Our kiss was endless, all-consuming, a vortex of relief and laughter and passion and love into which I gladly fell. Ronan could barely breathe, so intent was he on keeping his mouth on me at all times.
“Just so you know,” I finally managed, panting between his increasingly demanding kisses, “if you ever… make another deal with him… like that again… I’ll…”
“I know.”
“We have to find other ways… to protect… each other. Ways that don’t involve...”
“I know.”
He scooped me into his arms and got to his feet, lifting me with him, still devouring me with kisses.
“And Ronan, you can’t—”
“Iknow, Gray. I know.” He shut me up for good with a searing kiss that I felt all the way in my toes, igniting a fire inside me that—for the first time in far too long—had nothing to do with hell’s curses.
Ignoring the glances of everyone in the common room as Ronan carried me past, we headed upstairs and locked ourselves away in my bedroom, giving ourselves permission to forget the rest of the world for just a little while.
Still kissing, we stripped out of our clothes and tumbled onto the bed, touching each other everywhere at once, skin on skin, lips on lips, our breath mingling as we entwined beneath the sheets.
Ronan pushed the hair from my face and kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. His eager mouth finally found its way back to mine, and there he lingered, his tongue exploring every soft curve of my mouth as if he were experiencing it all for the first time.
In so many ways, he was.
“I missed the taste of you,” he finally breathed.
A tear slid down my cheek, and I pulled back, taking his face between my hands. The touch of his beard tickled my palms, and I closed my eyes and memorized the feeling, the shape, the texture. “I missed theeverythingof you.”
“Nothing will ever come between us again,” he said. A proclamation. A promise. “I mean it, Desario. The whole fucking world can burn for all I care, as long as you’re still with me—you and the guys. That’s who matters now. Call me selfish, but there it is.”
I wouldn’t—couldn’t—call him selfish, because I felt the exact same way. My rebels and I were soul mates in the truest sense of the word, a single bright soul divided into six beings, always meant to find our way to one another, always meant to be together, in this realm and the next.
With no more promises to be made, I parted my thighs and pulled him on top of me, arching my hips up to meet him as he sank blissfully inside me.
Beneath my touch, the muscles in his shoulders and back rippled, and Ronan shivered, rolling his hips and sliding in deeper, filling me completely.
My body took over, and I matched his stride, eager for more. Harder. Faster.
“No,” he said, stilling inside me, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. “We’ve got all night, Gray, and I intend to take advantage of every last minute of it.”
“But the training, and the others—”
“Can wait.” He flashed the crooked grin I’d fallen in love with. “World burning, selfish demon, misses his woman—remember?”
Laughing, I gave in to his demands, relaxing my muscles, both of us easing our way back in.
Ronan kissed my shoulder, my collarbone, slowly making his way to my breasts. Each brush of his lips set my skin ablaze, and though we’d both agreed to take things slow, the physical sensations proved too much, too intense, too perfect.
I felt him trying his best to hold back, to make this reunion last, but it was a losing battle for us both.
“Ronan,” I breathed, sliding my hands into his silky hair, “we don’t need all night. We’ve got the rest of eternity now.”
He nodded, running his nose down along my neck, tracing a new path with his tongue as his hips rocked forward, his body brushing my clit. He pulled out slowly, then slid back inside, and that was all it took to unravel the very last of my control. I dug my nails into his shoulders and arched my back to meet his final thrust, taking him in fully, sending him over the edge. He came in a white-hot rush as my own orgasm exploded inside me, and I cried out in pleasure, in relief, in bliss.
In that moment, the world very well could have burned, and neither of us would’ve known about it until we walked outside later and saw the ashes.
Ronan rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him, my head nestling against his chest. I found the familiar, steady beat of his heart and followed it home, back to where he and I had begun, and a sense of rightness wrapped around us like a warm blanket,
We were meant for this love, this passion, this friendship. We were meant for this moment, and everything that had come before, and everything that would come after.
