remember it.”
“You wanted to remember me?”
“Mm.”
“That makes me happy.”
“Yuli?”
“Hmm?”
I trace the line of red in his tattoos as he strokes my thigh. “You can think about this red thread differently.”
“Differently?”
“Yeah. You know, in some Asian cultures, they say fated lovers are bound by an invisible red thread tied around their pinkie fingers. So this”—I kiss the tattoo—“could be our thread of fate. Because you were right all that time ago when you said we were meant to be together.”
“I love that. And wow. You’re actually saying I’m right for once?”
I chuckle. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I think I will.”
He strokes my thigh, and tingles erupt down my spine. I don’t say this out loud to not encourage his libido, but not having sex with him has been torture. I don’t know how I survived before him. I’ve honestly never been such a sexual being, but then this guy came along and now I can’t seem to have enough.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, to distract myself.
“Anything.”
“Back in the mountains, why did you take a bullet for me?”
He chuckles. “I wanted to impress you.”
“Be serious.”
“Iamserious. It’s not that I wanted to die or something, but I really didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Fuck. My heart kind of thuds so loudly, it’s beating in my throat.
“Thank you,” I whisper in a choked voice. “I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for what you’ve done.”
“You have by saving my life in that cave.”
“It was the least I could do. I owe you my life.”
“I’ll hold you accountable to that.”
