Page 103 of Fall Before Her Throne

He shook his head. “You deserved better than all of this. You deserved a life free of nightmares and dead mothers and lonely homes. I thought I could give that to you, even if I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. A sob broke from my chest. Cas’s palm gripped the back of my neck, keeping me steady, but my heart broke for Max.

His hand reached up to brush between his shoulder blades. “I got the tattoo on my back a few weeks after that. It was for you. It was supposed to be my secret memento. I never planned for you, or anyone, to see it.”

“Did you love me?” My voice cracked. “Not like a sister. The way I loved you.”

“I did.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “I do.”

My eyes squeezed shut while my chest felt like it was being torn apart.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” His hand grabbed mine. “I can’t believe I’ve done what I’ve done. I was just so lost, so heartbroken. I died inside. To fight your father, I had to kill the pieces of myself that loved you. I had to bury the warmth my mother taught me. I would have stayed dead if you had left. If you hadn’t fought me, if you hadn’t broken me down piece by piece, just like you said you would that day at Trattoria Luminosa during the VCI board meeting, I would have never admitted it. You revived me, Leona. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you.”

My mind raced as quickly as the tears spilled down my face. Max scooted closer on the bed. He tentatively reached up to touch my cheek, but I snagged his hand and pressed his palm to my face. His touch was hot, and it made my entire body ache.

Cas was right.

This changed everything.

He’d fucked up, but I finally understood why. I could see how the scared boy he was turned into the man before me. He’d taken the brunt of all the shit my father was doing, taking the blows year after year so that Cas and I wouldn’t have to.

It had twisted him, turned him into a husk of the boy I used to know, but the man in front of me was changing. He was coming back to himself. He was finding his heart again.

And he was here.

My feelings for him burned hot inside my chest, a long-dead star flaring back to life.

It wasn’t the same love. I wasn’t the same girl. He wasn’t the same boy. Too much had happened, both to us and between us, for that love to be the same. I didn’t want it to be.

This was new. This was true.

“Say something,” he rasped. “Please. Kick me out or kill me, but please say something.”

I let go of his palm, and I reached for him. My arms wrapped around his neck, and I pulled him into a kiss. Our tears mixed on our cheeks. One of his arms braced on the bed beside me while the other wrapped around my waist and held me to him. I felt his heat from my scalp all the way to my toes.

“I understand,” I murmured against his lips. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You don’t say sorry. That’s for me.”

“My father ruined you.”

He leaned back, just enough for his titanium eyes to bore into mine. “You saved me.”

Slowly, I brought him back to me. Lips brushed lips. Soft touches. Whispers. The kiss was so tender, it made my heart break. His body pressed forward, deepening the kiss, pushing me back against Cas’s broad chest. Cas’s hand curled around my waist, and then I felt breath against my neck. They kissed me together; Max at my front, Cas at my back. Assaulting my senses from all sides.

31

LEONA

Heat pooled between my legs.

Max’s tongue darted into my mouth, and I whimpered. My hands curled into the fabric of his shirt. My fingers dipped into the space between the buttons, and I yanked, ripping it open. In response, he groaned and kissed me even harder, one hand sliding down my side to where my legs were still folded together between us. He pulled on one thigh, spreading me so he could slip closer between my legs, while Cas sucked a mark on my neck.

“Amore.” Cas’s lips brushed my ear. “Look at me.”

I broke the kiss with Max to look over my shoulder. Cas’s eyes blazed with heat as he took my lips in his own fevered kisses. Then it was Max’s chance to pull up the edge of Wynn’s shirt. He kissed up my stomach, over my belly button, teasing the area all around my breasts. He unsnapped the clasp of my bra and tugged the shirt up, forcing me to break my kiss with Cas. Together, they pulled the shirt over my head and the straps of my bra over my shoulders. Max tossed it somewhere behind us and then ducked his head, returning his lips to my skin.

All the timidity he held earlier, before he crawled to me, was gone. He wasn’t hesitant. He wasn’t careful. He was purposeful. Patient. When his tongue lashed across my nipple, I gasped into Cas’s mouth. Then his teeth bit the hard peak, and a tremor of arousal shot all the way through my body. I tangled one of my hands in Max’s hair, and the other in Cas’s.