All of it.
All the horror and pain and loss that had plagued her for weeks. All the failure, all the incompetence, all the weakness.
“The gods are awake because of me,” she whispered again. “And my mother is dead…because of me.”
She didn’t know she was crying until the tears splashed on her arms, rolling off her skin to soak into the soft blankets beneath her.
“Fuck,nio.” Gods, that name. It rumbled from Andrian as if carried on a current, wrapping around her even as his very real and solid arms did the same. “I didn’t mean—” He pulled her up and into him. She wrapped her body around his on instinct, her face burrowing into his chest. She felt his swallow, the shaky way he drew his next breath.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t ever let him convince you it was. You are blameless in all of this.”
She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me, Andrian. You promised me you’d never do that again.”
He didn’t answer; only tightened his grip around her.
They fell into a silence, and she fell into him.
It hurt. It all hurt so gods-damned much. Not just the memories—the way he was still withholding things from her, the way he was back but had never felt so far away, the way she just wanted tofix itbut didn’t know the first place to start.
And for her, sometimes a distraction was the only way to evade the suffocating panic of being trapped by her own mind.
When that dam inside her burst, all her emotions swam freely, and it was too easy for the heated ones to make their way to the surface. Her brokenness was crushing, but the feel of his skin against hers—his solid warmth, his masculine scent—was a soothing balm to all her rough edges.
Last night, they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, skin to skin. But that had been out of bone-tired relief and soul-cleaving thankfulness.
Now, with all those wounds still raw and open and aching, even with him not willing to share everything with her, energy charged between them.
It was always like this, in truth. Something magnetic and unstoppable. How even without words, everything about them just fit.
Two shattered souls, just searching for a moment of something better.
Mariah felt Andrian’s heart beat faster beneath his ribs. His fingers tightened on her skin, gripping the back of her head and her upper thigh.
She shifted in his lap, untucking her leg so she straddled his hips. She lifted her head, leaning back to meet his gaze.
Gods, the way he looked at her. Did she deserve to be looked at like that? With such raw desperation, fire flickering behind the purple blue of his eyes, dark hair already mussed and falling across a brow that always seemed to pull into an incessant frown?
It didn’t matter. She may not deserve it, but she had it, nonetheless. She shifted again, catching the hard ridge of him between them.
Heat—that dangerous, intoxicating, addictive heat—ignited in her, filling her veins before settling low. She slid her hands up his chest, running them over his shoulders, watching as the shadows there slipped between her fingers.
Andrian released a low sound—something between a groan and a growl. “Mariah?—”
She surged forward, capturing her name on his lips. Whatever restraint he’d been clinging to snapped, returning everything she gave him with equal fire.
Maybe it wasn’t healthy. Maybe they shouldn’t. In her darkest moments, she would never stop craving these distractions from him. These moments when the world fell away and it was just her and Andrian and nothing else.
She would burn the rest of the world down to keep from losing this.
Mariah gasped as his tongue claimed her mouth, his teeth biting her lip. She bit him back—not enough to break skin, but more than a gentle nip. He groaned again into her, tangling his hand in her hair, pulling against her scalp as his fingers dug into her thigh.
They weren’t close enough.
She broke the kiss, chest heaving, scrambling for the hem of his shirt. He did the same, eyes dark and out of focus. Clothes slid over their bodies, tossed into the corner of the tent. Their lips met again, as hungry and ravenous as ever.
There was no stopping her impulses now, not with his hot skin against hers. She ground herself against his cock, capturing the hiss that slipped past his teeth.
Her breath rushed from her lungs as he gripped her tight and turned. Her back hit the soft furs, legs still wrapped around him, but he never pulled his claiming kiss from her lips. The weight of him over her was so deliciously perfect and familiar and everything she wanted right at this moment.
