Her tongue swept between my lips, dragging in slow dance. “Now?”
“Where’s this optimism supposed to go?” I murmured.
“In your heart.”
I caught her hips, pulling her so she straddled me. “Don’t have one of those,” I said, rocking her against my hard length. “Maybe I’m keeping mine someplace else.”
I lost myself in Aveen’s soft hair, kissed each bone in her spine, the curve of her shoulder blades. If I’d known how to pray, I would’ve said a prayer. Instead, I begged the heavens to keep this woman safe.
She unfastened my breeches, my stiff cock springing free to meet her greedy hands. Three strokes later, I had her on the flat of her back, pinned beneath me on the hideous rug.
We needed no words between us as I nudged against her entrance, answering her breathless sigh. It felt as if I had been waiting for this moment my entire life.
Searching for her.
Finding her.
Filling her.
Giving every broken bit of me that remained.
Her heels dug into my back as she clutched the rug, our hips meeting and retreating. The harder I thrust, the more she moaned. I swallowed her cries, burying myself until she felt me in her soul.
“Rían . . .” Her whisper became the soft sigh of a summer rain on flower petals.
When she finally came, I followed the waves of her release with my own, careful not to crush her when my arms and legs gave out. We remained connected as she turned to me with such light and hope in her eyes that I dared to let some seep into my darkness.
“Tá mé i ngré leat,” I whispered.
Her swollen lips grazed my collarbone. “What’s that mean?”
“It’s a promise.”That if we succeeded, if my heart was returned to my chest, I would love her until the world ended.
34
I flickedopen my pocket watch for what felt like the hundredth time, waiting for the clock to strike the hour, knowing the Queen would never be late. Tadhg was to keep her occupied until I arrived. I had considered trying to evanesce with Aveen in tow, but using that much magic would be foolish. If I had to face the Queen this day, I needed to be at full strength.
“Is it time?” Aveen asked, clutching and releasing her dark skirts.
“Yes. But this is a terrible plan.”
She assured me it would be fine, just as she had the other times I’d pointed out the many potential pitfalls of retrieving my heart. “While I appreciate your poor attempt at optimism,” I said, “we are depending on a man cursed to tell the truth lying to a witch who can smell such things. You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your confidence.”
“Do you like being controlled by a heinous murderer?”
I knew she meant the Queen but couldn’t pass up a chance to tease her. “Ah, here now. I wouldn’t call yourself a ‘heinous murderer.’ You only killed Robert Trench.”
Aveen pinched the sensitive flesh at the back of my arm, and it feckin’ hurt. “I’m being serious, you know. Now, give me the dagger.”
Ah, the dagger. Yet another bone of contention between us. “What are the rules?” I asked, offering her the dagger despite my fears.
She rolled her eyes toward the thick quilt of clouds above us. “Surprise is key. Get close. Go for the kill.”
“And?”
“And if you turn, I am to kill you before you kill me.”
I released my hold on the dagger, watching her tuck the blade into a pocket sewn into her skirts, the emerald still glowing. Sometimes it glowed in her grasp, sometimes it didn’t. Like it wasn’t sure what to think of my human.