Page 151 of Dare

We lay on the ground, with his large frame cocooning mine. I’d been curling into him, a blanket covering my naked flesh and his body heat radiating into me. His free arm clasped my waist, holding me tightly. He fastened me to him as though I might disappear, as though he would keep me from vanishing or sinking or drowning by strength and force of will.

My fingers shook as they stole out to etch his jawline, unhinging it from its locked position. At the touch, a ragged breath tore from him. He seized my palm and suspended it against the side of his face.

“Flare,” he rasped.

My lips lifted into a contented smile. “Jeryn.”

But instead of replying, the prince’s head dropped forward, and he buckled. Tremors wracked the muscles of his bare torso, as if a thousand rocks were tumbling from his back.

Confusion and concern urged me to shift, to splay my fingers over his cheek. “Jeryn?”

But he shook his head, then flipped his gaze back to mine, at a loss for words.

A dawning sky swam overhead, a honey color filling the heavens as I rested on a green bank. Beyond, an oasis of waterfalls smashed into a turquoise pond and spritzed the air. We’d been here before, when I had sketched in the soil and danced in a sandstorm.

But the last thing I recalled, we had been making love in a wellspring, and then I dashed into a maze of vines, and then …

I remembered. The gripping vines. The tendrils shackling me. The vicious cold. I’d collapsed right before Jeryn’s face had swum above me.

And I knew. Death had tried to haul me down like quicksand, ripping me from this rainforest, from my purpose, from my friends.

From him.

Grief and gratitude clotted my lungs. My eyes stung, and a dry sob squeezed from my throat. “You saved me,” I choked out.

Jeryn seized my face. “No,” he hissed, pressing his forehead to mine. “You saved yourself. Then you saved me.”

I’d seen many expressions on this man’s face. Frigid brutality. Cold indifference. Callous superiority. Hate and lust. Remorse and shame and trauma and panic. Intrigue and fondness. Passion and desire.

But I’d never seen this look. Raw and petrified, unbridled and unconditional. His features spasmed, on the brink of collapse, an uncharted emotion smashing through that facade.

“You saved me,” he repeated, the next words tearing from the pit of his stomach. “But I almost lost you.”

Another sob dropped from my mouth as I kissed the crook of his mouth. “But you didn’t.”

“But I almost did.”

“But you didn’t.” My lips veered to his jaw. “I’m here.” Then to his cleft chin. “I’m here.” Then the ramp of one cheekbone. “I’m here, Jeryn.”

I sketched his mouth, the contact tremulous. His eyebrows pinched in agony, then relaxed as I planted kisses on every crease, every trench across his countenance. Angling my head, I sketched the underside of his jaw where it met his throat, tasting the low rumble of a groan.

The cords of his muscles unwound. His fingers dove into my hair and gripped my scalp for dear life.

As the cascades tumbled down rocky brackets, our intakes shifted from unsteady to solid. Jeryn hovered, his hair falling around us. I laved his neck, then up to the ridge beneath his earlobe, to show him I was here, to assure us both.

I was here, breathing, and alive. And so was he.

With each taste of him, liquid heat poured to the center of my body, a delicate throb building. Whimpers dripped from my tongue. My ministrations quickened, desperation building, a celebratory rapture.

For an instant, Jeryn hesitated. The doctor in him thought we should slow down, that I needed rest. Any moment, he would insist upon it.

But I’d been sleeping for long enough, and since when had nature ever kept me down for long? More dreams wouldn’t soothe me. No, I wanted the verve of life and its untamed rapture.

The prince must have sensed this. At last, he hummed, his head lolling forward in supplication. He shared in this rejoicing, this wild need to revel in our survival.

What he felt, I felt.

What he realized, I realized.

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