Page 71 of Aria's Desire

Aria was good—damn good—and she’d been in more fights to the death than she wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that the majority of her training back on Earth had been to defend herself or incapacitate, not injure, a criminal. Sin had only ever been in life or death fights… and it showed.

That she’d made a similar comparison between how she and her men and the Gaiseshi fought wasn’t lost on her.

All of Sin’s strikes were aimed to maim, injure, or kill. He didn’t spare any energy, didn’t try to distract or misdirect. There were no mind games in the way he fought, no artifice. It was pure, unadulterated savagery. That straightforward approach would’ve reminded her of Tirox, except Sin didn’t take the same joy in a brawl as her demon.

He was single-minded in his pursuit and, in the end, he won.

Aria was an extremely competitive person, but she was too fucking…awedto be upset at losing.

“Goddamn, Sin,” she panted, a slow smile beginning to spread across her face as she gazed up at him from where she was pinned flat on her back. “That was… incredible.” She laughed, buzzing with adrenaline. “We will definitely be doing this again.”

Sin blinked, his eyes softening from the laser-focused look he’d had while they fought. A smile started to curl his lips at the praise before a wary look replaced it. “You’re not angry.”

He said it as a statement but she heard the question. Snorting, she shook her head. “No, I’m not angry. You won, fair and square.”

“Huh.”

Narrowing her eyes up at him, she asked, “Is that why you were going to let me win? Because you thought I’d be angry if I lost?”

He nodded, albeit reluctantly.

“I’d have been pissed if you’d let me win.” Reaching up, she slid her fingertips down his arm. “I told you, I don’t want you to hold back. Not with me, Sin.” She smirked sardonically, “I will say, I’m glad you didn’t need me to knock you out, now.”

He shook his head slowly, his gaze tender. “You wouldn’t have needed to. The beast and I both would do anything you asked.”

Aria frowned up at him, her smile fading. “Even if doing so went against your instincts or put you in danger?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in his answer, no uncertainty in his eyes.

That stunned her speechless for a long moment. She knew she should find that distressing, but that wasn’t the emotion swelling inside her chest. She was humbled and shocked, but mostly she was filled with a strange, possessive kind of wonder.

There was a time when she would’ve balked at having that kind of power over another person, but she wouldn’t ever hurt her Sin. She knew that with absolute certainty.

Shewould bear that burden he gave her, that responsibility, and only her. No one else could. No one else could be trusted to carry the weight of his love. She knew that now.

He was hers. Only hers.

And she was his.

“Kiss me,” she breathed.

She didn’t wait for him. The second she said the words, she pulled him down to her, taking his lips in a slow kiss full of tenderness, love, heat, demand, and a million other things made up of months of want and need and longing.

He fell against her with a sound of such relief and happiness it brought a knot to her throat.

The kiss tasted like coming home. It felt like finding a part of herself that had been missing for a long, long time.

Aria had the distant thought that a person wasn’t supposed to have four soulmates. That wasn’t how the stories went. It was impossible, what she felt for her men. It should’ve been too much for one heart to hold.

But it wasn’t.

No, this wasn’t how she’d been taught love worked, but those stories had been wrong.

She understood, now.

She’d thought her heart was full, that there wasn’t room for anyone else, that Tirox and Kix had taken all of her. She’d been wrong about that, too.

A person didn’t have only so much love to give. A heart wasn’t split into sections, this piece for this person, that fragment for that one.

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