Page 18 of Cold Heir

“Fine,” he sighed. “At least tell me what happened to the guy. Did he break your heart?”

My brow shot up. “Do I look like a girl who could get her heart broken?”

When he flashed a broad smile, I knew he understood I was joking. I’m pretty sure we both knew that, regardless of how brave and impenetrable I seemed on the outside, I was as vulnerable as anyone else.

“My apologies, Mistress,” he teased. “For a moment, I forgot I was talking to the woman with nerves of steel. Actually, with such a cold heart, are you even sure you’re capable of love?”

He leaned in, and a gentle kiss was placed on my shoulder.

“I didn’t realize that you, the king of‘love them and leave them’,was so concerned with my heart’s emotional capacity?”

A spell of silence passed between us, stalling our lighthearted conversation. It was in that instant, in that moment where one of us should have said something, that the mood shifted. And now I saw the change in Levi’s expression, too.

“Being honest, it’s something I’ve pondered,” he admitted. Spoken casually, of course, like a true bachelor.

“Oh, really? And what conclusion did you reach?”

“That I can see us falling deeper,” he blurted. “I can see us falling in love.”

The silence returned, only more stifling this time. These feelings of mine that sat in the pit of my stomach like a ton of bricks, they were all-consuming. The most raw, powerful thing I’d ever felt.

It sounded to me like, one day, Levi hoped everything we held in would come spilling out of us.

At the feel of a cool hand gently tugging my chin until our eyes locked, I acknowledged there were other reasons I no longer felt like the princes held me against my will.

I… wantedto be with them.

Maybe not permanently, and definitely not at the cost of my mission, but … the desire to stay with them was as real as anything else.

Levi’s lips grazed the rim of my ear. “You can let go now, Corina. You’re free.”

The statement held two meanings, but he was right on both accounts. Iwasfree, and it felt amazing.

Yes, being away from Blackthorn was a relief, but so was lying here beside him.Withoutthe constant threat of danger looming over us.

That hand still hadn’t left my chin, and I made no moves to wriggle out of his grasp. Being touched by him felt necessary tonight, critical, like taking my next breath. We sought one another in the darkness, and for the first time in ages, it didn’t feel like I was supposed to be someplace else—not on a mission, not out saving the world.

Just here with Levi.

It was strange how spending time with him—someone I thought I had all figured out—completely changed my perspective. Like most, I once believed that the outer shell defined the man, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Not when it came to Levi.

His fleshy lips trailed my jaw, from my ear until they grazed the corner of my mouth. I didn’t miss how he lingered there, hesitating as the course this night would take became clear to us both. Before, when I tried to imagine it, I thought I knew how a moment such as this would unravel. With his arrogance and unending confidence, I believed he’d approach like an unruly storm. But again, he surprised me. My eyes fluttered closed as I accepted how my body longed to submit to his, and also how being near him made me impatient.

Finally,agentle kiss pressed to my bottom lip and I breathed him in deep, only exhaling when he drew the tender flesh between his own. Every touch sent electricity scurrying through my limbs, one surge overlapping another.With one powerful tug, he brought us chest-to-chest.

Levi was a man who’d taken on many forms. A man I now considered to be among the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Yet, he was more than just appealing to the eye; my heart and mysoulwere also drawn to him.

His hand wandered to my thigh, warming it beneath his touch. The scar there was far more sensitive than the rest of my skin, and even more so when his fingertips traced it tenderly. As his palm slipped higher, his hunger for me became evident.

The curve of my hip was grasped. Eager to explore me further, that same hand made its way beneath the borrowed shirt I wore, and he only found bare flesh, nothing to hinder his pursuit. The discovery incited a primal moan that vibrated against the hollow of my throat where his mouth had settled.

I couldn’t really say how we ended up here—two who would have once been mortal enemies—but‘here’was exactly where fate had brought us.

A silver flicker in his irises caught the moonlight when he peered up. There was something about his stare that pierced soul-deep every time. Even then, as lust and the rawness of our needs swirled through the room like a cyclone, the look brought an inexplicable stillness that commanded my attention.

Bringing his hand to my cheek again, his thumb brushed my damp lips when his gaze settled there.

“There’s something you need to know, something I’d like to say out loud so there’s never any question,” he breathed, pausing to steal another kiss.

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