Page 385 of Heat of the Everflame

He growled my name between my thighs, and I was lost. My vision splintered into a midnight sky filled with stars and flames and a mischievous silver moon. With eyes and lips shining, he worked me through each cresting wave, all the while murmuring his praise.

I went limp, nearly collapsing to the floor, and he clicked his tongue in playful disappointment. “I’m not nearly done with you yet, Bellator.”

He stood and pulled me into his arms, kissing me slowly, lazily, the taste of me in his mouth. He carried me to the fire and laid me out on the blankets, then sat back on his heels, pausing for a moment to drink me in.

“Look at you,” he breathed, gazing down on me like I was the only thing in the universe worth seeing.

He was a thing of beauty himself. The light from the fireplace played over his wide shoulders, the orange hues and dancing shadows enhancing the defined cut of his frame. Reflectionsfrom the silver leaf on the ceiling shimmered across his face and lit up those beloved eyes.

His scar seemed more prominent than ever, as if my affection for it had coaxed it out from its hiding place beneath his skin. I reached up and traced my fingers over its path, beginning low on his hip. His muscles flexed beneath my touch as I worked my way up the rippled planes of his torso.

“You’ve never asked me why I didn’t have it healed away,” he said, watching my hand.

“I didn’t want you to think I wished you had.”

A fleeting smile graced his lips at that.

“Blessed Mother Lumnos offered me a choice that night, and I accepted it. I swore to her I would serve the grey-eyed Queen and fulfill her dream of peace. I kept the scar as a symbol of that promise.” His focus rose to me. “Butyouare the woman I pledged myself to. And now, this scar is for you.”

He laid his hand over mine to flatten it over the scar’s rippled edge. “Let all those who might try to tear us apart see this and know how far my devotion will go. I will suffer for you, bleed for you, but most of all, I willsurvivefor you. My body can be carved in two, open and dying, and still I will crawl from the ruins of my flesh and fight my way back to your side. Death itself could not keep me away.

“My oath to you is written on my skin. Once, that vow was just to serve you.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “Now, it is everything.”

My throat burned with emotion—not just at his passionate words, but at the precious, fragile hope that we might both survive this war, after all.

He took my other hand, and our fingers wove into knots that he pressed into the blankets on either side of my head. He hovered above me, hips nestled between my thighs. All mysenses sharpened on the head of his hard arousal—nudging. Teasing.

Waiting.

He lowered his forehead to mine. “Diem Bellator, you are everything I’ve ever wanted. You are my joy and my salvation. You areperfect. And I promise you this—I will love you for as long as love exists.”

He sealed his pledge with a tender kiss. My heart surged against my chest, desperate to be nearer to his.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

“You,” I breathed. “Allof you.”

He plunged into me in a single, powerful stroke, and it felt like coming home.

I gasped his name, and he twitched inside me with a contented rumble. He waited, allowing me to adjust to the fullness, but I was greedy and impatient. I rolled my hips against him, forcing him deeper, and buried his groan in a ravenous kiss. He pulled out and sank in again and again, moving inside me in tandem with his tongue, both of them claiming me in firm, possessive strokes.

I hooked my ankles around him in a silent plea for more. His pace grew faster, his thrusts more forceful, and I bowed to the ecstasy of surrendering to his desire.

It was fitting that our first time was in Sophos, as Luther made himself a scholar of my pleasure. His eyes never left my face, always learning, always adjusting, shifting my hips just so. No mewl or whimper went unnoticed, and soon he’d found every hidden spot that sent me spiraling.

He gave me everything he’d promised. Soft and sweet, cradled in his arms and showered with kisses. Rough and relentless, my back crushed to his chest, his hand muffling my screams as he pounded into me from behind. He wielded mybody like a favorite blade, gripping my flesh in his hands and carving out every last drop of bliss.

But Luther wasn’t the only apex predator in the room, and I made sure he knew it.

I shoved him to his back and settled over him, seating him to the hilt. His hands reached to grab my waist, and a rope of my Lumnos light snarled around his wrists to yank them back.

He glared in protest. Shadows swirled in his palms, ready to strike back, and my pulse skipped in an excited, eager kind of fear. He wasn’t someone used to losing a battle of willsormight.

And neither was I.

I grinned wickedly as I rocked my hips, riding his body to chase my own desire. I taunted him with my hands, running them over my breasts, between my legs, all the places he wanted to touch but couldn’t. Though his scowl burrowed deeper, the sparks and shadows of his magic danced in his eyes as he watched me move. The sight of it sent me wild, and my body stiffened as release edged dangerously close.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he growled. “Not without me.”

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