Page 86 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘If we can get the book, I can—’

Lachlan kisses him again, softer this time.

Sweeter.

It feels like an apology, like the slow run-up to goodbye.

Kade cannot... will not allow that.

Desperately, he reaches inside for the iridescent light he felt that morning, seeking it out, needing it. He knows it stayed in his blood. The glow of something so bright it would take millennia to fade, like stars.

He leans into what faint ripples he finds.

Fragments of images, sounds and sensation.

I thought Mimi would always be enough for you to stay.

The violence of the feelings he finds, unearned and absent of context, steals his breath away. Such pain that’s not his own, but it almost is.

Such grief and sorrow for not being enough to make someone stay.

The light soaks his cells, and the water of his being briefly knows how it felt to be loved so deeply that the marrow of his bones carries the residue of it.

The body remembers.

Water holds memory.

Kade comes back to himself with a deep, swift breath.

‘I won’t let God have you,’ he whispers, salt on his tongue and in his eyes because these feelings are an ocean and Kade has only ever been a river.

Lachlan’s grip on the back of Kade’s neck tightens.

‘What? What did you say?’

‘You fucking heard me, Bodyguard,’ Kade rumbles, lids low as he leans in to close the remaining space between them and kiss Lachlan again, but this time, it’s a mark of pure possession. He captures his lower lip between his teeth, bites down just a little, testing. Lachlan moves so fast to grab him that water sloshes out of the tub, crashing onto the concrete floor.

With a strong arm around Kade’s waist, he pulls him into the tub. Kade is instantly soaked, but he doesn’t care. Chest to chest, it’s so much better this way. He licks inside Lachlan’s mouth, clumsy but confidently desperate.

He’s only ever kissed one person, and it’s Lachlan fucking Tanner.

The instinct to bite Lachlan’s lip again catches Kade off guard, and he physically restrains himself that time, but Lachlan seems to sense it.

‘Bite, go on,’ Lachlan whispers to Kade. ‘You always loved it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I want you to.’

Kade’s jaw tightens and locks as he bites.

Warm, rich blood spills, flavour bursting across his tongue like liquid copper. He kisses deeper, tasting it, wearing it, wanting it and more, oh fuck, he wants so much more than this and this is the most he’s ever had.

Lachlan sits at the other end of the tub, his back jammed into the taps. Kade instinctively crawls into his lap and moans when he’s seated there. Feels like home. He licks a wet, possessive strip up over Lachlan’s mouth, swallowing what blood he gathers, dizzy from things he can’t name.

‘If you’re really mine,’ Kade utters breathlessly, ‘then you stay with me.’

‘I would if I could.’