Page 158 of Bloodguard

It’s not a gentle reunion. We collide in desperation, kissing, touching, and afraid to let go.

Her hands sink into my hair, mine into hers, feeling the soft strands as the wind whips them around me.

Her familiar warmth takes me home. Every doubt, every fear, every bit of anger and rage melt away. There’s only her touch, her taste, the feel of her skin.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

Her hold on me tightens, her fathomless blue eyes filled with pain. “I came to honor my family.”

I stroke away her tears with my thumbs and cover her mouth with mine.

We kiss for what could be seconds or hours, but time has no meaning. Maeve commands my everything.

“I thought I lost you.” I breathe her in.

“Never,” she whispers. “Not until the sun casts its last ray and the moon bids the sky farewell.”

It seems the world has done everything in its power to tear us apart, but we refuse to let go. I kiss my way from her lips down her throat, pulling the neckline of her dress to lick and suck her breasts until I hear seams tear, granting me access to even more of her.

I lose myself in her taste, her scent, in the breathy little way she says my name over and over again.

She’s real and alive and in my arms. Her skin is warm beneath my hands. I never thought I’d have the chance to touch her again.

“Leith, I…”

I know.

I think I’ve always known. With Maeve, there is a depth of emotion—of connection—that I feel down to my bones. I kiss her like these might be our last moments on Erth, and she echoes the motions, her mouth and body following mine like she’s afraid to let go.

Desire, ache, and endless need take control.

The way her eager hands tear at my pants and stroke over the length of me makes me want to explode.

Her eyes widen to meet mine as she falls to her knees and takes me deep into her mouth. I curse, then curse some more, moving in and out as her nails dig into my hips, encouraging my rhythm and accelerating speed.

I tear my shirt off and toss it aside. As I fall back into a sitting position, she hefts her skirt and climbs my body.

Then there’s bliss.

She sinks down on me, and we’re one. It’s only the two of us in this world and the pleasure we create. There is a second to savor the connection, and then our bodies are moving. Gripping, thrusting, barreling toward release.

It’s hot and fast and hard. Mindless. An escape from the pain, because we’ve both lost…everything.

No. No, I won’t let the pain intrude. Not in this moment.

She is alive and in my arms.

She moans against my mouth, her hips jerking as tiny tremors ripple through her body. I treasure every pulse, my own body flushing and growing harder still, the forerunners of ecstasy stirring at the base of my spine.

I fuck her through it, her cries of pleasure echoing across the lake.

When she comes, I follow her over the edge, cursing and claiming her as mine before we fall to our sides, living, feeling, breathing as one.

Tented by a willow, its thin branches laden with pink-and-white flowers, we make our bed entwined in each other’s arms, resting softly upon her cape.

It’s a while before our breathing slows. And even longer before we stop kissing. When we do, the lust that warmed her features has cooled, replaced by a sadness that makes my chest ache.

“I’m sorry I kept your family’s passing from you,” she says, running her fingers gently across the tattoo on my forearm that now includes a recently inked rose. “I never wanted you to discover what happened the way that you did. I planned to tell you after you won Bloodguard, once I knew you were safe and their death would not kill you in that wicked arena. But I was wrong, and I’m so sorry for that.”

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