I rejected that at once. Though I didn’t remember it, I’d pushed Zaria out of the way to save her. I sure as hell would have done the same for him.
“That’s not what I would have wanted-” I started to say, but he interrupted by rising to his feet rapidly and hissing, “But that is what I would have wanted!”
Agitated, he paced the room, his claws flexing, his tail thrashing. “That is what I want, Nazreen!” I want you never to have been there in the first place!”
“Well,” I said after a moment, “we can’t always get the things we want.”
He made a mirthless, miserable laughing sound, and I regretted my choice of words immediately. Thaleo knew that better than most.
He continued pacing for a minute, then suddenly stopped, as abruptly as if he were on a screen and somebody had pushed pause. A stiffness entered his frame, the composure I was used to seeing from him returning.
“Forgive me,” he uttered tonelessly. “For my outburst. For burdening you when you are not well.”
“Thaleo-”
“I will leave you now.” He turned towards the cave’s exit. “You need your rest.”
“So do you!”
He didn’t walk out of the cave. But he didn’t turn to look at me, either.
“Can’t you just…stay with me? For a while?” I asked in a choked, low voice. “We don’t have to talk. We could just sleep. But I…”
“But you?” he prompted when I paused to swallow back a fresh prickle of tears.
“But I just want you with me.”
God. How true those words were. Now that he was here, everything in me screamed not to let him go. I’d missed him so fucking much. Even more than I’d realized.
I just want you with me.
And here I thought I’d be ending things with him when I returned. Here I thought I would be strong enough. That I would even know how.
And maybe he didn’t know how to leave me, either. His breath guttered like a candle, his body twisting towards mine once more, half in resignation, half relief.
I knew I was smiling when he reached the side of the bed. “Come lie with me.”
He did so at once, removing his weapons before his huge body crowded into the bed with me. Instantly, his arms were around me once more, his calloused hands gathering me up like I was so many broken pieces, and drawing me gingerly against his chest.
We didn’t talk. Just like I’d told him, we didn’t have to. The silence wasn’t necessarily an easy one. There were unsaid words, and the quiet was fraught. But I still felt safe inside it.
Because he was there with me.
It didn’t take long for sleep to find me in the perfect circle of his arms. I wasn’t sure how long I slumbered there. When I woke some time later, it was still dark. And he was still there with me.
The joy that realization brought me was nearly frightening. That so much of my happiness now apparently hinged on whether he was with me or not. Sighing, I shifted closer.
Tension rammed his frame. Then, I felt it. The hot, swollen press of his cock beneath my ass. I pulled down my panties, then reached back and tugged away his loincloth. His hand fell to my hip, as if to caress it, but instead clamping down in warning.
“You need to sleep,” he growled, pure heat against my ear.
“I know.” The only problem was that desire was running through my veins like warm honey now, golden and sweet, congregating between my legs. His breath had picked up behind me, his chest rising and falling rapidly against my back.
I needed to sleep. He’d said so himself. He needed it, too.
But maybe we both needed this more.
Slowly, as if worried I would spook him, I rolled over in his arms until we lay on our sides facing each other. Tenderly, I placed my hands on either side of his hard jaw and kissed him. At the same moment, I slung my thigh over his hip, letting his cock encounter the wet warmth of my pussy. He rocked against me as if helplessly, his tip already prodding my entrance.
