Xander turned to face me, his eyes filled with longing. “I have no right to take anything. I have to earn it.”
His fingers trailed down my cheek, igniting a fire within me as they traced their way down my neck and over my collarbone. His touch was filled with reverence and longing, leaving me breathless.
Xander wasn’t talking about the hotel.
“Have you?” My question came out barely above a whisper. “Earned it?”
He slowly shook his head. “No, but I’m still hoping.”
The quiet fell around us like a blanket and there was only the intensity of his gaze. Gratitude, pain, and raw emotion were tangled inside him, and he wore it all out in the open. Whether he could choose it or not didn’t matter. For once, I let my defenses down and joined him, letting him see me. The real me.
Reaching up, I traced his jawline, my fingers weaving into his hair, grounding him to this moment, to me. His response was immediate, pulling me closer with a longing that mirrored the depth of the seas surrounding us. Our kiss was a confluence of all the tension and passion that had been building between us.
In that moment, with the gentle glow of the aquarium illuminating us, everything else faded. It was just Xander and I, and the vast, uncharted waters of what lay between us.
Our breathing was harsh in the calm quiet of the empty aquarium. I unbuttoned and pushed Xander’s shirt down over his shoulders, revealing the carved muscles. Running my hands over his flexing abs, I could feel them turn to grating washboard.
Finding Xander burnt and bloodied did something to me.
Years of trying to keep my emotions locked away, shielding myself from any romantic attachment, came crashing down when I saw him hanging there.
His incoherent mumblings about saving my family sliced into my fleshy organ. It made me not want to waste what time I had denying what I already knew I wanted.
Xander’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck and his face contorted as if he were in pain. “Do you understand how beautiful you are? How fucking irresistible you are to me?”
“Why?” I shook my head, breaking away. “You’re a god.”
I should be better than needing his reassurance, but I stopped fighting it. Instead of building a steel box around my insecurities, I handed them over to Xander, trusting him not to crush them in his bare hands.
Xander's grip on my neck tightened, his eyes burning with a fierce intensity. “Because you see me, sweetheart,” he whispered, his voice husky with desire. “You see the godandthe man within me. You don't worship blindly; you challenge and inspire me. That's what makes you irresistible.”
His words ignited a need in me, a craving for this man who saw every part of me and accepted it all without hesitation. In that moment I surrendered to him completely, trusting him with my insecurities and vulnerabilities. And as his lips met mine with a fierce passion, I knew I had found my equal—a god who worshiped me just as much as I worshiped him.
Xander’s head dipped to kiss down my neck, even as he picked me up. My legs wrapped around his waist, and I notched onto the hardness growing in his cargo shorts.
We both moaned at the contact. My need for more ratcheted upward immediately.
“I need you.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Chapter 33
The Beast
In the serene silence of the aquarium, our ragged breaths were the only sound, a stark contrast to the peaceful environment. As Miranda's fingers worked the buttons of my shirt, exposing my chest, I felt a rush unlike anything else. Her hands traced over my abs, igniting fires deep within me.
This place was sacred, this moment with her was sacred.
When we entered the aquarium I’d forgotten to breathe. The water called to me, sang to me in a voice as old as time, resonating with the very essence of my being. I was Nun, god of the primordial waters, and this... this felt like coming home.
Miranda's touch was a balm to the chaos that always threatened to engulf me.
The moan that escaped us both was a sound of pure need. Her admission,I need you, was a call to every instinct I possessed.
A large, silver shark glided by. Its dark eyes watched us with an almost eerie curiosity before leaving us behind. I set her down gently on the black leather bench and stepped back.
In her eyes, I found a reflection of who I could be—not just a deity bound to creation and destruction, but a man capable of tenderness, of love. This realization, this acceptance, filled me with awe. Here, in the dim, underwater glow of the aquarium, with the serene world of water around us, I felt the divide within me narrow. She didn’t just tolerate my complexities; she embraced them and in doing so, showed me that perhaps I could too.
She didn’t waste any time removing her clothes. I hurriedly did the same until we were both fully naked and exposed under the glimmering streaks of blue light from the waters.
