Page 355 of Black Reign

Then him.

His dark eyes search mine.

No assumption.

No command.

Even now.

“You sure?”

The question is quiet.

I touch his face.

For all his arrogance, for everything Blackwell is, this is the man who stopped kissing me in London because I had been frightened.

The man who remembered honey.

The man who stayed online seven hours and nineteen minutes while a girl he didn't know mourned her father.

Ghost.

“Yes.”

Something inside his expression loosens.

He kisses me again.

We sink onto the blanket beneath a sky so full of stars that the darkness between them almost disappears.

The wind moves softly through the field.

His hand slides along my side.

My dress gathers beneath his fingers.

I pull his shirt free and finally touch warm skin instead of fabric.

He inhales sharply.

That thrills me.

Xavier Blackwell is not supposed to lose his breath because of anything.

I do it again.

His forehead drops to mine.

“Trouble.”

“You knew that.”

“I underestimated.”

“Your first mistake.”

“Not remotely.”