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Or whether, when it had seemed to disappear, it had gone into this house or not.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Rahvyn surprised herself as she spoke the three most powerful words in any language.
And yet saying “I love you” to Lassiter had seemed inevitable, in a way.
In fact, all of this suddenly felt inevitable, from her having been honest with him to them being alone together in this cave, the world so far away. His acceptance of her had offered her an unexpected healing, and she was going to embrace the relief from pain she had not been aware of harboring.
There were other things she wanted to embrace, too.
As if he read her mind, he came around to her, his big body shifting with power, his eyes hooded and hungry. She knew what was going to happen next—and not because she was looking into the future in some prescient way. Lifting her chin, meeting his beautiful, unusual eyes, she knew what else was inevitable.
Their kiss was chaste yet firm, a sealing of the commitment they’d entered into when she had given back to him the words he had first expressed to her, her syllables the turn of the lock that she knew, deep down inside of her, would bind them for their immortal lives.
Lassiter eased away a little. Then he stroked her hair, his eyes roaming around her face.
“Please,” she said, before he asked the question.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “we do.”
There was no going back now, and even if she had a chance to reverse this fall, she did not want to—and certainly her consent was the center of gravity for them, the thing that presently pulled them down onto the soft bed, his body moving on top of hers, his hair falling around her in a shimmering wave with shadowed undertones.
Now, as he kissed her, there was true passion. His lips caressed hers with heat and intent, his tongue licking into her mouth, as she arched into his chest and spread her legs—
She cried out as he came to rest right where she needed him to be, his hard length once again pressing into her warm, wet core. Rolling her hips, she stroked herself against the arousal that told her exactly how much he, too, wanted this—and then her hands were finding a way under the loose blue top he’d put on what felt like a lifetime ago. And although he could easily have disappeared what covered him, like her, he seemed to want to enjoy the gradual unveiling at her own doing, his torso pulling back as he lifted his arms to help her get it off the old-fashioned way.
His upper body was extraordinary in the firelight, his muscles flexing and releasing as he tossed the cotton away, a cloud the color of a bright daytime sky from her pretrans youth. Turning back to her, his face became fierce as he balanced himself on his forearms.
“What is it?” she said as she stroked her way up his ribs.
When he shook his head, she was having none of that. “You will tell me. Now.”
Closing his eyes, he seemed to grit his teeth. “I want to kill that male who hurt you. Even though you already did. And that is the last thing either of us needs to be talking or even thinking about at this moment.”
“Lassiter. Lassiter, look at me.” As those lids opened, she touched his face. “Just because I can take care of myself doesn’t mean that I do not appreciate you wanting to be there for me. It is a lovely gesture.”
“I don’t want to think about the past.”
“So kiss me some more and let’s put it far away from our present, where it belongs.”
There was a moment of hesitation on his part, and then he seemed to gather himself. His lips were very light on hers when they returned—but they didn’t stay that way. Soon enough, he was kissing her with heady desperation, and as she dug her grip into his hard shoulders, she did not think they could get closer.
Yet she needed that—
The world spun without warning, and suddenly their places were reversed, she above him, his body the thing on which she lay.
“Take your clothes off,” he said in a guttural way. “I want to watch.”
Sitting upright on his hips gave her a shot of pure pleasure, his hardness digging into her sex to the point where both of them moaned. And then she was grabbing the hem of her sweater—oh, how efficient: The shirt she was wearing underneath rode up with the knitted cables, going along for the ride. There was a slow-up when she got to her head, her hair getting tangled, her arms twisted, the cowl neck becoming caught on her chin.
As she wriggled to get free, his hands gripped her hip bones and he started to move rhythmically against her, that rigid shaft of his pushing into her so that she lost track of what she was doing and why.
