He leans into me. “I didn’t mean to make you run. I wanted…”
I stare at him.
It’s hard to think with him so close, with my hands on him. Because the need and desire pumps hard in my veins.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline of what just happened, maybe it’s the bond, or…
“You can’t go back to your village,” he says. “The Order will punish you for failing your mission.”
Not just that. They’ll try to kill me when they discover Titus is dead. Elder Solarre will have me burned at the stake.
“No one will ever hurt you again,” Rowan whispers, as if he’s peeking into my head again. “You can come with me.”
My heartbeat gallops at that. At the idea of leaving everything I’ve ever known behind and being with him forever, but with excitement or fear, I do not know. “I can’t?—”
“Hush.” He lowers his mouth to mine, but I close the gap, kissing him.
At first, the kiss is gentle, healing, intimate, almost reverent. A softness meant to soothe what was broken.
Then it deepens. Darkens. Smolders into something raw and pagan, all heat and hunger, and I want him. I want to finish what we started in the ruins.
But Rowan has other intentions.
He grips the tattered remnants of my tunic and tears it away, never breaking the kiss as he lowers me to the ground. I tense when I realize how close we are to Titus’s body, his presence a stain in the shadows. Doing this here feels wrong. Twisted.
And yet, it feels inevitable.
This isn’t tenderness anymore. It’s possession. A declaration. Rowan claiming me in the most primal way possible, right beside the man who tried to destroy me, proving, without words, that I was never Titus’s to take. I am Rowan’s. And I always have been.
Two souls created from the same cosmic fabric.
“My Lyra,” he murmurs against my lips as he settles between my legs. I feel his weight, his heat, the unmistakable promise of him. Yes, my virtue is still mine to give. And I’m ready to give it to him freely.
Rowan strokes his fingers from my nipples, down along my stomach, then down, down. He follows with his mouth, and each touch of his tongue and nip of his teeth peels back a layer of me.
When his head settles in between my thighs, I hold my breath.
“Rowan, what?—”
“You’ll see,” he says.
It’s like the kiss in the ruins when he pushed his finger into me, only now he explores me with his tongue. His mouth’s wet and hot on me, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It’s wild, freeing, it’s like touching the heavens as the sweetest sensations roll over me, as he licks and sucks on my folds.
He’s enjoying this as much as I am; he’s hard and aching, and it just adds to the pleasure rising in me. Every new sensation isa revelation. I jump, clutching at him as his tongue touches the most sensitive part of me. Rowan sucks and licks it, making the fires inside burn brighter.
His fingers enter me, and I explode. My muscles clench, and I hit pure euphoria. I gasp as pleasure spirals through every inch of me, my back arching.
Just then, he slides over me, pushing my thighs apart, and I’m trembling, aching, needing this.
“This may hurt a little,” he whispers, but I nod. I’m not afraid.
I can feel him hold back, the rough oceans of desire in him, and then the damn breaks and he surges into me, breaking all barriers.
He starts to drill into me, and I’m mashed between him and the cool grass. His assaults are somehow coming from all angles, physically, emotionally, mentally. All the sensations make my head spin.
I never knew laying with a man could be like this.
Each time he slams in, he hits something so deep, it’s like a dull pain that is edged with a rolling pleasure.