‘I love you, both of you,’ Euan said as he held green eyes. ‘I will never be enough. When I was … When they were … I didn’t think I’d get another chance to say anything to you, say those words to you again. But I want you to know that everything I did, I thought I did it for you, us. I’m sorry, I am. So fucking sorry.’
Kira felt the sincerity of his voice through his skin. It penetrated into her heart, lodged there, started to loosen the worm.
Nick leaned in, the heat in his body warmed her side. It radiated and influenced the heat that she only now noticed through the fabric of her pants. Her crotch was pressed against the warm exposed skin of Euan’s hard belly. And suddenly, the pain of everything that had transpired between them melted away.
‘You’re my everything.’ It was Nick’s voice that broke now. Nick’s tone that was hoarse with brimming emotion. Kira removed her hands from Euan’s jaw so that he was unencumbered when he leaned in and pressed wet lips to dry ones briefly before resting his forehead against Euan’s. ‘Fuck me, I was so goddamned scared.’
Emotion made their voices gruff, ragged. Euan’s strength held her still. His hands scorching at her hips. It gave her the opportunity to run her fingertips over the scar at his shoulder, in his arms that would never falter, she twisted her body until she was able to lean down and kiss the angry skin.
‘Christ,’ Euan huffed.
She licked the puckered skin, brushed her wet lips over the distorted mouth of the lion. ‘Lie down.’
The temptation of straw littered around them. Euan loosened his hold on her hips and let her slide down his body until her booted feet hit the ground.
It was a strange sensation, to watch him do something she had told him to without question or hesitation. He took three steps backwards, his eye never breaking with hers as he went to his knees in the straw.
Oh now, this was beautiful. Before he could take that enormous body further down, she said, ‘Stop.’
He did. The brown eye heated in the way that melted her heart. The anger dripped out of her, the hurt was inconsequential. This man, on his knees, in front of her? The only thing in the entire universe that mattered.
Kneeling, he was still a commander of minds and men. His lips reached her breasts and she wanted nothing more than to have those lips brush the sensitive skin there.
She pulled her shirt off slowly, let the fabric hide her vision for just a moment. The confidence that swirled through her was unfamiliar. The sexual domination was something that she had never experienced. Even before the end of humankind, she had never been this way inclined.
But there was a reverence that infused with the air around them. A need for change, a desire for something more. Her hair tickled her bare shoulders as she twisted the bra strap at her back and slowly pulled it from her body.
Euan’s eye was molten molasses. So warm and dark, syrupy and lovely. It heated her skin wherever it focused, trails of fire that smouldered like hot coals in his wake. She shivered, because how could she not?
Then Nick was there, a blaze of emotion at her spine. His skin was soft against hers, and she knew he was naked from the waist up too. Firm muscles, warmth and home. His hands were rough as they slipped around her rib cage and cupped her breasts. He pinched her nipples. She arched, gasped. Hid her face in the hollow of Nick’s throat. Kissed the skin. Air whispered past her lips in quiet demands for more. Then the small weights were lifted in offering to the man before her on his knees.
She didn’t hear his approach. With her eyes closed, it was a wet mouth that consumed one tight, sensitive nipple and brought her focus sharply to the ache. She gasped, arched further, put both hands on Euan’s head and held him to her breast even as Nick held her close to his chest.
Nick’s lips scorched a brand along the skin of her shoulder, up the column of her neck. Hot breath was in her ear, his hands still cupped her for Euan’s attention while his hips thrust against her bottom. His lips caused devastation to her cognitive thought.
Euan’s bristly, short hair was under her fingertips. She scratched it with her nails, heard the rasp past the groan in Euan’s throat and the sigh in hers. Wetness, suction, teeth. Euan played her body with expertise, the experience of a master musician and she adored it.
He grunted when she forced him from his treat. His bearded chin was in her fingertips and she tilted his head until their eyes met. His lips glistened with wetness, his eye was a single black coal of want. She swayed with the heady sensation that powerhouse of muscle and bone was hers, and in that moment, hers to command, hers to enjoy.
‘On your back.’ Her voice was soft even as she let go of that granite jaw to undo the fastening of her pants. She could see the flash of indignation in his smouldering eyes. Not for the control, but for the loss of removing her clothes for her, so she indulged him. She removed her fingers only to be replaced by his. Nick captured her hair, pulled it from her shoulders and continued to devour the skin at her throat, eat the goosed flesh and torment her.
She closed her eyes for just a moment, to
