Chapter 5
Moonlight illuminates the short flight from my family’s home to the one I’ve learned is Gareth’s. Before seeking him out, I spent the afternoon pacing the grounds, mentally searching for a way to have everything and to have it now. But the truth is obvious and, eventually, unavoidable.
Our paths are meant to crisscross, weaving through and around the legion. He is meant to lead, to teach. Someday, maybe I’ll be able to join him. But not for many years and at least one war.
His home glows with golden light in the semidarkness. It juts out from the cliffside in three wide tiers, protected on every side but the front. Modern and sleek, it isn’t what I would’ve picked for him, yet it fits him perfectly.
I land on the highest deck and find myself staring directly into his bedroom.
A large bed waits on the right, while a massive TV screen hangs on the natural rock wall on the left.
Two passageways are dug into the earth: one leads to a barely visible bathroom, and the other to the top of a staircase.
I’ve never seen anything like it, and awe fills me as I pass through the opening in the glass, a sliding partition that was left ajar. My gaze goes to the bed, my mind imagining being tangled with Gareth there.
“Annalise.”
I look toward the sound of his voice as he enters the room from the stairway.
My pulse quickens at the sight of him, shirtless and barefoot, his long legs covered in the jeans he’d worn earlier.
My gaze slides over the hard ridges of his abdomen and up to the powerful definition of his pectorals.
Dark hair dusts his chest and arrows below the denim waistband, teasing me by drawing my eye to the thick heft of his cock beneath his button fly.
He studies me as thoroughly. I see when he comprehends the significance of the unsubstantial wrap dress I’m wearing on such a cool night. I can be naked in a moment, bared to his hands. His mouth. His cock.
“Your home is amazing,” I say, as the tension builds between us. His gaze is hot like flame, his lips parted with breaths that are nearly as quick as mine.
“I had it built for you. For us.”
A sharp pain twists in my chest. How unfair that he’s saying everything I’ve dreamed of at the very moment I have to say goodbye.
I suddenly want to know how the plumbing and power work, and how he looks cooking at the stove and sprawled on the couch.
All the little and big details that would make the home—and him—feel like mine.
“You were very sure of me.”
“No.” He keeps his distance, waiting. “I was sure of how I felt.”
“You forced me to confess my love at the academy.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “You wanted to transfer away from me and said you loved another man. I understood why, but still…”
“You slept with Commander Jessica.”
Gareth’s brows rise. “Long ago.”
Jealousy eats at me. “Not that long ago.”
“Before you. There’s been no one since.”
“I saw you together. At the academy.”
“Did you?” A soft smile curves his lips and makes my heartbeat skip. “Is that why you requested the transfer?”
I say nothing, irritated that he won’t admit to the crime I’ve judged him guilty of.
“You saw one old friend telling another that the nature of their relationship will never be what it once was.”
I study him, believing him, just as I always have. I love him for so many reasons. His integrity is just one of them. I acknowledge the truth with a nod. “I suppose you’re not home very often.”
“We’ll make time, Annalise,” he says, understanding what I’m thinking.
My wings flex with agitation, and it affects him.
I see his eyes darken and his body harden, thick veins coursing between tense muscles and golden skin.
He looks primal and dangerous. I feel the need radiating from him.
He’s a sexual creature, one hundred percent pure male, and he’s saved himself for me for five long years.
I can’t fully grasp the how and why, but I’m grateful.
“Have you decided I’m not worth the effort?” he asks quietly.
“Gareth, you’re worth the world. But you’ve proven that you won’t let me give it up for you. And I won’t let you give up your career. So what’s left?”
“This.” He steps toward me. “Whatever hours and days we can spare. They’re worth a thousand years I could spend with anyone else.”
My vision grows misty. “We’ve wasted so much time.”
“Not wasted. You’ve grown. Changed. I could’ve held you back if I loved you less, but I want you to soar, Annalise. When you land and catch your breath, I just want to be your refuge. That’s all.”
My hand lifts to my heart, which hurts. “That’s everything.”
I’m in his arms before I know it, my fingers in his silky black hair—finally—and my mouth on his.
He takes over instantly. His hand grips my nape, his palm cups the curve of my buttock, lifting me into the grind of his hips.
His tongue licks inside me, stroking, demanding. I’m possessed. Captured. Claimed.
I grow wet between my legs and ache with emptiness.
I hook one leg around his lean hips, and he understands, pulling me up so that I’m wrapped around him and the hardness of his erection is pressed against me.
Shameless, I rub my sex against his cock, moaning into his ravenous kiss, swallowing the rough growls that rumble through his chest.
Gareth starts carrying me toward the bed. Pulling back, I look at him. His face is hard with lust, his jaw tight with determination. I can see questions in his gaze, but they’re not going to stop him from taking me. I’ve waited so long for him to want me despite everything that says he shouldn’t.
Seeing that obstinacy is proof enough for me to damn the consequences. For the moment, he’s mine. No one has any claim on him; no rules restrict him. I’m going to drain him, slake his hunger and indulge my own, even though tomorrow is even more uncertain than today.
The trailing edges of my wings touch the sapphire silk of his bedspread just before he lays me down like the most fragile of treasures.
His lips brush across mine, then he whispers, “It’ll hurt the first time.
You’ll be sore all the times after that.
Forgive me in advance, Annalise. I can’t promise I’ll always be gentle. I can only promise to try.”
My feathers ripple with anticipation. My fantasies of Gareth have never been girlish.
I know him too well and love the reality of him, not an ideal.
I know he’s a hard man, one who sees the world in black and white.
I know how fierce he is, how dangerous. Lethal.
And I know that he will love and desire a woman with that same no-holds-barred intensity.
“Don’t try too hard,” I whisper, wanting him to rise with the sun with no regrets.
“Sweetheart.” His eyes close as he takes a deep breath. His callused fingers go to the fly of his jeans and he rips it open, revealing that he wears nothing underneath.
I swallow hard as my mouth waters, my mind etching into memory the sight of his leanly muscled body bared to me, his rigid erection thrusting upward between the opened halves of his jeans.
He’s brutally hard there, too, thick and long and as heavily veined as he is everywhere.
His body is a machine, honed by hard use and dedication.
I can’t wait to feel him against me. Inside me.
Shoving his pants down, he steps out of them and sets one knee on the bed, then the other, crawling over me. I spread my wings, opening space on either side of my hips.
“I cleave to you,” he says hoarsely. “I will love you and protect you. I will lead and I will follow. I will fly with you and to you, now and forever.”
Tears run down my temples and into my hair. I’ve dreamed of him saying the binding vows to me, but I gave that dream up only hours ago.
“I accept you,” I tell him, as he straddles me and sits back on his heels, his hands untying all the slender ribbons that fasten my dress.
He pushes the loosened edges out of his way. “Say the rest.”
“Gareth…” There’s a plea in my voice I can’t hide. How can I promise a future I can’t picture?
“There will never be anyone else for you.” His hands cup the lower curves of my breasts, his thumbs stroking over the hardened tips. “You’ll vow that, Annalise. I’ll hear you say it.”
He’s right. Whether we’re together or not, he’s the only man I could bind myself to. I can assure him of that, and I do. “I will love you and honor you. I will stand and fight beside you. I will fly with you and to you, now and forever.”
With splayed hands, he pins my wings like a butterfly’s on display, his knees sliding downward along the silk beneath me until his erection lays along the seam of my sex.
I’m wet with desire and he feels it, his tongue tracing the curve of his lower lip as he thrusts, the length of his cock stroking over the hard knot of my clit.
I writhe in pleasure, my hands going to his waist. I want to spread my legs, but he’s holding me closed, forcing me to settle for his slow, rhythmic rubbing.
Forcing me to watch the erotic play of his body over mine, his power and seductive beauty as his muscles flex from head to toe.
A visual promise of his intent to drive me out of my mind.
Raking my nails over his skin, I grip the bunching curves of his gorgeous ass and urge him against me.
His skin is feverishly warm and damp with sweat, flushed in a way it never gets while exerting himself in training.
I know it’s because of me that his blood runs so hot, and I’m awed by that, amazed that I could affect him so profoundly.
“Yes,” he hisses as I fight to move him in the way I need. “Show me how you want it.”
“Gareth.” I arch and moan as he massages my sex with his, the tension building in my core. “Inside me.”
His lips curve. “Not until you come for me.”
My eyes squeeze shut in protest, my hips rolling and shifting. The decadent smell of him fills me with every hurried breath, the scent of the wind and hunger and hard-working male.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, his lips against my ear. “I’ve dreamed of you like this, fisted my cock and imagined it until I came. Over and over again.”
My mind is seared by the image of him pleasuring himself to thoughts of me. He rocks against me and captures a nipple between his teeth. It’s too much.
With a long low moan, I come for him, my sex clenching in demanding ripples that echo the pull of his mouth on my breast. His cheeks hollow as he tugs, the suction reverberating through me.
I go wild beneath him, scratching and bucking, and he takes me then, shoving the steely length of his cock into the grasping depths of my core.
I cry out as he pierces me, stiffening against the sudden shock of pain. He groans my name and buries his hot face in my throat, shuddering violently.
“Annalise,” he says brokenly, tucking his arms and legs tighter around mine. “I’m sorry.”
Blinking through tears, I stare at the rough-hewn rock of the ceiling and absorb the feel of him inside me.
My legs are held closed, his penetration only deep enough to claim me.
I can’t imagine him deeper, but I want him completely.
I tighten around him, and he gasps. His cock flexes, then spurts hotly.
He curses and comes, grinding into me, which sets me off again.
I’m climaxing as he empties himself, milking the broad tip of his cock as it pumps thick washes of semen.
It’s a raw, swift orgasm and I’m lost in it, in him, in the sounds he makes as the pleasure rocks him.
He groans my name again and again, his sweat coating my skin, his lips pressing kisses against my violently throbbing pulse.
I grip his waist and sob with joy and sorrow, so desperately in love that I find it hard to breathe.