Page 63 of Serpent King's Revenge

I raised myself up, took her face in my hands. “You are…” I paused, shaking my head. “My moon,” I finished in Mandarin. “My north star. Lighting up even the darkest parts of me.”

“I’m not as good as all that,” she said, blushing.

I smiled. “No…you’re better.”

I tilted my head, drew her to me…then I was kissing her.

This wasn’t the kind of kiss we’d shared earlier in the prison, desperate and needy, snatching every moment of time we could. No…this was slow, meaningful. I wanted to show her how I felt, that she was everything. I needed her to know that we would never be apart again.

She was more important to me than anything else in the world.

Slowly, I pulled her down to the floor with me, taking the blanket with her. Abby moaned as I laid her out beneath me, the wool blanket spread out underneath us both, and stripped off my shirt. She sat up to run her fingers over the scars that marred my skin, the old bruises from my beating in the county jail, from the riot at the prison. She found that dragon tattoo, traced its outline and the flames that licked over my chest.

“Missed you,” she breathed.

“You have no idea,” I rumbled.

Then she was wrapping her arms around me, and I was the one on the floor—Abby’s fingers in the waist of my pants, scrambling to take her own clothes off. I helped her as much as I could, both of us clumsy with the need to be close to each other. It was strange…I needed her skin against mine, her pussy wrapped around my cock, clenching…but it wasn’t sexual. I just needed her as close as possible, a reminder that she was real. As soon as she was naked, I pulled her down, kissed her again, said her name.

Abby…Abby…my moon…

She groaned as she straddled me, as her pussy kissed the head of my cock, already clenching. I’d just been inside her mere hours ago, but I already needed her again. I would never stop needing her. I met her eyes as she splayed her hands out on my chest and lowered herself down, down…

She was tight around me, squeezing.

Holding me.

Just feeling.

I didn’t want to move; I just wanted to feel the sensation of her around me, on top of me, touching me. I raised my hands to feel the new weight of her breasts, noticed that her body was changing in the most subtle of ways. I gently squeezed her nipples between my thumb and forefinger, and she tilted her head back and gasped.

“Touch me,” she begged.

Gladly.

I explored every piece I’d missed so much—the pale expanse of her skin lit by firelight, the freckles on her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, her tapered waist. She’d lost weight; she said she’d been sick. I would spend the next nine months making her ginger tea, ensuring she was well-fed and cared for.

She had needed me and I hadn’t been there.

I would never let that happen again.

We started to move, slowly at first. My eyes wanted to slide shut, but I couldn’t stop looking at the woman I loved. We set a rhythm and I sat up to hold her, her body curling around me, legs braced around my waist.

She opened her eyes. “I love you,” she whispered.

It was like she couldn’t stop saying it…and I found myself whispering it in return. Neither of us could stop those words, or the intense stare that filled the space between us. Her body moved in tandem with mine, her fingers trailing down my spine, nails blunt and chewed from anxiety. I grasped her hair, tangled my fingers in it.

I loved her so damn much.

I would give it all up if she asked me to.

But words could wait until later, because my lips couldn’t do anything but kiss her. I gave up on trying to speak, and my mouth found her throat, the line of her jaw, her pulse. She was alive, we were alive together; she was warm and safe and she was carrying my child. I didn’t feel any of the fear I’d expected. Just joy.

We made love for what felt like an eternity, until the friction grew too intense. Our speed quickened. Abby pushed me to the floor again. The wood blanks were hard beneath the blanket, but I didn’t care as she started rising up and falling back down, setting a punishing speed.

Fuck, it felt good. Beyond good. Perfect. She was a goddess in moonlight, pale in the moonbeams from the window, backlit by that flickering flame. She gasped, groaned, said my name—and then she was clenching around me hard and desperate, and I was coming inside my woman, my wife, the love my life…

I breathed her in as she lay across my chest, shoulders rising and falling. It felt like a dream. For a second, I thought it was a dream, a hallucination brought on by the madness I’d fallen into when I was in solitary.

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