“Oh, fuck. Thank fucking hell,” I gasp. I sink to my knees on the floor. “You’re alive.”
“You’re…here,” Soren whispers. His voice his hoarse and low.
“I’m here,” I whisper in return.
Now that adrenalin isn’t coursing through my slender body, everything hurts. Aches. I don’t care.
I wrap an arm around Soren’s back and start to lift him from the chair.
“No, don’t,” he mumbles. “Save yourself.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” I growl. “Never.”
Soren’s eyes meet mine, they’re foggy and red. His face isn’t just covered in blood but tears also.
“Carmine,” he groans. “Why? Why are you here?”
“I had to,” I reply. “I couldn’t let you die.”
I can’t carry him; my knees are too weak and my own head starting to get dizzier.
We both sink to our knees on the blood-dampened floor.
“I couldn’t kill you,” Soren admits. “I can’t kill you.”
“I know,” I tell him. I tilt my forehead against his. “I know.”
Suddenly Soren kisses me. It’s not soft or sweet. It’s raw and primal. It’s like he’s using all the strength he possesses to kiss me. His mouth claims mine, tasting hot and bitter, like iron and salt.
I kiss him back without hesitation. Despite what just happened, the feeling of his naked body pressed to my own clothed one lights me up. A tingling heat rushes down to my stomach and into my groin.
I pull away from the kiss, knowing that we need to focus on getting out of here, but Soren grabs me by the back of my hair and pulls me back in.
“We need to—” I start, but his mouth is on mine. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I melt into him. I dance my tongue around his, swirling and pushing. So needy for this man that I can’t do anything but follow along.
Where we are doesn’t exist. The basement? The blood? It’s all inconsequential.
No, more than that. It only turns me on more.
The blood and cuts on his body. The fact that he survived because of me.
I saved him.
Soren pushes up against me and wraps his arms around my neck. He breaks the kiss and pants for breath against my cheek. “Please…I need you. I need you, Carm.”
He begs in a way I’ve never heard him beg before.
“I need to feel you now.”
That low breathless growl.
My cock is aching in my trousers, but it’s not me I’m thinking of. It’s him.
He’s the one naked and exposed.
I want to make him feel good. Safe.
“Let me touch you,” I croon out to him.
