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I sank my teeth into his lower lip, nicking his skin. “Oh shut up.”
He chuckled again, but this time his hand finally moved down where I needed him. His fingers slipped under my panties, and his answering growl when he felt just how much I needed him made me smile. His fingers teased my clit, and his lips on mine dimmed my moans. I was already strung too tightly, ready to burst from months of only fantasizing about this moment. I was getting closer and closer, my breathing erratic, and when he pushed two fingers into me, I exploded with a choked cry that Nevio swallowed with an all-consuming kiss.
Nevio didn’t give me time to catch my breath.
He pushed to his feet and ripped his shirt over his head, revealing a body I’d dreamed about in my darkest nightmares and my most lustful fantasies. The sight of the aurora borealis tattoo made my heart throb even harder in my chest. Nevio followed my gaze and briefly pressed his palm over the tattoo, his eyes conveying a message I hardly dared to decipher. Then it was gone and replaced by burning desire. With hurried moves, he shoved down his pants and underwear, then kicked them off.
Nevio half fell on top of me, parting my legs wide with his thighs, his dark eyes like that of a hunter as he slammed his lips against mine. I touched his cheeks, and his eyes returned to mine. The frenzy in them eased, and he slowed. His kiss became gentler. With our gazes locked, he entered me until he settled all the way inside me. My eyes closed, really feeling him. It felt perfect.
His lips brushed my ear, his voice raw. “This feels like a fucking rebirth.”
Nothing had ever felt better than being inside Aurora, to be connected to her in such a profound way. Not just in the physical sense but because with one look from her, I felt like she held my heart in her hand.
With every thrust, she felt more like mine. That I was hers wasn’t even a question anymore. She lived in my head, my heart, even my black soul. She was the voice at the back of my mind keeping me rooted.
I kissed her like she was my salvation, and maybe she was. She started to tremble, her walls tightening around my cock until stars danced before my eyes, and then we both exploded at the same time. Our fused lips swallowed our moans.
Eventually, I pulled back, and our ragged breathing filled the room. That it could even be heard over the pounding of my heart was a miracle.
Aurora’s blue eyes pierced mine, filled with questions and hopes.
“You know what I want,” she whispered. “I want commitment. I want love and fidelity. I want forever.”
“I want the same, Rory. You are my forever.”
“I am?”
I pressed her fingers to the tattoo of the northern lights. “I want to be the person you deserve.”
Fuck. I wanted nothing more than to be that person for Aurora. But I was a monster. I knew it. I relished in it, but on occasion, I channeled my monster. Most days, I liked being a monster. Rarely I didn’t. Most of these occasions involved Mom or Greta, and Aurora. The only times I ever felt guilty for being a monster were when Greta, Aurora, or Mom weren’t quick enough to hide their fear from me. Fear, not of what I would do to them, because they knew I’d die before I’d ever hurt the people I cared about. Fear of losing me to the darkness, and of what I could do to everyone else. Maybe my darkness scared them more than Dad’s because mine hadn’t been born from childhood trauma. I had been born a monster. It was in my genes.
“But I’m a monster and that won’t ever change.”
Aurora nodded. “I know. I’ve known you all my life, and from the moment I overheard Dad telling Mom about how you killed a man for your twelfth birthday, I knew you were a monster, but it never changed how I felt about you…”
Alessio and Massimo knew my monster, but they didn’t mind, Massimo because he was a monster too, a different kind, but a monster nonetheless, and Alessio because he wanted to be a monster to silence the demons that haunted his nightmares. Mom and Greta knew it to, but they preferred to ignore it and to pretend I could be better. Dad and my uncle knew all about my monster, but they, too, were too monstrous to care—a monster was useful in our world.
Aurora, however, knew my monster, but didn’t ignore it, didn’t like it, didn’t use it. She accepted it because she loved me.
I could see love in her face and eyes. For a long time, I hadn’t been sure if my messed-up brain could feel a pure emotion like love. But if this feeling I had for Aurora wasn’t love, then what was it? When I was with Aurora, I wished to be better. No one had ever made me feel that way.
I’d been high on alcohol, high on adrenaline, high on anger, lust, and pain.
Today I was high on Aurora.
I wasn’t sure if it was enough. If it could carry me through the thunderstorms that ravaged my brain sometimes. For a long time, too long, it had made me pull away from Aurora, waiting for a moment of certainty. But when was there ever absolute certainty in life?
The only thing I was sure about were my feelings for Aurora right now. “What does it say about you that you made a monster fall in love with you?”
Aurora’s eyes widened a fraction, her breath halting. She swallowed noisily, and a small smile tugged at her lovely lips. “What does it say about me that I fell in love with a monster?”
I cupped her cheeks and kissed her. “If you knew how crazy I was about you, you’d run, Rory.”
“I think I do know. You killed a man because he flirted with me.”
“And I’ll do it again. You have my fucking heart, and that kind of shitty gift comes with a lot of baggage.”
Aurora laughed. I kissed her again. “You know what’s the worst about loving you?”
