Page 296 of Shadowblood Souls
I touch his jaw in an attempt at reassurance. “You did. You were my armor, like you promised. And then I got to be yours. That’s how it should be, right?”
Jacob lets out a strangled sound and lowers his head so his forehead brushes mine. “Yeah. Yeah. I just never want to see anyone get that close?—”
His voice tightens. “I want to tear his head right off his fucking shoulders and dance on it.”
“I think he’s dead enough already,” I say with a hint of dryness. “Areyouokay?”
He doesn’t seem like he’s detached from reality the way he has a few times in the past when we’d gotten through a shitload of trouble. Tonight’s incident doesn’t really compare.
But he’s obviously not jumping for joy either.
Jacob sets his hands on my waist, skin to skin, with a bloom of warmth. He swallows audibly. “Nothing you need to knock me out of, Wildcat. But I wish I could keep you out of anything this dangerous completely. What good is fucking armor when there’s so many of them?”
His voice drops, getting hoarse. “I love you so much, Riva. If I could make sure no one ever fired another bullet at you to begin with, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”
A lump rises in my throat. “I know,” I say through it, and I do. I believe him with every fiber of my being.
So nothing could feel more natural than finishing my answer by tugging his lips to meet mine.
Nine
Riva
I’ve kissed Jacob before. More than once.
There was the time I used a kiss to snap him out of a frenzy he was caught up in, thinking he still needed to protect me from attackers.
And the time we started making out and I bawled all over him.
Not the greatest track record. But then, maybe that’s to be expected when our entire reunion has been so messy.
I can feel the tension in him as he kisses me back. Part of it is hunger I know must be flaring in his veins just like it is within mine, our shadows straining toward each other.
And part is him battling that hunger.
His fingers flex where he’s raised his hand to cup my cheek. A quiver runs through his body, every muscle taut.
I haven’t wanted everything he could give me before. I’ve asked him to be gentle.
Just like every other moment since the one when he called me away from the train hurtling toward me, he’s doing whatever he can to make me happy. Whatever he can to make sure he doesn’t damage that happiness again.
But the only ache left inside me is the best sort of pain.
I break the kiss to draw back just a few inches, holding his face between my hands as I do. The words feel like they well up from the very center of me. “I love you too.”
Jacob lets out a choked sound and dips his head for another kiss. It’s all tenderness and giddy release, but I can still taste the restraint in it.
I need more.
I push him downward, and he moves easily at my prodding. As he sinks down to sit against the inner wall of the van, I straddle his lap like I have before.
Maintaining control. Taking the reins.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be callingallthe shots.
I tug at his shirt to pull the blood-dappled fabric off him and slide my hands down his sculpted torso.
Jacob’s voice has gone rough. “Riva?”
