Atrea.
Home.
Full demolition takes me from the bottom of my soul, and the lot collapses into him.
Robin, strong and glorious.
Robin, fierce and in control.
How I’d kill to lose control. To hand it all over to him.
But even as my fingertips sink into his chest, even as I breathe his breaths and feel the soul of both of us beating in his strong heart, I’m whispering, “You can’t tell. You can’t ever tell them.”
He shakes his head, giving me the promise I need to unclasp, to slowly release his lips. He grabs me at the wrist before I can pull away, takes my hand, brings it to his cheek.
The touch of him, holy like the land I’ve dreamed of every day since they took me.
I’m home.
His head turns, and Robin’s precious lips touch my palm, kissing the scar the very rocks of our homeland painted into my flesh, as earnest and impassioned a kiss as ever there was.
A kiss I want to take with me, that I want to wear like armor all the days of my life.
“Robin—”
“What the fuck is this?”
The words cut through me like a hot blade in the gut.
Jason, standing in the doorway, his face a picture of fury and disgust, lost and appalled. His eyes devour every inch of us—my thighs wrapped around Robin’s, his arm entangling me, this tender moment—the tenderest I’ve had in years—and now he’s seen it, and he’s taken it from me.
I’m off the bed. I barely register the way Jason turns to me, the look of defiance before I smash his back against the wall, the thud of his head against the stone, vicious and sickening, ramming my forearm over his throat so he’s pinned, unable to speak.
“If you say one fucking word, I will kill you.”
His lips break into a snarl, eyes twitching, a mask of pure hatred.
I smash my arm into him, taking his air. “Not a fucking word, do you understand?”
He can’t breathe. I could kill him so easily, right now.
Maybe I should.
Tears rise into his eyes, and he tries to fight me off, but I’ve already bested him. I watch him try to convulse, the internal fight—the desperation to suck air, my refusal to let him.
“Marco.”
Robin’s voice, like a feather on the back of my neck.
I spin away, and Jason doubles over, his great heaving breaths too loud in the tight space.
This weakness. This weakness in me that will get us all killed.
I slam a hand around Jason’s throat and shove him back into the wall. “Your word.”
“I won’t tell,” he rasps out, his glare a dagger thrown in Robin’s direction.
With the grasp of his jaw, so tight it will probably bruise, I wrench his eyes back to mine. “One word, and I will come in here at night, and I will slit your throat. Do you understand me?”
