Page 118 of Heroes & Hitmen
My chest tightens. “Well, if you still wanna get outta here, then we can make it happen.”
She blinks, furrowing her brow. “But you won.”
“So?” I scoff. “You’re not a prize to be won.” I reach out to cup her cheek, staring deeply into her eyes. “You’ll always have a choice with me, Miley. So what do you want?”
She chews on her lower lip, averting her gaze. “That depends. Is this… real?” she asks, her voice catching. “Not the fated thing, but me and you. How much of the past couple months was actually real, and how much of it was for the sake of the lie?”
I shift underneath her, hyper-aware of every inch of our bodies lined up together. “It was all real for me,” I tell her. “Every damn minute. But they say if you love something, you should set it free, so…”
“You love me?” she blurts, breath catching.
“Of course I do,” I murmur as I wrap both arms around her and squeeze, ignoring the ripple of pain it elicits. “Not to be a sap, but I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you at first sight across that bar, babe. But you still have a choice.”
She pulls back, staring at me so hard I start to worry I might’ve said the wrong thing. Then her eyes go glassy, a shaky breath sawing from her lungs. “You’remy choice, idiot,” she declares. “I love you too, I just… dammit, why is it so scary to say that?”
My face splits into a grin. “It isn’t for me.”
“That’s because you’re fearless to the point of insanity,” she snorts. “If you go trying to die on me again, I swear I’ll kill you myself.”
“Isn’t that kinda counter-productive?” I laugh.
She rolls her eyes, swatting at my chest with a hand, and I just laugh harder. Can’t help it, I’m fucking giddy. Lightheaded, too– probably a little due to the blood loss, but mostly because ofher.
Shelovesme. Miley Beckett– the smartest, most beautiful,wickedly clever, impossibly stubborn,incrediblegirl I’ve ever met– lovesme.
I’m the luckiest sonofabitch on the planet.
I haul her on top of me, ignoring the dull pain that comes with every movement and cup her face in both hands. She lets me pull her in for a kiss, and it’s clumsy, a little messy, but perfect. I slide my tongue along the seam of her mouth and she opens for me, her hips grinding down. I shift my own beneath her, cock thickening as it rides against her center.
Miley suddenly draws back, palms pressed to my chest. “We can’t,” she says, voice soft but firm. “You’re still healing, you need to rest.”
“No, what Ineedis to claim my mate,” I growl, reaching for her.
She shakes her head, pulling away. “I promised Drake I’d make sure you rested up.”
“Didn’t know he was such a cockblock,” I mutter.
She rolls her eyes, running a hand through her tangled hair as she pushes up to sit across my hips. “Look at us, Ares,” she says, pointing between our bodies. “We’re filthy. You’re still covered in blood. The last thing we should be doing is fucking right now.”
I glance down, realizing she’s right. Not about the fucking– I’d literally choose fucking her over anything else– but about the fact that we’re a mess. There’s dried blood and dirt caked on our skin, gruesome evidence of what we survived.
“So, shower first, then?” I suggest, wagging my brows.
She heaves an exasperated sigh but cracks a smile, nonetheless. “Only if you swear you’ll keep your hands to yourself.”
“Yeah right,” I scoff, swinging her off me and onto the mattress. “As if I could ever be naked with you and keep my hands to myself.”
I haul myself upright and slide out of bed, ignoring the fireworks of pain in every nerve ending as I offer her a hand up.
Miley lets me pull her to her feet, padding ahead of me toward the bathroom. She stops to check her reflection in the mirror above the sink, prodding at the crusted blood on her collarbone with a clinical sort of detachment. She looks like hell– a beautiful, ferocious kind of hell that makes my dick hard just to be near her.
She catches my eyes in the mirror and smirks. “We look like we committed homicide.”
“And buried the bodies,” I chuckle, stepping up behind her andbracketing her hips with my hands. She’s still got streaks of my blood down her stomach, splashed on her thighs. My gaze trails over every inch of her visible in the mirror as she softens against me, leaning back into my chest. I rest my chin on the crown of her head, and for a second, we just stand there wrapped together, taking in the residual evidence of last night’s carnage.
Eventually, she wriggles out of my grip, flicks the shower lever, and lets the water run hot. She gestures grandly for me to enter first, but I just point back at her and say, “Ladies first.” Not out of chivalry, but because I wanna admire that perfect ass of hers.
She rolls her eyes and turns to step in, treating me to a view of the goods. I follow after her, the two of us crowding together under the shower head so the spray hits us both. The first pass of heat stings when it hits my tender skin, but then it’s all good, the pain slowly dulling as the water soothes and cleanses.
