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“I’m trying to be patient, but each day I’m away from you, I grow angrier,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck. “I hate that you dwell here instead of standing at my side where I can kiss you.” She crushed her lips to mine, startling me before she pulled back. “Where I might touch you.” Saga slipped her hand beneath the hem of my tunic, tracing the planes of my chest until a shiver rushed through my veins. She held my gaze for a few breaths. “Where you aremineoutside of my dreams.”
With care she lifted my palm to the rapid pound of her heart. Her skin was warm under my hand. I closed my eyes, wishing to keep it forever.
“This has always beat for you,” she said. “Thiswokefor you. I thought I knew love, Ari. It was nothing but infatuation and manipulation. I loved you before I knew I didn’t hate you. The feather was yours, and yours it will stay.”
I buried my face into her shoulder. To die now, with this woman in my arms, would be a death worth having. I could not bring her close enough. I dragged her to the ground, me on my back, her round, full breasts smashed into me. Saga leveraged over my hips, straddling me.
I’d never lied to Saga. There was a poison in my mind, a curse I let linger over me like a disease. Safety lived when folk stood on the outside of my heart. If the fates had me in their sights, then everyone I cared about would be better off avoiding the dreary, treacherous climb of my fated path.
But with my menacing wife against my body, there was a heat burning in my heart, a new truth swallowing the darkness, that a life with her love, no matter how short, would be grander than a long, empty existence.
“I vow to you,” I sat up and brushed my lips against her neck, “I will fight to free myself from here. You must promise me you will keep yourself safe, so you’re there when I wake.”
“The Otherworld will not touch me until I taste you in the daylight again.” Saga kissed the hinge of my jaw. “We are making plans to heal you, Ari. You had better help us along.”
The way Saga spoke, I had the feeling she was trying to conceal dirty bits of truth. I supposed I was too. How could I tell her what I’d heard from the boy fate worker? How could I tell her I’d seen her brother?
We both walked strange paths, and whatever schemes awaited us would be riddled with risk and danger. But time together in these odd dreams was fleeting. I had no desire to waste a moment. Preferably with much less clothing.
A quick glance at the trees, no sign of Wraith, I leaned back from Saga and ghosted my mouth over hers. “I cannot stomach another moment without your body wrapped around mine. Talk of dreary things can wait.”
I tilted her chin up until our lips collided. Gods, the burn of her mouth on mine, the sweet, cherry taste of her tongue cut my strength at the knees. Our hidden refuge was different than the last. Here we were in a meadow, a few bits of frost still coated new leaves and blossoms. The soil was damp and cold, but I fell back until Saga’s lithe body sprawled over the top of mine.
I bent one knee, fitting her thigh between my legs until the weight of her sent my head spinning.
“Don’t send me back,” she gasped out between kisses. “I don’t want to leave you again.”
“Me? Send you back? Woman, what did I say?” I let my teeth scrape over her throat. “My dream of dreams is to stay holed away in a bed with you for the entirety of a month. If I could keep you here, I would never let you go.”
Saga’s eyes burned with the same heat and want that pulsed through my veins. She stroked the side of my face, a tick in her jaw as I dragged a palm along her waist, her ribs. A shudder trickled through her body, followed by a breathless moan when I took her full breast in my grasp.
I closed my eyes, reveling in the sensation of my wife’s body in my hands again.
“Ari.” She gripped my wrist, pressing my hand firmer against her body, as though desperate for more.
I shoved the simple woolen sleeves off her shoulder and tugged the gown until it was gathered around her waist. Saga gasped against the chill of the breeze, or perhaps it was the way I sat up, taking one of her hardened peaks into my mouth like a bleeding starving man.
She dug her fingernails into my head and killed any space between us. If she was sinister, if she wasn’t mine, I’d think she was trying to smother me against her flesh. Not a terrible way to go. But I knew my menace—she was as starved as me.
I worked one palm up the smooth skin of her thigh and shoved past the skirt of her dress until I found her wet center.
“Miss me, wife?” I chuckled and dragged the tip of my tongue across one nipple before moving to the next. “Feels that way.”
Her claws dug into the back of my neck. “Stop talking and make me miss you even more.”
I laughed, a wicked kind, and slammed two fingers into the warmth between her legs. Her core clenched, and Saga’s cry carried on the breeze. She rocked against my hand and hips, adding to the strain of my length against my trousers.
The last thing I wanted to do was spill out all over myself like a bleeding boy, but in the same breath, interrupting her perfect movements seemed like the worst idea I could ever have.
Saga pulled off my tunic, her mouth finding the ridges of my shoulders. She kissed and nipped at my skin. I deepened my touch. Inside her, I curled my fingers, using my thumb to trace and tease the sensitive bundle at the apex.
“Ari, there . . .” Saga rocked faster against my hand, lips parted.
Soft gasps escaped her throat, and when I added more force to my fingers, more pressure with my thumb, she collapsed with a violent shudder.
Saga drew in a sharp breath and let her head fall back; no sweeter sound existed than my name fluttering from her lips over and over. Sweat gathered over her brow. A delicious flush colored her cheeks. Saga’s breasts rose and fell with heavy breaths as she blinked her gaze back to mine.
“Hells, I miss you and these wicked hands.”
