Page 123 of Stars in Umbra
He stilled, his head falling to his chest as he took ragged breaths.
After a few moments, she sensed his heartbeat slow, and his hitches of breath cease.
She helped him to her couch, where he fell.
His gaze locked onto hers, and the words tumbled out, frayed and desperate. ‘I panicked. I thought you left me alone.’
His voice was thick with a vulnerability she’d never heard from him before.
He ran a hand through his dark locks, agitated.
‘I thought you were just going to toss me aside, because of all that I am.’
She stroked his hair. ‘Honey, I understand the circumstances were out of your control when you acted as you did. There’s nothing to forgive, but you might have to reconsider reparations with the Riders and the authorities when this is over. However, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with you until we see this through.’
He sat back, staring at her in disbelief.
Then he took a ragged breath. ‘I panicked thinking it’s over. See,mi kaya, my life hasn’t been the same since you walked into it. You’re the one I confide in now, the one I open to, the one I can be raw and real with. So forgive me, but I almost broke worrying I might lose you because of who I am, because of who I was.’
‘You’re not losing me, not at all.’
He took her hand and kissed it.
His voice dropped to a whisper, untamed with emotion. ‘It’s too early to say this, but after the wedding, it’s been more than just ‘I want you for tonight,’ and more ‘I want you for life.’ You caught me by surprise. Before I knew it, I got lost in all of you.For so long, I thought I would forever be alone, but woman, you showed me I had a chance at eternity with you.’
Rina didn’t hesitate. She stepped for him, closing the short distance between them, and kissed him.
In an embrace that melded passion with yearning and their undeniable connection, he hoped to banish all the darkness within him.
Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss until the world outside them faded into a distant hum.
She pulled back, breathless, her eyes searching his. ‘Indeed, ‘tis too early,’ she murmured, a soft smirk playing on her lips, ‘but I also have feelings for a dangerous, gun-wielding assassin.’
He quirked his mouth, his eyes molten, flaming with a hint of the wildness that so captivated her from the start.
‘Are you even real? I don’t think I deserve you.Fokk, you’re so beautiful, too wise for me. I never thought I was good enough, not for someone like you. ’
Then, with a sudden movement, he pulled her onto his lap, straddling his thick thighs, his scorching hand sliding down her spine, pressing her impossibly close.
She traced the line of his jaw with her thumb, her gaze steady. ‘Hey, handsome, the truth is out now, there’s no need for getting lost in the past. You’re now free. It’s all gone, what your parents did, it’s all in the past. So for now, baby, let’s take this day by day.’
He buried his head into her nape, inhaling her scent, his voice a rumbling growl against her skin. ‘Fokkyeah, woman.When day after day becomes forever, it’ll be wildest dreams territory.’
MOLAN
The second they banked across the Dunian foothills, the landscape rolling into neat lines of fencing and paddocks, memories rushed into Mo’s mind.
The farmhouse spanned the crest of a hill, timber-roofed and flanked by a barn, and trees shedding the last of their amber-gold leaves.
Smoke spiraled from a chimney, curling toward the afternoon sky.
‘That’s the stable where we first met,’ he rasped.
Rina glanced over at him from the pilot’s seat as they descended, her voice soft.
‘It is. You’re going to love it. It’s autumn, and the days are cooler now, so they’ve got the fire going and wood stoves, too.’
He said nothing, only studied the ground rush up to meet them, his muscles relaxing despite himself.
