Chapter Thirty The Crimson Dagger #3
“Home. A cottage by the sea.” That had always been what she envisioned when she thought of peace.
But now the image of an empty cottage didn’t bring her the same picture of safety and calm that it once did.
Because safety was now a warrior with golden eyes and a searing touch. And soon he would leave.
“That sounds nice,” he murmured.
She blinked up at him, all the words she wanted to say dying on her tongue. “And you?”
He sounded so tired as he said, “I’ll survive.”
Words that she had once whispered to a Sage in a dark alley came back to her: I’ll survive. It was what she knew. What they both knew. But was that enough anymore? Had it ever been?
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like we’re the same.” She flinched, but before she could turn away from him, he stopped her with a finger to her jaw.
His voice was rough. “You’re more than just a thief.
I do care what happens to you. And I will think of you every time I breathe.
And that is why I cannot make you mine. Because I will choose you.
Because loving you would be apocalyptic.
And this world is in enough All-Gods-damned trouble. ”
Reya had to remind herself to inhale. Every word burned with a truth she felt everywhere.
She tried to process what he’d said, to remind herself that they’d been right to draw this boundary with each other from the start, but it was impossible to think when she could feel his hardness pressing against her.
His nostrils flared, and she knew her scent had shifted by the tormented sound that came from deep in his chest. The most primal part of her was glad that he could smell exactly what his touch was doing to her, so he would know when she was satisfied—and when she wasn’t.
“Reyanwyn.” He tasted her name like he seemed to want to taste her, both in reprimand and in prayer. “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you. Tell me you don’t want me to make you scream. Tell me you don’t want me.”
Her breathing hitched as Caelan’s thumb moved under her chin, arching her neck for him to take that scent deep into his lungs. So slowly, he pressed his mouth to the spot at the base of her neck where it was strongest.
“I think you would feel the lie, too,” she said softly.
An instinct she recognized as self-preservation warned that if they crossed this line, she would be forever haunted by the memory. She ignored it.
“Do you have any idea what you smell like?” His teeth slid up the column of her neck, wringing a choked cry from her throat, and his other hand tightened where it rested on her waist. Her body arched into the touch.
For nearly two months, he’d been watching and listening to her body, taking cues from all the things that caused shifts in her scent.
And now he was turning the information back on her.
Never had she been the object of that kind of focus.
“I don’t need to be told when a female wants release because her body does the telling for me. But I like to hear the words anyway.”
The parts of her that were not wholly human reared back and bared their teeth. “Don’t,” she said, and his hands stilled immediately, “talk about other females when your hands are on me. And don’t you dare start something you don’t plan to finish.”
The last time he’d touched her like this, he’d left her both hurting and aching. If he rejected her again, she didn’t think she could handle it. She was all for teasing and distraction, but this was something else.
His teeth bit down on the skin beneath her ear. Hard. “Then use your words. The truth this time.”
It was almost alarming how well they fit. He wanted to command and, in this, she wanted to be commanded.
“I need you to touch me.”
In reward for the admission, one finger tugged on the top lace of her pants just enough to undo the fastening.
The strings loosened with every jolt of the saddle.
Neither of them could take their eyes off the sight, even as his mouth continued its assault on her neck.
He was going to leave a mark, and she couldn’t wait to wear it.
“The first time I caught your scent was when I was sitting across from that bastard in the Bear and the Bard. It smelled like piss and death in there, but your scent cut through it like a blade.” He pulled another lace free.
“You were at the bar, threatening some asshole for touching you. I nearly got up and took his hand off.” By the time the last lace came undone, she was gasping.
“Honeysuckle used to grow on the fence outside our house in Alethia. It was like being home again. I should have known then.”
Known what?
Before she could ask, he said roughly, like the words hurt, “It’s not going to be enough.”
Reya wasn’t sure if they were even for her. She began to tremble in his grip, and he swore like he enjoyed it. “I don’t even have to touch you. You’re so on edge, all I would have to do is lean you forward on the saddle and ride.”
She expelled a rush of air and shook her head. “If you stop, I will finish myself right here in front of you.”
“Over my rotting corpse.” He planted more bites along the column of her throat and up to her ear; meanwhile, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his hand as it slid down over her center. “Your gasps, your smiles, your smart mouth—I want them all.”
She cried out at the touch, the relief, thighs clenching on instinct but trapped open by the saddle.
He met no resistance, a mortifying result of the longest delayed gratification she’d experienced thus far in her short immortal life.
When her body welcomed him, he cursed sharply, and she began to move, head falling back against his shoulder in invitation and acquiescence.
His free hand slid up to her neck while the other curled inside her.
“Holy Mother above,” she said breathlessly.
He buried his forehead in her hair like he too had found religion, adding another finger, all while whispering filth that did not belong in prayer. It was unhurried, like he wanted nothing more than to feel her move on him. When she chased down the pleasure, he eased his pressure.
“Stamina, thief. If this is all I’m allowed, I’m damn well going to savor it.”
Reya ignored the words, the way they made her chest ache. At one point, he stopped moving altogether, just to watch her writhe. It was torture. It was madness. It was them.
She grew quiet, holding her breath. “I’m—”
“Damn right you are.” He sucked on the skin beneath her ear.
Her eyes went blind, and she bowed off his lap with a cry.
“You just had to be All-Gods-damned perfect, didn’t you?
” He held her to him, matching the writhing of her hips, telling her again and again how beautiful she was and how much he loved the feel of her.
Her shaking slowly ebbed, and she sighed over the release of tightness in her shoulders.
Even as she relaxed against his chest, he seemed in no hurry to leave her heat, and that was fine with her.
When he finally withdrew, he lifted that hand to his mouth, and she froze as he swiped his lower lip with the sheen of her and then sucked on her taste, watching her face the entire time.
“Stars above, Caelan,” she said when he smirked. He wrapped his arms around her just to breathe her in, and she felt content in a way she had not in her entire life.
But as the cold slowly crept in despite the perpetual warmth of him, Caelan’s arms tightened as if he could fend off everything she was feeling and keep them both there in the forest, where they had found each other at the start.
She was right. They both were. It wasn’t enough.
But this was always going to hurt no matter what they did.
The truth she’d tried to ignore, bury, drown in whiskey, and throw into the sea, simply refused to die.
She cared for Caelan. Deeply. All this time she thought she’d be the one to steal from him.
But he’d stolen her heart weeks ago. She just hadn’t known it was missing.
Now, she finally felt the absence of it.
Loving you would be apocalyptic.
Maybe he was right. Regardless, it wasn’t up to her to convince him otherwise.
She knew he would die for her; that if she asked him to cut his own heart out and give it to her, he would ask to borrow her ruby dagger and bleed.
But she’d never wanted that. Someone who cannot bend breaks—every time. She wanted him to bend for her.
Because that was what she deserved.