Page 85 of Radiant Shadows

My heart fluttered again, but I kept my expression blank with a touch of snark. “Go on.”

He chuckled, a nervous wobble to the sound that admittedly tugged on my heart. “I should never have let you walk away in anger, should never have suggested any kind of break. I thought it would be easier for us to handle the distance, but I was so wrong.”

“Especially considering you’ve spent most of your internship here at the school,” I quipped. “I can’t seem to get rid of you.”

He grimaced. “I know, and I had no idea things were going to turn out that way. But I should’ve trusted that not even months and miles apart would shake what we had. What I hope we can have again.”

I arched an eyebrow at him, keeping my lips in a flat line even as my pulse was escalating with hope.

“I’m so sorry for everything I did,” he went on. “I’m sorry for storming out on you, for acting like a jealous asshole about Jackson and saying the things I did at the ball. I didn’t mean any of it, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you if you’re willing to give me a second chance.”

My walls had pretty much disintegrated to dust at this point, but I stubbornly wasn’t willing to give in so easily.

“How do I know you won’t dump me again at the first sign of trouble?” I asked, hands on my hips. “How do I know that you’ll be serious this time?”

He twisted his lips, looking sadly down at me, and he looked so damn adorable. “Well, I guess you don’t. The only thing I can do to prove it to you is to show you. I can make you all kinds of promises, tell you that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day we met, tell you how amazing and beautiful and strong I think you are, and that I’m crazy in love with you, but those are all just words. I’d much rathershowyou how true all of that is. If you’ll give me the chance.”

Ah, hell.

I turned away and rolled my eyes to divert from the fact that they were misting over. “I mean… I guess we can try and see what happens.”

He gently cupped my chin and tilted my face in his direction, and I blinked away the tears that began to build after his confession. He chuckled. “I love you, Ashlyn Summers.”

Before I could say anything in response, he pulled me against him and crushed his lips to mine, erasing all sass and rebuttal from my mind. We fit so perfectly. Not just physically, but personality-wise. He was the stoke to my fire, the calm to my storm, the light to my dark.

And nothing fueled my desire like he did. Even though Jackson excited and thrilled me at times, that was little more than a candle flame to the roaring pyre Niko ignited in me. And if I wasn’t careful, it was going to burn us both right here in the library.

I pulled away from his mouth. “I’m sorry, too. When you suggested the break, I freaked out, lost my temper, and acted like a spoiled child. I should’ve listened to you, talked through it with you, assured you that I wasn’t going anywhere. And I’m sorry about Jackson. I shouldn’t have tried to make you jealous.”

“It’s okay,” he said, cupping my face with both hands. “We both made mistakes. We just need to learn from them and move past them. Will you do that with me?”

I nodded, loving the feel of his warm hands on my face. “Yes.”

He smiled, then slid his hand down my arm to take my hand and tugged me toward our secret spot behind the bookshelf.

“Wait,” I protested. “Here?”

“It’s our spot, Ash,” he said seductively. “I want to officially claim it as ours.”

He scooped me and carried me across the library, and I giggled with slightly embarrassed excitement as we moved into our private little space.

He set me gently onto the bean bag, and I didn’t even mind the cloud of dust that escaped at my landing. He took off his shirt and lowered himself on top of me, and I greedily opened my mouth to his deliciously hot kisses. His tongue was like a solid flame against mine, the pressure of his desire on the apex of my thighs making me burn inside.

My hands couldn’t get enough of exploring his chest, his abs, his smooth, muscular back. But I wanted something else more. I had gone too long without him, craved him and yearned for him even in my rejection, and I didn’t want to go a second longer without giving myself to him.

I raked my hands down his back and around his rippling waist to the button of his pants. As soon as his fly was down, he aided me in tugging down his pants to free his rigid cock, and I hastily shimmied my own pants down, kicking and squirming to get them down past my ankles while he pulled my shirt up over my head.

And then he plunged into me without pomp or circumstance, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him to pull him in deeper, shivering with unmitigated delight as he filled me completely.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I whimpered as he relentlessly drove into me, the friction of his cock along my inner walls a pleasure I could barely tolerate, even as I wanted more. His hands traced lines of fire along the flesh of my hips, thighs, waist, and breasts, intensifying the raging inferno inside me.

The heat of his body scorched me everywhere we touched, and I couldn’t get enough of that glorious warmth. The pleasure inside me built to a fever pitch, and I thought for sure that I was going to either erupt like a volcano or melt under his radiance.

The world beyond my closed eyelids seemed so bright, and when I lazily opened my heady eyes, I gasped.

Our bodies were literally on fire. Both of us. His phoenix was burning through him as mine was burning through me, and yet neither of us were charring or blistering in the flames. Where they should have seared and blackened, they only licked and caressed. And the penetrating heat of his cock in the depths of my body delivered the greatest pleasure of all.

“Niko,” I whispered breathily.

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