“I love you, Sully.” I snuggled into him, smashing the tension and hugging him close. “I love you with everything that I am.”
His arms snapped around me. Shackles and sonnets. Chains and confessions. He squeezed me as if I could become a part of him. He shuddered as I hugged him back, inhaling his scent, imprinting him, not just on my heart, but on my forever.
The hum that never failed to spark between us struck a smouldering match. Our linked souls sank deeper into their connection. We were joined, knotted and tangled.
For always.
“Sully...” I kissed the shell of his ear, struggling to breathe because he held me so tight. “Whatever you’re afraid of...tell me.”
He quivered in my embrace, a tumbling growl echoing in his chest. “I’m not afraid.”
“Then why—”
“I’m grateful. So fucking grateful that I found you.”
“I’m grateful too. I’m so thankful that you survived, and that you came, and that we can go home now, and—”
He kissed me, deeply, thoroughly.
The flat of his tongue massaged mine. His teeth scraped my bottom lip. His lust swept down my throat with a different taste of before. It wasn’t just lust he kissed with...it was sharper than that, scarier than that.
It’s goodbye.
Ripping away from him, I struggled in his arms. “What’s going on?” Narrowing my gaze at the painkillers still clenched in his fist, I added, “If you’re in such pain, let me get help. Let me—”
“I hope you can forgive me...one day.”
“Forgive you? Why would I have to forgive you?”
He cupped my breast again, pinching my nipple and activating the faded thirst of elixir. My thoughts scattered; my worry evaporated.
“I need you, Eleanor.” His grunt set fire to the liquid between my legs, ensuring I needed him just as much. No, I need him more. I needed him because he was scaring me, because he was hiding something.
He wasn’t allowed to do that.
There was no space for fibs or fakery.
Not after everything we’d fought to overcome.
“Sully...please, tell me what you’re hiding. How do I fix this?”
“By letting me have you.” His mouth once again claimed mine. Swift kisses and violent hunger. Snatching me from the bed, he dragged me from the blanket and onto his lap.
He groaned, and I moaned as our skin slid against each other, his chilly from sitting with no protection and mine toasty from the blanket. His erection nudged my belly as he gathered me close and spread my legs, wedging them on either side of him.
He kissed me harder, all while the pings and bouncing chaos of pills as they fell to the floor became background noise. Both his hands swept through my hair, cradling the back of my head as he deepened our kiss.
He kissed me until my mind swam and my heart curtsied, and I was a melted, molten puddle in his lap.
He grunted as I rocked my hips, the natural need to mate overshadowing the skill of conversation. The heat of his stitched thigh pressed against my ass, and I froze. “I’m sorry.”
He gritted his teeth as I tried to slip off his lap. “Don’t.”
“But I’m hurting you.”
“You’ll hurt me more if you deny me.” Grabbing my thighs, he spread them wider. Running his powerful hands down my legs, he locked them into position behind him, linking my ankles together as if binding us together. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But you’re hurt—”
His mouth plundered mine.
His hands grabbed fistfuls of my hair, and he kissed me as if he’d been kissing me his whole life. Savage and smooth, sinful and sensual. His tongue licked me and made love to me and fucked me with every debased, divine way possible.
I met his invasion with my own tongue, lapping at him, dancing, knotting everything that we were.
The chill coating his skin vanished, leaving his body unbearably hot. I held onto his shoulders and let him kiss me. Sweat broke through his pores as another grunt of sheer agony rumbled in his chest.
I tried to pull away, to get off him and go for help, but he wrapped his arms around me, keeping me prisoner, ignoring my denial.
Our mouths slipped free as he buried his face into my cleavage, panting hard, steam almost rising from him in a mix of pain and need. “Let me have you, Eleanor. I’m begging you.”
His hands spasms around me. Another low growl of discomfort made me mad. “But I’m hurting you—”
“You could never hurt me.”
“My weight on your leg—”
“This is the only position I can have you.”
“You’re in pain from the helicopter—”
“I don’t care.”
“I care.” I tried to push him away, my hands colliding with the brick wall of his very male chest. “I refuse to hurt you when—”
“You’re hurting me more than I can stand by saying no.”
“I’m not saying no. I’m saying you can have me in a few days...when you’re feeling—”
“I need you now. I can’t wait.”
“Why? Why can’t you wait?” I ran my hands through his damp hair. “You need to rest.”
“Rest?” He snorted. “I can rest later.” He shoved my hands away. His temper appeared, fierce and flashing over his gorgeous face. “And I’ll tell you why I can’t wait. I watched my brother fly away with you. I arrived to you fighting him off. I came face to face with almost losing you, and it made me realise so many fucking things.” His nostrils flared. “I love you more than anything, and I’ve caused you the worst kind of pain. Multiple times over. I look at you, and I can’t stop seeing everything that I’ve done. Every hurt I’ve caused. Every drop of blood I’ve spilled. And I—”
I kissed him.
I shut him up as his chest seized and the thunder of his heart stuttered strangely.
I kissed him because
