Page 176 of Of Blood & Stone

“Maybe we’ll switch one of these days.”

“I’d rather doanythingelse.”

“Anythingelse?” he chided, running his hand through her hair, causing her eyes to flutter closed, “Even clip off all the blisters on Nyla’s feet?”

“Even that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Sylzenya nudged his shoulder, tracing his jaw with her finger. “You know me pretty well then, don’t you?”

He grinned. “Sometimes I think I do, other times all I want to do is dig and prod until I figure out how such a delicious woman can be so intelligentanddaring all at once.”

He hooked her chin with his thumb and brushed his lips along hers. She sighed into his touch, greedily taking another kiss from him, tracing a tongue on his lips.

“What’s something I don’t know about you?” she whispered.

He ran his thumb over her mouth. “What do you want to know?”

“This cliffside. What does it mean to you?”

Chewing the inside of his lip, he considered his words carefully. Sylzenya smiled as she watched him think.

“I suppose it means a lot of things,” he started, running his eyes along her face, down her neck, “It was home for a time, a place of peace. It was also a place of unrest, of war. And then it became a place of hope.”

“Can it really be all those things?” she inquired.

“Of course it can. Just like you’re both intolerable and yet the most bearable person I’ve ever met.”

She laughed. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”

“Contradictions. You’re full of them. I am too. So are Orym, Nyla, Kharis, Tosh, everyone in my crew.” He brushed a hand through her hair. “Your parents. Aretta. Distrathrus. If places can be many things, why not people? Why not gods?”

“Contradictions,” Sylzenya repeated, “Like my power used to be. Life and death.”

“Exactly.”

“So then,” she said, “what does this place mean to you now?”

Grinning, he pressed his mouth to hers, sliding his hand up her tunic and onto her cold skin, gripping her hips. Warmth spread through her body, surprise lighting her core with fire as she tangled her hands in his hair, pulling down the deep “v” in his tunic and touching his chest.

He breathed deeply, and she responded, falling on top of him and straddling his hips. His large rough hands gripped herass, guiding her as she rocked against him. Yearning thrummed through her chest, needing to feel him everywhere all at once.

His thoughts, his dreams, his hands, his cock, his eyes, his mouth. She wanted every last part of him, and she wanted to give every last part of herself to him. All her contradictions for all of his.

Biting her lower lip, he slowly pulled away, his breaths heavy as he leaned his forehead against hers. She reached for him, but he wouldn’t allow it, his hand digging into one of his pockets, pulling out something gold and shimmering.

A ring.

In its center, a deep blue gem glinted against the sunset.

“I was thinking,” he whispered, “this cliff side could also mean new beginnings.”

Tears burning in her eyes, she smiled. “Why blue?”

“Guess.”

She smirked, “My eyes?”

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