Page 214 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I hissed when my hips rested flush against his, taking all of him.

“All good?”

“So good,” I breathed, riding him.

His mouth trailed a line of kisses to my neck while his hands cupped my breasts, kneading them in his rough palms. “Go slow,” he moaned in my ear. “I want to remember, I want to remember how you feel tonight till the last of my days.”

I leaned my head back on his shoulder and kissed him, sinking on him slower. “I don’t think I could ever forget any of my moments with you,” I said, my chest raising fast from the buildup of heat in my veins. “They’ve not been inked like these vows, they’ve been branded. I remember every single touch of yours. Every single time you’ve touched me. Every single time you’ve told me you’ve loved me, even…even when I’ve not said it back. The one regret I will have for all of my lives.” I crushed my mouth to his again when he made to speak. Whatever he wanted to say, it would have broken my heart, I knew it.

His hand slid down my stomach, the touch so gentle it felt like the lick of spring wind. The other tangled in my hair, holding my head still while he kissed me back.

Heat coiled at the pit of my stomach, teasing and taunting the more erratic the joining of our bodies grew. His fingers circled my centre while I rode him, slapping my sex every time I went faster than he wanted me to. Little did he know, it only spurted me worse, drove me insane, the heated flesh growing hotter while his thickness bruised me from inside. It hit me too suddenly, the wave rolling too unexpectedly, and he put a hand over my mouth to drown my tense moans.

I didn’t stop, no matter the breathlessness or the tiredness that threatened to collapse my very bones. I didn't stop until I felt him thicken and jerk inside of me, until he buried his face on my neck to suppress his own moans.

My body slumped on his. Tired to even move even the slightest.

I looked down at my body still linked to his, over the red marks he’d left everywhere, grinning to myself. “Do you think they will like the change of rules? This instead of white ink.”

He smacked a few big, wet kisses on my cheek. “We make our own rules, as always. We’ve always made our own rules.”

For a fraction of a second, I held my breath. A clock slowly ticked at the back of my mind.

It was like the whole game had reset at hearing those words.

The coin had already been tossed by fate and the foe behind the white lines was another.

One move had already been made and the Fischer clock on the side counted not days or hours—it counted months.

Waiting for me to make my own move.

Fate had sat across, counting my every move on every game since I’d started playing with it.

All of my moves had changed from time to time and it had shown me each endgame. All end games. Only one detail had always remained the same in each of them.

Aurora. Dead.

The one strategy I’d never changed.

“Love?” Kilian called, bringing me out of the depths of flashing thoughts dating from the start of it all.

So much I had missed. So much I had overlooked.

I smiled at Kilian. “You’re so smart, my darling.”

His brows rose and he chuckled, that little dimple distracting me again. “Am I now?” He carefully held onto me while reaching the edge of the patch of land we stood on, touching the water surface. “It is a bit cold. Do you mind it?”

“It is supposed to be cold,” I said, flicking a few drops on his face.

He cupped a bit of water on his hand and began washing the white paint from my skin, little by little, unhurriedly and so gently. Then it was my turn and I wasn’t so gentle as him. Wherever I wanted to touch, I touched. More inappropriate places than where I’d painted, so my turn took twice as long.

“There,” I whispered. “They’ve gone to the heavens, all of our vows.” How could I have ever…ever thought of not fighting back whatever force, divine or not, for him. Just for him and him alone. This…he was what I deserved.

I deserved this.

Him.

The future I wanted.