Page 92 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

This is new.He traced a scar over her calf, fingers featherlight against the marred skin.

Are you going to inspect every part of me?she asked as he moved to her other calf, pressing kisses into her neck, along the curve of her shoulder, her body coming alight beneath his touch. Holt’s chuckle rumbled from his chest and into her back, her belly, lower.

“Yes,” he mumbled against her skin, reaching for her feet and pulling her to her back in the blankets, another gasp escaping her as he massaged each of her toes.

A different kind of shiver rolled through her body as his large hands gripped her ankles, sliding up her calves and wrapping around her knees. He pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, to her stomach, a shiver of anticipation rolling through Zylah’s body, and then Holt lifted her in his arms, carrying her through a doorway and into a bathroom.

“Wicked Fae,” she huffed against his lips, her hands tangled in his hair.

“Let me take care of you,” he pleaded, his fierce desperation dancing along her skin an exact mirror of her own. “The thought of you in the maze, alone…” His throat bobbed as he took a step down, and then another.

“I wasn’t alone,” she told him, a hiss leaving her and her back arching in his arms as he lowered them into a warm bath big enough for six. Anger and remorse had flared from him at her words, but he snuffed it out just as quickly as it had come. He’d thought she’d meant Raif, and he couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“I wasn’t alone because you were with me,” Zylah said, spinning in his arms to straddle his lap, to lay her hand over his heart again. “I was holding on to you, too,” she confessed against his lips, the confession turning into another kiss.

His apprehension eased away beneath her palm and a different kind of tension pulled taut between them, her blood roaring with the need to be close to him, heat pulsing between her legs at the hard press of his erection between their bodies.

Zylah pulled back before the kiss could turn into something more, the unmistakable crackle of their desire twining between them. She reached over his shoulder for a fresh bar of soap, her body flush against his for a moment, another shiver dancing over her skin before she pulled back to lather it over his chest.

She needed him, needed to feel him inside her, his hands on her flesh. But she wanted to take care of him too. Needed to. He’d have pulled the warm water from a spring, done all of this for her, for them to have this moment together before they returned to the camp. And Zylah wanted him to know how much that meant to her, how much she wanted to have this moment with him too.

“Everything you’ve done,” he said reverently, sliding her closer as she moved the soap to his arms, easing his muscles just as he had done for her. “Everything you’ve become.” He lifted the soap from her fingers, running it over her clavicle and along her shoulder, under her arm and down the swell of her breast. “The strength of your magic,” he continued, swiping the soap across her stomach and to her other side, his thumb brushing over her breast as he continued his ascent, a carnal need taking over her with every stroke of his hand. “The strength of your heart.” He splayed his fingers over her chest as she rinsed the soap from his body, trembling beneath his touch. “Is beyond measure. And I will spend the rest of my life making sure you understand that. Showing you.” He cupped water into his empty hand, rinsing the soap off her skin. “Worshipping you,” he added, lowering his mouth to one of her breasts and sucking her peaked nipple between his lips for just a moment before he pulled away. “Loving you.” He slid her closer, his cock hard and thick between them, rocking her slowly against him just like he had in the cave, devouring her with a hot, claiming kiss.

Zylah’s hands wrapped around his neck, a moan tumbling from her lips, need pulsing through every inch of her. “Holt,” she whispered against his mouth, more of the wild desperation coursing through her veins, passing down their bond and twining with his. All it would take was one tilt of her hips and he’d be inside her; a grunt of approval rumbled from his chest as if he’d heard the thought, and then his hands were sliding down her body, fingers curling around her thighs.

Holt pulled back from their kiss, his breathing ragged, eyes half lidded and heavy with desire and need as he took her in. “I’m yours,” he told her, and with a cant of her hips he drove into her, all the way to the hilt.

Chapter Forty-Six

AcrytorefromZylah’s lips at the size of him, the feel of him, the fullness, her hips rolling with his as he moved inside her.

There hadn’t been time after she’d accepted their bond for them to be together again. But being with him now was just as much a primal need as that first time, threads spiralling around them and pulling taut, every part of her winding tighter and tighter at the way he moved inside her.

“Fuck,” Holt groaned as his hands knotted in her hair, his mouth on hers in a bruising, searing kiss, love and devotion and lust and desire and longing all tumbling from him and lighting her up from the inside out, sparks of ecstasy dancing along her skin. “Zylah,” he ground out against her lips, his tongue parting hers to taste her, claim her.

Their movements were frenzied, wild, water sloshing and splashing, both of them just as starved for the other. Everything about him felt familiar. Everything about him felt right. Felt like coming home.

Holt leaned back to take her in, his hips maintaining a punishing rhythm, one hand sliding between them, fingers circling the sensitive spot between her legs. Her body responded to his touch immediately, pleasure soaring, her back arching as he brought her higher, higher.

“I couldn’t work out why my dreams felt so real,” he murmured, his other hand so tight over her hip Zylah knew it would leave a bruise. She didn’t care. She wanted him to mark her. To claim her in every way.

He growled his approval at her thought, his hand reaching up to fist in her hair as his fingers moved faster, his teeth grazing her throat. Zylah cried out at the heady mix of sensations, her release slamming into her and Holt’s mouth coming over hers to capture her moans, swallowing down every sound she made until her trembling eased.

“They were memories,” he told her softly as she shook in his arms, his hips slowing. “And there weren’t nearly enough of them.” He pulled out of her, flipped her around and pressed her hands to the edge of the bath, the broad tip of him pausing against her entrance for a moment as he brought a hand to her throat and tilted her head. “Look,” he commanded, his voice rough with need as he slammed into her from behind, another moan tumbling from her lips at the feel of him, at what she saw.

Directly ahead of them a large mirror leaned against the wall, and though Zylah’s tunnelled vision cut out most of their surroundings, she had an unimpeded view of their reflection. Of her flushed skin, the ecstasy lining her features, the way she met every one of his thrusts.

“Look at how beautiful you are,” he told her, but her attention had already drifted to him. To his long fingers curled around her throat, the corded muscles of his arms flexing as he moved, his other hand gripping her hip as he drove into her over and over. The look of carnal desire that danced over his features, his eyes heavy with lust and love as he watched their reflection.

“You are more than a goddess, Zylah. You are everything.” His hands roamed her body, cupping her breasts and arching her back into him further, the angle and the depth of his thrusts making her see stars.

When she canted her head, lips seeking his, his mouth came over hers, a hand trailing between her breasts and resting between her legs. Zylah gasped into Holt’s mouth as he teased her sensitive flesh, her moan swallowed up by his kisses as everything coiled tight again at his touch.

She needed him to come undone, needed him just as untethered as she was, the way he moved inside her the only thing anchoring her to her body.

Not yet, he rumbled in her thoughts. Zylah was lost to him. So utterly lost as he coaxed another orgasm from her, her body ablaze beneath his and trembling in his arms as his hips slowed again, holding her to his chest and trailing kisses down her neck and shoulder.

She caught his gaze in the mirror, the raw emotion in his eyes and her heart swelled at the sight. His chest heaved, his breaths ragged as he moved inside her, slow, tender, drawing out the moment between them like he didn’t want it to end. Neither did she.

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