“Violet.” He tilts my head and kisses me hard and deep, then slow and soft, changing the pace, keeping me straining for more.
My hands trace the lines of his back as he spears his fingers through the wet, loosened strands of my braid, then tugs, arching my neck before setting his mouth to it.
He knows exactly where I’m sensitive and damn does he use every bit of that knowledge, sucking and laving that spot at the side of my throat that melts my knees and makes my fingers curl against his skin.
“Xaden,” I whimper, my hands sliding over the curve of his ass. Mine. This man is mine—at least for right now. Even if it’s just these next few minutes.
He nips at the delicate skin of my ear, sending a shudder of sensation down my spine, and then his mouth is on mine again, stealing my sanity and replacing it with pure need. This kiss isn’t as patient, as controlled as the others. There’s a wild, carnal edge to it that makes my mouth curve against his, makes me bolder. I sweep my hand between us, then sigh.
He’s hard for me, the length of him straining against his waistband as I squeeze.
“Fuck,” he growls, ripping his mouth from mine, his breaths as ragged as mine as I stroke him through the fabric. “If you keep doing that…” He slams his eyes shut and lets his head fall back.
“I’ll actually get you?” My core clenches.
His gaze snaps to mine, and the conflict I see in those dark depths makes me pause.
“Don’t make me fight for this. Not again.” I retreat from the warmth of his arms, and every nerve in my body screams in protest. “I can’t always be the one fighting for this while you invent new ways to hesitate or tell me no, Xaden. You either want me or you don’t.”
“You just had your hand wrapped around my cock, Violet. I’m pretty sure you felt how fucking badly I want you.” He rips his hand through his wet hair. “Gods, I am the one fighting for this!” he argues, gesturing between us. “I told you, I’m not using sex as a weapon to get you back.”
“You’ll just weaponize it with your little rule to make me say the three words I’m not ready to give you.” And that edge of maddening need he has me riding is just sharp enough that I might cave, I crave him that fucking much.
“Weaponize it against you?” He shakes his head. “You told me that you can’t separate emotion from sex. Remember?”
I open, then shut my mouth. He’s right. I did say that. Shit. “Maybe I’m learning how.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to.” He takes a step forward and cups the back of my neck. “I want you exactly how you are, emotions and all. I want the woman I fell for. It kills me every time I have to keep my hands off you, every night I lie awake next to you, both blessed and damned with the memory of how hot, how wet, how fucking perfect you feel when I’m losing myself in you.”
My lips part and heat flushes my skin as if his words are an actual caress.
“When I do sleep, I dream of the sounds you make right before you come and the way the blue in your eyes outshines the amber right after, all sated and hazy. I wake up starving for you—only you—even on the mornings you’re halfway across the kingdom. This isn’t me denying you or manipulating you. This is me fighting for you.” He palms my hip, and his thumb strokes the bare strip of skin between my pants and my armor.
“You want to fight for me?” I reach up into my hair and pull the pins loose one by one, letting them fall to the stone floor. “Then take a chance without knowing how I feel. You want my heart back? Risk yours first this time.”
“If I tell you how I feel right now, you’d never trust that I’m not just desperate for your body.” His brow furrows.
“Exactly my point.” The last pin falls from my hair. “Choose, Xaden. You can let me walk out that door, or you can be the one who takes what I’m willing to give this time.” I shake my hair loose and run my fingers through the wet mass to unravel the braid.
“Are you trying to bring me to my knees? Or win the argument?” His hand flexes at my hip as his heated gaze sweeps over me.
“Yes,” I answer, reaching for the ties at the small of my back that secure my armor. “I just spent eight hours terrified of what condition I’d find you in, and I’m telling you that I don’t just want you. I need you. There are your three words.” I tug the wet string, and it gives. “That’s all you get. Take me or leave me.”
The fight within him is palpable, the tension between us sharp enough to pierce dragon scale. And for a second, I think he might just be stubborn enough to walk away and keep us at this impasse.
But then—thank gods—he breaks, fusing his mouth to mine, and the fire that had banked during our argument flares back to life even hotter than before. He kisses me like I’m the answer to every question. Like everything we’ve been and will be hinges on this moment. And maybe it does.
His hands work the laces at my back while I undo the buttons of his pants. I win the race, sliding my hand beneath the fabric to stroke him from root to tip.
The guttural groan he gives me feels like a reward and hits straight between my thighs, the ache intensifying to a throb.
“Let go so I can get you naked.” He punctuates that last word with a nip of my lower lip.
Yes, please. I free him, and he pulls my armor loose enough to tug it over my head. It smacks the ground, and a second later the sensitive peak of my breast is surrounded by his mouth, flicked by his tongue. I moan, my fingers tunneling through his hair to hold him right there. “That feels so damned good.”
Wrapping an arm around my back and the other behind my knees, he lifts, then lays me onto a water-warmed stone bench in one smooth motion. “You sure you want this here, now?” he asks, rising above me, blocking the spray of water from my breasts, his eyes hooded and his hair mussed from my hands. “In five minutes, I can have you comfortable in my bed.”
He’s so beautiful that my heart actually hurts from just looking at him.
“Now.” My hands stroke his wide shoulders and down the relic that winds from his jaw to his forearm.
“Now,” he agrees. There’s nothing practiced or polished about the next kiss— it’s all need sweetened with a desperation that matches my own, and all the hotter for it. This is exactly what I need, to be pressed between his hard body and stone, devoured with the same urgency I feel for him.
His hand skims down my curves, following the dip of my waist before skimming my waistband and undoing the buttons of my pants one by one. There’s no hesitation in his touch when his fingers delve and stroke from my entrance to my clit.
My back arches and I gasp with white-hot pleasure.
“Even hotter than I remember.” His mouth moves down my neck, overwhelming me with sensation as his fingers tease with featherlight touches. “Fuck, you feel like silk. Hot, slick silk.” His voice has that rough rasp to it that I’ve missed.
He moves lower to worship my breasts with his mouth, his teeth raking lightly over my nipple with the perfect amount of friction to build the pleasure coiling tight within me. Of course he knows what I like. This isn’t our first time. It’s not going to be our last, either.
Power swells under my skin and builds as he circles my swollen clit, denying me the pressure I need.
“Xaden,” I beg, my nails biting into the tops of his shoulders, but I’m careful not to brush his new scar. Every stroke of his fingers and flick of his tongue feels like a jolt of lightning through my system, electrifying every nerve until I’m a hypersensitive bowstring drawn too tight but not tight enough.
“I know exactly what you want”—he skims my clit—“and what you need.” Two fingers slide inside me.
Deeper. Closer. More. That’s what I need.
“Then give it to me,” I demand, my hips rolling.
“I’ve waited forever to touch you.”