And then, as she shuddered beneath me, my name no more than a sigh on her breath, I finally lost the tenuous hold on my own control.
I kissed her, everything inside me exploding in pure, white-hot pleasure as the world crashed out of orbit, sending me spiraling into another galaxy, another time, another universe.
And through it all, we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, a connection so deep and intimate it stole my breath.
There were tears in her eyes, and when she looked up at me and smiled, my heart was utterly full.
* * *
“How do you feel?” she asked later. Minutes, hours, I could not have said. In those precious moments in her arms, time had lost all meaning for me.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that I now understand why humans have gone to war for such a thing.”
Gray laughed softly, a sound that made my heart sing. “Hmm. And this was just our first time.”
“You mean… We get to do that again?”
Now, her laugh turned hearty, so full it made our bed tremble. “I love you, Liam Colebrook. You know that, right?”
“You’ve left no doubts, little witch.” I cupped her breast, stroking her nipple with my thumb. In the span of a single heartbeat, I was hard for her again.
“About that whole ‘doing it again’ bit,” I said, pulling her on top of me, “do you think we might…”
“Yes, Liam.” She lowered her head, her lips alighting on mine as the dragonfly alights upon the lotus. Then, with a wicked gleam in her eye, she smiled and said, “I think we might.”
Twenty-Three
RONAN
In all the time I’ve been with Gray, from the moment I was assigned as her guardian to this moment right now, I’d been dreaming of the day when I’d have leverage over Sebastian—just enough to break his hold on Gray. Just enough to loosen the binds of her contract. Just enough to let us find that final, indisputable loophole.
All the fucking wishes and dreams in the world, yet in my mind, they’d always ended the same way.
Sebastian, laughing me out of his office, reminding me to remember my place.
Sebastian, threatening me with eternal banishment, with harming Gray, with assigning her a new guardian, with finding crueler and more heartbreaking ways to keep us apart.
He was a monster, and we were his prey.
Until tonight.
“What is so urgent,” Sebastian demanded, “that I had to take time away from running my operations to come see you in person?”
It was the night after our walk on the beach, and one hour after our agreed-upon meeting time, he’d simply appeared at the kitchen table, where he now sat with his arms folded across his chest, his face pinched in annoyance.
I glanced at Gray, who was standing next to me, and she nodded once.
I tossed a paper bag onto the table in front of him.
“What’s this?” he asked, barely glancing at it.
“A new deal,” Gray said.
The D-word piqued his interest, as it always had. Keeping his eyes locked on Gray, he opened up the bag, fishing out the chunk of hair she’d yanked from Trinity’s head, along with the passports we’d discovered in her crypt office.
Sebastian’s eyes glowed red with rage.
I took a step closer to Gray.
