Page 214 of At the Edge of Surrender

So big and menacing. So intimidating and fierce that I knew there was no chance that he wasn’t exactly that.

Dangerous.

He took a step forward, and the ground trembled beneath my feet. The man an earthquake. A riptide. A force that I didn’t know how to evade.

A big, tatted hand came to the side of my face.

Tender and right.

My heart flailed, begging for me to snip the last thread that kept me dangling over the edge.

To just let go.

He dropped his forehead to mine. His breaths were short and rasped as he murmured, “This is something I have to do, Emery. Something I have to do because it’s a part of who I am. Part of the oath I made.”

My eyes squeezed shut as my hands fisted in his shirt. “What oath?”

I was ready.

I needed to know.

How could I fully trust him if I didn’t know what he was involved in?

He breathed out, hand so warm where he had it pressed to my cheek, his spirit feeling as if it was sucking me into the depths of his soul.

As if he were inhaling me into all those secret places that he still kept hidden. Trying to show me when the words had been forbidden to fall from his tongue.

“Want you to know all of me, Em. But I’m terrified of what you’re going to do when you find out.”

Kane eased back, gazing down at me.

“River is going to keep watch over you and Maci while I’m gone.”

“Is that really necessary?” Maybe I wanted him to lie to me andtell me that it wasn’t. That he believed us completely safe. But I knew that wasn’t the case.

Emerald eyes flashed and sparked. “Yes, it is. Won’t take a chance like that. Not with you and not with her. Not when both of you are the most important thing to me.”

That thing I hadn’t understood billowed in the bare space that separated us, fighting for me to give into it.

To surrender.

“Please, be careful.”

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

“I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to me. Not when I know what’s waiting for me when I return.”

For a moment, we stayed locked. Gazes tangled and souls whispering.

Then he dipped in and took my mouth.

The kiss was slow.

Swirling with the type of passion I didn’t know if I could handle. The type that made me sway, my spirit quaking with the truth.

I wanted to weep when he pulled away, and he dropped his forehead back to mine as he cupped my face in both his hands. “Need to go.”

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