Page 378 of Shadowblood Souls
This man is meant for me, and I am meant for him. Just as much as the others.
Maybe it makes sense that I lost him first and found him last.
I yank Griffin’s mouth back to mine. He trails his fingers along my spine and around my waist.
They pause at the band of my sports bra. I nip his lower lip between my teeth, reveling in his stuttered breath, and yank that off too so I’m completely bare from the waist up.
Griffin traces the soft ridges of my abdomen up to the curves of my breasts. He curls his fingers around the slopes carefully.
I’ve never seen anything as miraculous as the interplay of tender devotion and scorching lust etched across his features.
“I don’t—I don’t know exactly what I’m doing,” he admits haltingly. “I’ve never—I imagined, before, but that’s all. But I can feel what makes you feel good.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d have even less idea about sex than the other guys. Of course the guardians wouldn’t have exposed him to provocative videos and encouraged that kind of release while they were attempting to erase every emotion from him.
They didn’t have to worry about giving him an outlet for his urges because they were stealing his entire capacity for desire.
“Your approach seems to be working just fine,” I reassure him. “We’ve all been figuring it out as we go.”
Something inside us calls to each other—directs our desire toward completion. I can already tell that the hardest part won’t be enjoying this interlude but avoiding giving in to the hunger to fully consummate our connection.
Griffin kisses me again, teasing our mouths against each other until he finds just the right angle to press harder. When I whimper against his lips, he starts caressing my breasts.
He tests every bit of that terrain with his palms, his fingers, his thumbs. Stroking softer and harder, back and forth and in quickening circles.
When he catches one nipple between two of his fingers with a swift squeeze, the moan that tumbles from my lips is echoed by his matching groan. He repeats the gesture, kissing me harder as if drinking down the pleasure he’s conjuring in my body.
My hips rock toward him of their own accord. Griffin drops one hand to trace the curve of my hip.
His voice comes out in a ragged murmur. “You need more. But we can’t?—”
He cuts himself off as if coming to a decision on his own—and hefts me against him braced between his body and the passage wall. The rough stone digs into my back, probably leaving adimpled impression, but I can’t find it in me to care when I’m melded this tightly with the man I’ve loved for so long.
As my legs splay around him, our groins locking together through our clothes, a different sort of need grips me.
I kiss him again and hold my face close to his. “I love you.”
The second the words come out, I feel abruptly sheepish. “But you already know that, don’t you? You always knew.”
Griffin nuzzles the side of my face, his breath washing over me in its own caress. “This is the first time I’ve gotten to hear you say it out loud. I—I love you too. I don’t think I even know how much yet. The feeling just keeps growing.”
I close my eyes against a renewed rush of tears, bittersweet. The joy of being back with him; the pain of knowing how trapped we still are.
The darkness inside spurs me on, desperate for the merging I’m going to refuse it. I grind against the erection straining at Griffin’s pants, and he muffles a groan in my hair.
We can’t have that ultimate fusion yet. I’m not sure either of us is quite ready for it anyway, regardless of what ideas our bodies might have.
But we can still claim a different kind of satisfaction.
My fingertips skate across Griffin’s back. He works over one breast with an increasingly confident hand as he keeps me balanced with the other.
We buck against each other through frantic kisses. The friction against my pussy floods me with waves of giddy heat.
And Griffin can sense every swell of delight. He adjusts his angle by increments, finding just the spot to send me spiraling higher.
Oh, God, to actuallyfuckthis man?—
I bury that thought under the rising whirlwind of bliss. We rut and groan and devour each other, my heart drumming out a desperate rhythm.
