Page 41 of The Last War We Ever Fought

Rowan followed his lead, and the kiss went from tentative to devouring soon after. She didn’t not mind it at all.

Elijah’s touch skittered down from her neck to her waist, and he pulled her surrendered body to his, setting her across his lap, her legs straddling his hips.

She gasped, feeling him beneath her, his hardness pressing between her legs. “I’ve not done that either.”

“Would you want me to teach you that, too?” he asked, trailing his lips against her throat and lowering her hands down her hips, pulling onto them slightly.

“Yes,” she sighed, her mouth parting with a silent gasp when the friction rendered her sigh hazy.

He kissed her, hungrily this time, his tongue sliding against hers. Rowan almost couldn't keep up. And when he finally let her breathe, it was only to say something that rendered her breathless again, “Be the death of me, Rowan.” His lips were on her face, on her neck, on her shoulder. “I want to die happy.” He pushed her large sleeping shirt over her shoulders until it fell to pool around her waist, leaving her bare before him—the barest she’d been before a man, both heart and mind.

For a moment, she reached to put her arms over herself, but held back because of how he was looking at her. It wasn’t the look the other women who sometimes bathed with her gave her—the look full of disgust and pity.

No, this was entirely different. Rowan had to look down at herself to see if something had changed and she’d not noticed—to see if her scars had somehow magically disappeared. But they were still there. In fact, under the faint light inside the tent, they somehow looked even more gnarly. “Do you want me to blow off the lantern?” she asked, smoothing her clammy palms down her bedsheet, and hoping he’d say no.

“Why would I want that?”

She clung to her shirt that was still bunched around her waist, covering her stomach. “They only get worse from here down.”

Something shifted in his eyes, making them turn a fierce shade of violet, almost a deep maroon. “Maybe you should,” he said, and she felt herself fade a little. “I don’t know if my eyes are deserving of you, Rowan. To behold something this beautiful.”

Tears almost choked her words, “I am not—”

He kissed the rest of her words, trapping them in her lips so he could finish them himself, “Anyone else's but mine. No, you’re not.” He pushed her hair to the side, dragging kisses up her neck until she started writhing in his hold. “Finders keepers, Rowan of Ingburn.” His lips found her ear, and he whispered, “So be mine. At least for tonight. Then I will beg yet again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after.”

Her shaky hands began undoing his shirt, slipping and stumbling because of her clammy skin. When the last button came undone, she glanced down at him. “You really fooled me.” She pushed his shirt off his thick, broad shoulders, watching the ripple of muscle shiver as she grazed her hands over his skin. “You really are no man.”

His eyes drew shut, his breaths coming in shallow as her hands moved lower down his body. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Man, God, both.” He caught her hand and pushed it inside his trousers, her fingers sliding over his thick, hard length. “You make me feel like both. Man and God.” He swallowed hard as she wrapped her hand around him and slid it over his cock. “Rowan,” he panted, his chest heaving fast. “Fuck, Rowan.”

She didn’t have the slightest clue what she was doing. She had not the slightest clue how she was making his body react to her so viciously. Or how he was making hers react either.

“Let me touch you,” Elijah breathed, grazing the tip of his finger over her hard nipple and making her gasp. Leaning in, he drew it in his mouth, sucking and licking until she was panting and squirming from the pounding ache between her thighs. “Let me make you feel good. Take your clothes off,” he said, leaving wet kisses over her breasts.

Rowan slowly climbed off his lap and laid on her back, undoing her trousers and pulling them down her legs.

“Open them for me,” he said, kissing her knees and trailing both his hands down her thighs, making her whole body tremble.

She was sure she’d gone red down her toes when she did so.

“Look at you, my beautiful Rowan,” he cooed, kissing the inside of her scarred thighs and making her skin hum.

“I want to see you, too,” she managed to say, and he obeyed her request, sliding the rest of his clothes off. The odd God was made of thick, hard muscle everywhere, his skin scarred just like hers. She wondered if someone like him could even scar. There was very little time to marvel at his upper half. Because—

He chuckled when her eyes widened on his cock. “Do I need to go over the basics?” he asked, fisting himself and rubbing his hand down his length as he watched her head to toes.

“I know where it goes. It’s just—”

“Just what?”

She’d been deceived by her sense of touch considerably. “It looks a bit…disproportionately big.” The ones she’d unfortunately caught a glance off from careless soldiers were…smaller?

“It will fit.”

Her knees buckled together. “What if it doesn’t?”

Bending down, he left a kiss on each knee. “It will. You were made for me and I was made for you. It will.” He smoothed his hands down her thighs, making her shiver. “Now open them so I can get a taste of you.”

“A…a what?”