“Gold eyes could mean—”
“Kareshta?” He started playing again. “I thought of that after I learned of their existence. Kareshta would have been able to care for us without hurting themselves like humans would, but I’m quite certain it’s a boy in my dreams. So I don’t know what to think.”
Renata’s mind whirled with the possibilities.
“I don’t have many distinct memories of my childhood after that. We were raised in the scribe house because there was no other place to keep us. So we were always around warriors with my grandfather and my uncle. Neither of them are talkative men. I know next to nothing about my mother or my aunt.”
Max started playing again, and Renata watched him silently. The song was a low, aching ballad. His fingers plucked the strings delicately, matching the mournful, crying wind of the storm. He’d never put a shirt back on, so her eyes feasted on him as he played. He was a banquet of rippling muscle and smooth skin turned gold in the lamplight. His eyes were closed as he played, and his top teeth gripped his bottom lip in concentration.
He was so beautiful it made her heart ache.
What would it be like to remember so little? To carry an empty pack through your life? Would it be a light journey or a lonely one?
Max paused. “I think what I’m most afraid of in this life is that I will get to the end of it—die in battle or just from exhaustion—and have no memories of home.”
Renata’s voice was hardly a whisper. “I have memories, but they bring me no joy.”
His voice hardened. “Is that why I’m so angry with you, Reni? You know what home is, and you reject it. You played for years—showing me peeks of a life with you—then you passed judgment. You told me what we had wasn’t good enough. ‘Move on, Maxim. You’ll never compare to what I lost.’”
6
Max propped the guitar in the corner and walked to Renata. She didn’t want to sleep? Fine.
He pulled her to her knees on the bed and grasped her hip in one hand and her neck in the other. His kiss landed on her lips with the force of the wind battering the house. She met his passion with her own, wrapping her arms around his waist and sliding her hands down into the back of his pants, gripping his buttocks and bringing his hips to meet hers.
Max shoved Renata back on the bed and fell on top of her, searching for skin. She was still covered in a flannel nightdress and he hated it. Hated everything that kept her body from meeting his skin. Hated the distance between them. Her stubbornness. His resentment. Max sat back and grasped the bottom of the nightdress, shoving it up Renata’s body.
“Get rid of it.”
She pulled the flannel over her head and then she was his, lying before him, a dream of dark hair and long legs. Her reddish-brown hair splayed across the pillow. Her eyes were heavy and her lips already swollen from his kiss.
“I’m going to look at you,” he said. “It’s been two years, ten months, and four days since I’ve had the pleasure of it.”
“You’re—”
“Hard as iron?” He grasped his erection. “That’s not going anywhere.” He ran his palms from her knees up to her hips. “You, on the other hand, have a tendency to disappear.”
Max lifted her ankle to his shoulder and scraped his teeth on the tender skin behind her knee. She always jumped when he did that, and this night was no different. She reached for him, but he batted her hand away and pressed down on her belly, keeping her immobile as she lay before him. He played his tongue along her leg, up her thigh, tasting the arousal hidden by the soft hair between her thighs, but only long enough to leave her twisting. Then he spread her legs and kissed his way up her body.
“Max—”
“Quiet,” he said in a low voice as he shoved her knees open and settled between her thighs. “Did you miss me, Renata?” He guided himself into her body as her hips arched up and she let out a low gasp. “Did you miss this?” He seated himself to the hilt inside her, thrusting into her as he held her knee up, opening her body to him. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she hissed. Renata closed her eyes, her face a mask of tension and pleasure.
“Open your eyes.”
She obeyed him. Renata’s eyes met his, her gaze swimming in hunger, heat, and anger. She dug her nails into his buttocks, pulling him harder into her body with each thrust.
“Lisitsa,” he said with a grim smile. “Don’t you know I like your teeth?”
“Shut up.”
“No.” He took her mouth again, biting her lower lip as he rode her. He ground into her body, searching for the telltale signs she was near her climax. The hitched breath. The cry. The tightening of her body around him and the way her fingers dug into the small of his back.
He had been her lover for eighteen years. He knew every sign. Every tell.
“Don’t look away from me,” he said when she closed her eyes. “Don’t try to hide.”
She was the first and only woman he had ever dreamed about, the only one he obsessed over. Again and again, he returned to her, even when she pushed him away. Since the return of the Irina, there were others who had approached him, but none had been her equal.
He felt her climax approaching and he slowed his thrusts, smiling when she beat his shoulders.
“Don’t you dare!” she commanded him. “Faster.”
Max bent down and bit her shoulder as he picked up the pace, twisting his hips when he heard her cry out. She was so close.
“Maxim.” She panted his name. “Please.”
He could feel his talesm rising. Feel the magic thick in the air around them. If she were his mate, her marks would be glowing too. Their power would intertwine in this moment, and he would see his vow written over her heart, see his marks glow on her body. But the only mark she bore was that of her intended mate—a simple, spare circle on her forehead.
Max braced himself over Renata and let instinct take control of his body. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the pleasure. There was no thought. No calculation. He felt his release gathering. It was a wave, rising and cresting.
Her back arched when she came, and she cried out his name. He opened his eyes to watch her. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Relief? Pleasure?
Max didn’t know, but he gave in to it, capturing her mouth as his climax crested and crashed. Renata captured his guttural cry and swallowed it, her hand grasping the back of his neck to keep their mouths fused together.
Needing air, he pulled away. Max pressed his forehead against hers, to the mark another man had drawn. A mark that still glowed when he made love to her.
“Maxim,” she whispered, panting. “Max, I—”
“How long did he love you?” Max closed his eyes. “Two years? The blink of an eye. I’ve loved you so much longer.”
She froze beneath him, their bodies still linked.
“How many times did you cry out his name when he brought you pleasure? Not as many times as you’ve shouted mine.”