“I like this paint,” I tell her, wondering if, as close as we’resitting, she can tell just how much I like it. “Looks pretty.”
She smiles, and looks up at me with those green eyes that have possessed me since the first time I saw her. “Seemed like it made you angry when you first saw it.”
“No, sweetheart.” I’m leaning closer to her but telling myself there’s still time to pull back. “I wasn’t angry.”
“Wrong emotion?” she says, and she almost sounds like she’s teasing me now.
“Yeah, something like that.” I drag my thumb through it again, smear it on her jaw, on the side of her neck, on all the places I can reach that I’d like to have my mouth on. “I don’t want you to go, Cora.”
Her eyes are fixed on my mouth, and we’re close enough that all one of us would have to do is give in. “Please, Aiden, I…” Her gaze flicks away from me to find Cypress where he stands nearby, still waiting, still watching. Still so fucking satisfied with himself. God fucking damn him to hell. “I want you. I want…”
I chuckle, tipping her head back so she can keep her eyes on him as I press my lips to her racing pulse. “You want me, but you want him, too, Cora? That what you’re trying to say?”
Her fingers find the fabric of my shirt, her lips parting on a soft whine.
“You want us both? Youneedus both?” I tangle my fingers in those long curls, bringing her focus back to me as my mouth hovers over hers. “Say it, Cora.”
“I…” She tries to erase the distance between us, her eyes flashing when I don’t give her what she wants, and I’m so close to saying,Fuck it.Likely would have already if I wasn’t still trying to figure out how I ever thought I stood a fucking chance.
“Say it,” I tell her again, grinning this time as I finally accept my fate. “Say it, Cora.”
Her eyes meet Cypress’s, then mine. “I want you both.”
Aiden’s mouth crushes against mine. Nothing about the kiss gentle or soft or sweet. There’s no hesitancy left in him now, no thought of retreat. Just a claim that manages to make me feel like he’s giving me as much as he’s taking.
“Dammit, Cora,” he mutters against my mouth, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip to get me to gasp, to get me to open wider for him before he soothes the sting with his tongue. “Should’ve known you’d taste this fucking good.”
I feel like I’m racing to keep up with him, to try to figure out the rhythm of what he’s doing, the way he’s moving with me, but it’s all happening so fast. So fast, and at the same time, not nearly fast enough.
“Cy,” Aiden groans, moving down my jaw and giving me my first true chance to catch my breath. “Take her.”
Strong hands find my waist, Cypress immediately lifting me off Helios’s back and into his arms, not giving me a chance to mourn the loss of Aiden’s touch before he’s replaced it.
“Hello again, little bird,” he murmurs with a smile, carrying me against his chest with my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders as he walks toward the ashes of last night’s campfire. “How about you stay out here with us tonight, hm?”
I nod eagerly, content to never go back in the wagon again if that means I’ll get more of this. More of Cypress’s nose brushing against mine as he holds me to him and starts to kiss me, too, slow and deep as if I’m something for him to explore. One hand on my waist to hold me secure and one drifting over the fabric of my dress, his fingertips trailing slowly along my sides, my arms, my shoulders—like he’s memorizing me. So different from the way Aiden touches me, but the intention feels the same.
“Put her down here,” Aiden is saying, and I’m dimly aware of the way he’s flattening out the bedrolls behind us, giving Cypress a place to lay me down just where he directed.
“So commanding,” Cypress whispers in my ear as he settles us on the cushioned ground, making me laugh as he holds himself over me. Then he kisses his way down the side of my throat and teases, “As if I’m the one who makes him suffer.”
“You are the one who makes me suffer, Cy,” Aiden replies. “Don’t act like you aren’t.”
Cypress lifts his head and grins. “Don’t act like you don’t enjoy it.”
Aiden rolls his eyes, but then he’s lying down and reaching for me, tugging me away from Cypress who is grinning when he turns onto his side to observe us better.
“So fucking pretty,” Aiden tells me, one of his hands in my hair and one on my hip to pull me near so that I’m tight against him, and I can see him better now than I could when we were on horseback, see the way he’s looking at me like he really doesn’t have any plan of letting me go. “We’ll go slow, all right?”
“What if I don’t—” His mouth captures mine again, demanding in direct contrast to his words. “What if I don’t want to go slow?”
He groans, kisses me harder. “Cora, I’m hanging on by a thread here. Have some fucking mercy.”
“No,” I say, still stumbling over how to kiss him back just as fiercely, still figuring out where he ends and I begin. “Don’t want to do that either.”
He almost laughs as his mouth moves to the curve of my neck, his teeth scraping against my skin in warning before digging in hard enough to leave a mark. This time my only response is a small moan as I try to drag him even closer.
“Our little bird,” Cypress murmurs from my other side, smiling when I turn my face toward him and humming that same song he always does before his lips brush mine. “At last.”