Page 54 of Love's Ace

“Fuck you, Wren.Fuck.” I snapped it out and balled my hands into the ruined front of his shirt, dragging his lips back to mine in the only form of an answer I could give to his unspoken question.

I wanted this, and he had to realize I meant it, even if I fought him while it was happening. Wren seemed ready to forgive me, whether I met him with fist or knife—he seemed willing to still touch me, to still hold me, to stillfeel mein a way that no one ever had.

I’d done a damn good job my entire life of not becoming addicted to anything; I’d done drugs, I’d drunk, but I’d never felt like they were things I had to have.

I knew without a doubt in my mind, the taste of Wren’s lips and the feel of his forgiveness, his acceptance, was something I could quickly grow to crave, to need to survive.

I was willing to give myself over to it, because if I had to stop what we were doing now, I was certain I would die.

I groaned when his tongue delved into my mouth, sucking greedily on the taste of him. The feel of wet grass and mud soaking into my jeans—grave dirt and clean rain—wasn’t a deterrent. I was greedy, so greedy for the feel of my fingers stroking through his feathers and the way every touch made him writhe against me that I didn’tcareif I was breaking my own rules by letting him hold me down. I’d deal with the fear if it meant I got to keep him close.

It didn’t come.

There was just Wren and the feel of him sucking on my lower lip—Wren and the fact that I could feel the coppery heat ofhis blood on my tongue, sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted before.

There was just Wren and the way he made meneedso much that I could barely understand his words when he pulled back.

“Let me show you.”

He had to say it twice, and I still wasn’t sure what he meant. I looked up at him with the rain dripping from his hair, with his wet feathers warm beneath my fingers.

“Show me what?”

Wren dipped his head like he couldn’t say the words while he was looking at me. He licked the rain from my jawline and buried his face against my throat, speaking against my thundering pulse instead. “Let me show you my arrow wasn’t wrong, Theo.”

His arrow.

The thread between us.

Soulmates.

It didn’t make sense, and I didn’tbelievein soulmates, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Please?” I whispered, and I did the only thing I could do. I squeezed the base of his wings until he cried out against me, then spread my legs so when his body writhed forward, there was room for him to press against me.

I wanted to be skin to skin, with nothing between us, and I didn’t care if someone wandering by tried to come into the graveyard in the middle of the night. They could see us—they could see me, giving myself willingly, letting myself think for the first time that something could bereal.

“All right,” Wren murmured against my skin, his fingers sliding down the length of my body and squeezing my hips. And then again, softer. “All right.”

And even though I’d invited him to do it, even though Iwantedit, I couldn’t stop the small pulsing tremors and shiversthat ran through me when Wren’s fingers carefully unfastened my jeans and wriggled them down the length of my body. I started to struggle again, my nails digging into his skin until I could feel the cut of them against my back, my teeth sinking into the juncture of his neck and shoulder until it made us both hiss.

But Wren was still gentle when he pulled my pants down and flung the wet fabric to the side. His gaze stayed focused on me as he slowly stripped us both so we were covered in nothing but rain, blood, and the wet earth beneath us.

His touch was a whisper when he ran his fingers down my damp thighs and let out a shuddery breath, like the feel of my bare skin was doing something to him.

His hands were doing something tome. I didn’t realize how much I needed this until just now, until the feel of him dipping down to press a soft kiss to my inner thigh brought my back up off the ground like he’d touched me somewhere deeper, somewhere that no one had ever seen.

And it was almost like he was. I didn’t know when I’d ever been touched by someone who wasn’t trying to hurt me. It meant even more because I’d made him bleed, because I was still squirming and struggling. I couldn’t figure out how to let go, how tostopfighting.

I couldn’t figure out how to not be afraid.

“Theo…” He spoke my name against the dip where my thigh met my pelvis, a heat that tickled along my skin and made me shiver. “It’s okay.”

“I—” I whimpered, my hips rocking up to meet the press of his lips, while my nails dug into his shoulders again before stroking along the top of his wings. “I don’t… know… h-how…”

“It’s okay.” He said it again, chasing the words with the heat of his tongue. I gasped, fingers scrambling in feathers as he ran a hot stripe up the length of my cock before he took me into his mouth.

Never… I’dneverhad someone do this for me. When I glanced down the length of my body, the sight of Wren’s plush lips wrapped around my cock—a trail of blood sliding from the corner of his mouth where I’d hit him—was almost too much.

---