Page 157 of Visions of Darkness

My mouth opened on a shocked rasp, and my head rocked back as the Earth cracked wide open beneath me.

Light burst behind my eyes, so bright I felt it streak through my veins. So bright it was blinding.

Though in spite of it, I could still make out every aspect of Pax.

The glorious edges of his severe, exquisite face. His slashed, brutal brow. The clench of his rugged, rough jaw. More than anything, it was the love that stoked the white flames in his eyes.

It felt like the moment was held.

A beat of infinity where I was lost somewhere between pain and pleasure.

This feeling of being split apart and pieced back together.

Crushed and made whole.

It was a staggering, beautiful devastation.

Pax choked out a delirious sound of restraint as he clung tight to me, covering me like a shroud.

Like solace.

Like peace.

Part of me wondered if I was still dreaming. Locked in a realm that shouldn’t exist. Or maybe I’d drowned and I’d awakened to my own perfect eternity.

“Are you okay?” His words were shards that sent ripples murmuring through the dense, mesmerizing air.

My nails scratched down his back, the tips of my fingers trailing over his pitted, gnarled flesh.

Coarse breaths raked from my lungs as I adjusted to the stunning feel of him. A long moment passed before I was able to speak. “I told you when I first saw you that I came alive that day. But I think there was still a piece of me that was missing. A piece carved out in the middle of me that longed to be filled. And that piece doesn’t ache anymore.”

He gathered my hand and splayed it across his heart, which was ravaging at his chest, his eyes pinching tight before they opened to me. “You’re right, Aria. It doesn’t ache anymore. Not in me, either. You are my beginning. My conclusion. My completion.”

I swallowed around the rawness in my throat. “It is right. We’re right. Show me exactly what that means.”

Pax had me gathered tight against him as he slowly began to move. He watched me as he did, our gazes fettered as he loved me in a way I’d never believed I would ever get to experience.

He showed me what it meant to be touched.

Adored.

He moved slowly but wasn’t exactly gentle. I wasn’t surprised, since nothing about Pax was. It was like a dam that had been built too high had burst under the pressure. A flood of greed that washed through him and took us both under.

I moved with him, lifting my hips, desperate for him.

Heat shocked between us, skating across my frozen flesh like his touch could chase away the fear that saturated every cell of my being, and he dipped down and took my mouth like his kiss could calm the storm that rioted in my spirit. Mitigate the deep-seated reality that Icouldn’t escape the danger I was in. This danger so much greater—so much more powerful—than I could fathom.

For a little while, he erased it.

Healed it.

Promised it would be okay.

A fire roared in the place that I had held for him. It burned up my insides and seared like signets being branded into my flesh.

Flames that lapped and licked and grew higher with each second that he gave himself to me, torching the horror that I felt.

Just for this moment.

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