He remembered every tantalizing graze. Every time they were close enough to feel the wretched space between them.
Kira slowly brushed her lips across his, inviting him. Asking.
Her breath intoxicated him.
Zayne didn't just want this. He couldn't die without kissing her again.
The first time was an unfinished sentence. Back then, he thought he was saying goodbye, and now he actually was. The remaining words were dangling in the air.
Kira deserved better than his farewells. But she wouldn't fault him for that. In her unending mercy, she understood and accepted him.
Zayne couldn't give her perfect. He couldn't give her anything she wanted. But he could give her this kiss—a broken, bleeding kiss goodbye. A kiss that spoke all the words he couldn't say or think. That could unearth the buried things inside himself he didn't know how to discover.
He smoothed his hands against her, treasuring every touch, and squeezed the love handles that had been driving him insane.
“Fuck it,” he breathed against her.
Zayne captured Kira's lips and devoured her kiss, the starving man that he was. Three years of her taste haunting him, and now her sweetness flooded his senses.
She held his face, worked her hand down his throat, beneath his collar, and into the flesh where his neck and shoulder met. Her tongue raked down his, lips demanding.
They both groaned into each other's mouths.
Heat flamed inside him.
Hunger.
All that he'd buried overtook him, his body's demand for her stunning. He ceded control. Those thoughts he'd fought against—the impulses and wants—were only the faintest flutter of what grew within the hidden places of his soul. Each day he'd watched over her all these years, every look, word, and touch festered inside him.
But he felt so much more than hundreds of days of caring for her.
It was Kira.
She was in him now, and she was everything.
Alone in Kallum without any family, she hurt the Phaedra in ways few managed to. But she was also so tender and gentle, so smart and wise. He'd never met anyone like her.
There wasn't anyone like her.
With his remaining strength, he eased her closer, destroying every speck of that damn, fucking space between them. Not even the pain of her body settling against his wound overpowered how terribly he needed her. Zayne gladly suffered for her softness melting against him, even with the throbbing in his chest freezing him, breaking their kiss.
“Zayne—”
No stopping. He'd recover.
Riding out the wave of pain, he kissed her again. It wasn't possible to draw in a breath with how it hurt, but he didn't need to breathe to kiss her.
She hesitated, and he reassured her with his tongue toying with hers, until she wilted once more, and he coaxed the most perfect moan from her. Swallowing the little sounds she made. Ravenous for more.
She felt wonderful against him. He hated his hands for lacking the strength to roam her, but he could happily spend forever on her love handles and hips.
Desperation and years of longing bound them together, their kiss consuming enough to banish the rest—the grief, the helplessness, the lethal wound. There was no fear or death between them. Only all the promises they'd never spoken. The promises to fight for each other, to never surrender, to care for one another. Promises Zayne himself didn't know but simply felt bursting inside.
“Zayne.” Kira gasped his name in the middle of a kiss, hand sliding up his neck. “Please.” Tears mingled with the taste of her lips. “Please, don't leave me.”
He didn't try to talk. Knew he couldn't and didn't know any words to capture what he wanted to say.
Fine, before this, he didn't care if he died. Only preferred staying alive to one day kill the Phaedra.
