Page 179 of The Sinner's Bargain

He could have died. He could have died right there at my feet, and I would have had to watch him get mauled.

A sob escaped and I mashed it behind my sweaty palms. The hazy gray landscape outside the window shifted and swayed to the breeze. What normally made me feel calm only felt like a mockery because Thoran wouldn’t have been out there if I hadn’t run. If I hadn’t been so stupid.

Chest heaving with sobs I fought to contain, I turned onto my side and rose up on my elbow to peer into his slumbering face.

I brushed his hair back. I let my fingers trace the lines of his face, his lips. I let my lips follow, littering his warm skin with tiny kisses.

“I love you,” I told him quietly. “I love you so much I think I might die if you ever ... if you ever leave me.”

I choked on the rest as the grief overtook me and I had to press my face into his chest. Over his heart. I listened to its steady patter and thanked God for every beat.

It felt like ages before I could close my eyes without seeing Thoran tackling a fully grown wolf. I couldn’t breathe every time the scene replayed in my head. My breath lurched and I found myself bolting upright, lungs caught on a sob.

“Naya, sweetheart.” He ran a palm over the curve of my damp spine where I sat in our bed, my arms around my knees, weeping softly. “Sweetheart, stop.”

I shook my head even as I let him pull me into his lap. “I almost got you killed,” I wept into his shoulder. “You almost died because I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. I understand why you did it.”

I shook my head. “If you keep me, you’ll die.”

“Hey.” The fingers of his good hand captured my chin and forced my face up. “I’m not letting you go, Naya. Not for fucking anything. I will gladly die a million times before I spend a minute without you.”

I cupped the side of his face. My thumb traced the raised skin as I fell into his dark gaze.

“I love you,” I whispered, voice hoarse from crying. “So much.”

The side of his mouth lifted. “Good, because you’re stuck with me, Naya. Forever.”

I kissed him, tasted the word on his lips. “Promise?”

His answer was the tilt of his head. The deepening of his mouth. It was pulling my slip off and taking my nipple into his mouth.

“Your arm,” I protested.

He sucked one deep into his mouth. Then the other before lifting his head to say, “I’m fucking my wife.”

And he did.

He pulled me down on his cock like that morning that felt like eons ago. My legs around him. Our bodies moved and glided. Neither rushing the other but simply falling together with soft, deep sighs against the other’s mouth.

Even after, he stayed nestled in my warmth. His mouth stayed on me. Our hands roamed and touched, unhurried as our bodies cooled.

“Tell me something,” I begged, much later as we lay wrapped in each other. His injured arm rested across my ribs.

His fingers combed lovingly through my hair. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “Tell me about the silver roses in the garden.”

I felt him go still against me. His fingers stopped. I braced to get shot down.

“They were my mother’s,” he said after several heartbeats. “She loved the garden and even when my father told her to stay out, she would sneak in and follow the maze. She tried to clean it up, but no matter what she tried to plant, it would die. It’s like the soil is poison. It destroys everything it touches ... except the roses. They bloomed and flourished, but only eight and they were silver. We keep it quiet because people would start trampling through here trying to figure it out or people thinking they’re worth something would want them.”

“Aren’t they?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I haven’t checked. It would raise too many questions. Plus, they were my mom’s. She loved them. I don’t want to lose them.”

“I think someone lives in the maze,” I murmured softly without thinking.

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