“And now?”
“Now I want more.” His gaze meets mine, the milky eye as unflinching as the clear one. No hiding. No deflection. “I want tosurvive this. Want to watch you destroy the man who hurt you. Want to find out what happens when we’re not surrounded by enemies and fighting for our lives.”
The hope in his voice reaches past my defenses. Finds a hollow I’d carried since my capture. A wound I thought the cult had made permanent.
“Then survive.” I lean closer. Rest my forehead against his. “Fight the Bloom. Fight the Keepers. Fight whatever the Abbot throws at us. And when it’s over?—”
“When it’s over.” He breathes the words against my lips. “We figure out the rest.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
ARWEN
Iclose the distance.
The first kiss is soft. Questioning. A brush of my lips against his that asks rather than demands—is this okay, do you want this, are we really doing this. His mouth is warm, slightly chapped, and he holds perfectly still as I explore the shape of him. Letting me lead. Letting me choose.
I pull back just enough to see his face. His expression has shifted—the grief replaced by raw hunger, barely contained. The Bloom pulses visibly beneath his skin, red tendrils flaring with each beat of his heart.
“More?” My voice comes out lower than I intend.
“Whatever you want.” His hands settle on my waist. Gentle. So gentle. Scarred fingers curving against my hips with pressure that asks rather than takes. “Whatever pace.”
I kiss him again. Deeper this time. Let my lips part, let my tongue trace the seam of his mouth until he opens for me. He tastes of the bitter herbs I’ve been using to treat him, and underneath that, a darker flavor. One that makes heat pool low in my belly.
His hands tighten on my waist. Just slightly. Just enough to communicate the restraint coiled in his muscles, the desperationhe’s fighting to control. The Bloom wants him to take. To claim. To drown us both in sensation until neither of us can think.
He doesn’t. He holds still while I explore his mouth, while my hands grip his shoulders and dig into the thick slabs of muscle, while I shift closer until my knees bracket his thighs.
When I finally break the kiss, we’re both breathing hard.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur against his jaw.
“The Bloom.” His voice has dropped an octave. Rough gravel that vibrates through his chest into mine. “Makes everything... intense.”
“Is it too much?”
A sound escapes him—half laugh, half groan. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you in that forest. Covered in blood and running for your life and looking at me like I was either salvation or death.” His breath warms my lips, his face inches from mine. “Too much doesn’t begin to cover it.”
I feel the evidence of that want pressing against my thigh where I straddle his lap. Hard. Insistent. The Bloom magnifies my awareness of it until I can barely focus on anything else.
“Then stop holding back.”
His control snaps.
His mouth crashes into mine with a desperation that steals my breath. One hand slides up my back, fingers splaying across my spine, while the other cups the back of my head, tilting me to the angle he wants. The kiss goes from exploration to claiming in the space of a heartbeat.
I should be afraid. Every instinct the cult programmed into me says I should be afraid of a man this strong, this hungry, this barely contained. But the fear doesn’t come. Only heat. Only want. Only the overwhelming need to get closer, to feel more, to burn with him until there’s nothing left but ash.
His mouth moves to my jaw. My neck. Teeth grazing my pulse point, then biting down—not hard enough to break skin,but hard enough to make me gasp. The sound seems to undo him. He growls against my throat, a low vibration that I feel more than hear, and his hips roll upward, grinding against me through the layers of fabric between us.
Pleasure spikes through my core. Sharp. Electric. I rock against him instinctively, chasing the sensation, and his grip on my hip tightens to bruising.
“Arwen—” My name comes out broken. “If you keep doing that, I’m not going to be able to?—”
“Good.” I fist my hands in his hair and drag his mouth back to mine. “I don’t want you to be able to.”
He groans into the kiss. Both hands slide down to cup my ass, lifting me, repositioning me until I’m pressed flush against the hard length of him. The friction makes my vision blur. The Bloom turns every point of contact into lightning, sensation building faster than I can process.
