Page 187 of At the Edge of Surrender

And now I was sure it was unescapable.

“You brought me back to life.” Once the confessions had started, I couldn’t stop them from tumbling free. “I was dead inside. Numb. And then there was you, and suddenly everything I’d been terrified to feel was there. Alive and real and so powerful there was no chance I could ignore it.”

It didn’t matter if it was wrong. Didn’t matter if I was wracked with guilt by admitting it.

It was true, and I wanted him to know.

Old grief crawled through his expression. “Lost my heart the day I lost my mother. I believed it gone forever. That I’d live my life for the only things I could. The temporary. The superficial. That I’d give to my crew what I could, but it wouldn’t count all that much because I didn’t have the capacity to reallyfeelit.”

There was a mystery woven within his confession. Something right there. All these threads sticking out around him. Like the only thing I had to do was pull the end of one to unravel and expose what was patched underneath.

Reverence filled his voice. “She taught me to love, Emery. To love and to cherish that love with everything I had. But I thought it died with her.”

I could almost see the dead, wilting rose tattooed on the back of his hand coming back to life.

“Then there was you,” he whispered.

My heart flailed. An erratic bid to meet with his. To accept what he was saying. To hold it and cherish it, too.

I wanted to say it.

And maybe he knew it.

Maybe he knew he would taste it on my tongue because he dipped down and took my mouth with his.

This time, he kissed me slowly and deliberately.

Fully and completely.

He kissed me and kissed me until my pulse was racing wild and my spirit was screaming with desperation and my body was writhing with need.

My hands wandered, eager to touch him everywhere. Gliding down his sides and over his shoulders and across the muscled expanse of his undulating back.

All while his seared and gripped and caressed.

Over my breasts. My hips. My waist. My belly.

“You,” he murmured at my mouth.

I swore he poured that single word directly into my soul.

Find me in the darkness, bring me to the light.

Is that what he was doing? Did he have the power to end this pain?

He edged back onto his knees, this time pulling me up to sitting so he could peel my shirt up and over my head. Cool air brushed my overheated skin, and I trembled with it.

Kane groaned a low sound as he stared down at me with my chest heaving.

“Black lace. You really are my every fantasy.” He dragged the back of his knuckle over my left nipple that was pebbled and hard.

“Look at you,” he murmured. “Most fucking stunning thing I’ve ever seen. Stealing my breath and my sanity. Most of all, stealing my heart.”

God. This man. The things he said. He undid me with every word that dropped from his mouth.

“The ways I’m going to find to say thank you.” A bit of that cockiness pitched through his demeanor when he said it.

Shivers raced, though I somehow managed the smallest smile. “Is that so?”

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