Page 50 of Entangled

They look at me.

Dom meets my eyes, and the sudden honey in his makes me want to cry. How did I never realize what a heart-shattering shade they were? Why did I keep imagining them dulled and tarnished in death, and not this melting pot of gold and amber?

“Eden,” he whispers. The word is like a slow, soft caress down my spine.

“You’re alive.” The words spill out of me like tears, and he steps closer, like he can’t help himself, and I shift into him too.

“So are you.” His gaze moves over my face tentatively, like he’s afraid of what he might find. In a low, rough voice, he says, “I’m sorry, Eden. I’m so fucking sor?—”

Beside him, the man on the ground pulls up onto his hands and knees, coughing and cursing. Dom steps to the side, glancing down, and my heart stalls in my chest all over again.

“Jayk?” I choke out, and tears do spring to my eyes now.

“Fucking wire bullshit,” he swears, rubbing his throat. “Who carries afuckingwire? Whousesit?”

When I laugh, there’s a hysterical bite to it. “Jayk!”

I throw myself on him. Everything in me swells as he falls back onto his butt. My heart feels too painfully overwrought, too large and inflated to possibly fit inside me anymore. I bury my face in his sweaty neck, breathing him in.

“You’re alive,” I murmur. “You’realive.”

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah.”

Tears spill from me,bleedfrom me, as I pepper kisses along his skin. Tenderly over his poor, abused neck, over his stubbled jaw. Bright heat lights through my veins, almost druggingly warm after how cold I’ve been. My nails dig into his shoulders, and I nip his chin, not even sure what I’m doing anymore except that he’shere. He’s actually here. Alive and in my arms, and not a blackened corpse who died alone and clawing for help.

His breath catches under me, and I can feel his heart battering at mine through our chests. Finally, his arms come around me, and the broken pieces of me settle. I shift up, and my lips brush over his.

That wakes him up.

If my kiss was a breath, Jayk steals it.

His mouth crashes over mine, claiming it. Owning it. He takes my split lip into the scorching wet heat of his mouth, and sucks on it hard, his tongue swiping over the blood, and I feel the sting throb in my clit. His tongue skates against mine, and then we’re breathing each other’s air, fighting for kisses. He growls into my mouth, and I want to drown in the way my body lights up.

My scalp tingles and head spins and everything becomes liquid and needy and drenched in the brightest, most breathtaking relief.

Jayk isalive. Alive, alive, alive.

Goosebumps spring to life over every inch of my skin, and when tears spill between our mouths, he licks those up too.

He grabs my ass, grinding me against him, and I gasp, clinging closer.

“Huh,” I hear, very far away. “Didn’t figure you for a Jayk girl.”

I ignore her, kissing him deeper. My arms twine around his neck, and he sucks in a pained gasp.

I pull back, fear for him spiking. I search his face. His eyes blaze.

“Are you—?” I start.

“Good. Fine.” His hand making a fist in my hair, he yanks my mouth back to his.

I let him kiss me for a minute, then pull back again, trying to ignore the heavy, insistent length of him at my core. “Wait, wait.”

Breathing is hard. Unsteady. His lips are wet and rosy from kisses.Mykisses.

I drag my eyes away, and suck in a deep breath even as I feel his eyes burning me with barely restrained patience. Tension lines every inch of his body, and I can feel his need to shred my clothes andtakeme.

I wonder if he feels my need to let him.

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