I want to watch her face for whatever she’s about to tell me.
“What if we just agree not to go on reality TV shows anymore?”
I tip back my head and laugh. “That is something I can do.”
“And how about we agree not to just go headfirst into danger again too? I think a nice, quiet life here sounds pretty good.”
“What are we going to do with all of our time?” I ask.
She gives me a long look. “I’ve had a few days to think about it.”
She quirks an eyebrow, one side of her mouth kicking up in a grin. My gods, I love the way that she looks when she smiles at me.
“What did you come up with?” I ask her, although I’ve already guessed what it is she’s going to say.
“Well, I think that for the first month or so while we’re here—maybe six months—we should just have sex. A lot of sex. And as many different ways as we can.”
She nods, agreeing with herself, and I huff out another laugh, tracing a talon down her jawline.
She sighs, leaning into my hand, and I brush my talons through her hair, remembering how much she liked that.
“You won’t get tired of me, of that?” I ask. It seems too good to be true.
None of the power play we had during that one blissful night we spent together is present, and I want to make sure.
“Yes, I’m sure, you idiot,” she says, laughing, holding my hands in her own. “I’m sure. When I thought you?—”
She shakes her head, her eyes filling up with tears. “I thought I was going to lose you,” she says. “It made me sick to think of all the time we wasted on that space station when we could have just been spending it together. In danger, of course, with fucking Ken, but we could have had each other from the get-go.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” I tell her. “I made mistakes too. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”
“No,” she says. “You shouldn’t have. We both pushed, but I think that’s why this is going to work long term. I mean, I think that we’ll push each other when we need to be pushed, but at the end of the day, we’ll choose each other.”
“I choose you now, and I chose you the minute you said my name and pointed at me in that lineup.”
“I know,” she says softly.
She reaches up to me, and I lean down, knowing deep in my soul that she wants the same thing I do right now.
Our lips meet, and she moans, opening up perfectly for me.
Slowly, so slowly, I lift her up to my body, closing the gap between us so that she doesn’t have to strain to reach me.
She tastes like springtime before the winter’s fully gone, when the sun has just begun to warm the soil—the promise of fruit, the promise of bounty, the promise of something we’re right on the cusp of.
It feels too good to be true, and I pull away.
Her legs are wrapped tight around my chest, and I stare at her for a long moment—the way the sunlight dapples through the leaves playing against the dark tresses of her short hair, the way the sun lights up her dark brown eyes, making them appear the color of gold, of honey, of everything the Draegons treasure.
And I marvel that this perfect female has chosen me, as I have chosen her.
She wiggles her hips against me just slightly, her eyes turning glazed, her heat ratcheting up whatever sedative they gave her, the faint chemical smell of them dissipating the longer I hold her in my arms. And I know it’s time to take care of my female the way I should have that first night. But now it will be so much sweeter, because she will not have any regrets, she will not have any doubts. She’s chosen me, and it is a gift I will strive every day to prove I am worthy of.
“Get inside the house,” Lily finally grinds out, her eyes refocusing on me. “Get us inside the house right now.”
I laugh, my fingers fumbling over the strange lever for the door, which clicks open at my touch. And we stumble into the house, her still in my arms.
“If you hurt your wing, I’m going to be really mad at you.”
