Promise you’ll never leave.
“I promise,” she murmured against his ear, and his whole bodybroke into shivers so violent he had to brace harder to keep from collapsing.
“Again,” he said, because he was greedy, because he would starve without hearing it twice.
“I promise.” Her lips brushed his jaw, his mouth, his throat—a litany of yeses.
He kissed her like he was a drowning man and her lips were air, then drew back enough to see her face as he drove them higher. She was flushed and wild and perfect, pupils blown wide, lips swollen with his name. He wanted to slow it, memorize every frame, but her hand slid into his hair and tugged, and that was the end of any thought of gentleness.
He felt the change gather in her—the tremor that began low and climbed, the way her breath caught and wouldn’t settle. “There,” he urged. “Come for me, love.”
He felt her tighten and his vision went white with it, the world dropping away until there was nothing but the clench of her around him. She had gifted herself to him without defense, and he would give her everything that was left of his life in return.
“Promise me again,” he growled.
She shattered on his cock.
He drove once more, twice, and the pleasure hit like a hammer, bright and obliterating. He buried his face in her neck and let it take him, every muscle strung and then undone, the release tearing through him with a violence that left him bloody shaking.
Like a damn youth.
He held there, locked deep, refusing to let the world back in. He didn’t move. He didn’t want to scare it away—the fragile, impossible peace of being where he’d never thought he’d belong.
“I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Calliope opened hereyes to find another pair already on her. Lord. Those eyes. Dark, unblinking, unbearably intense. Maxen lay on his side, head propped in one hand, as though he’d been content to spend the rest of the morning simply watching her breathe.
A blush of heat spread through her whole body at his regard.
“Don’t look at me,” she squawked, her voice still raspy with sleep.
“Why not?” His mouth curved faintly. “You’re so beautiful.”
“No one is beautiful in the mornings.”
“You are.”
So beautiful. In a way that defied even beauty. Was this what happened when a man you desired so completely that you began questioning your whole being smiled at you in such a way? Her bones softened all at once. Perhaps peace was the biggest, most elusive, dream of them all. Always hoped for but never quite accomplished. Perhaps peace lived in a wild wilderness that was never meant to be tamed. Perhaps that was the allure of the hopeful understanding of peace.
He traced the curve of her nose with a knuckle. “How are you feeling?”
Embarrassed! “I might ask the same of you.”
“My scalp is numb from all your yanking, but other than that, I’ve never felt better.”
Her body burned hotter at the bluntness. “Why are you so honest in the morning? I think I much prefer the silent, broody you.”
“I, myself, am surprised.”
“What’s the hour?” she asked, diverting the subject to a less embarrassing one. “Do you know?”
“Noon.”
She shot upright, clutching the blanket to her body. “Noon?” Her mind leapt ridiculously to his brothers. What would they think? What would they say? “I need to return to my shop!”
His brow furrowed as he rose with her. “Why?”
