Page 28 of The Storm
The ghost of a smile on his face. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Your mother and your aunt? You don’t remember anything? Where were you for two years? Who took care of you?”
“I remember someone playing guitar.” He smiled. “But after the Rending? I remember a little. Or I think I do. I’m not certain.”
“What do you remember?”
“Fear.” He stopped playing. “Screaming. Then silence. A lot of silence. Leo and I were in a dark place. I think someone must have hidden us somewhere. I remember the cold. It was cold at night, even in the summer. I dream about a boy with silver hair and gold eyes. I don’t know if they’re memories or dreams. Or visions. Wolves in the snow and a boy with gold eyes sitting by a fire, feeding us milk.”
“Gold eyes could mean—”
“Kareshta?” He started playing again. “I thought of that after I learned of their existence.Kareshtawould have been able to care for us without hurting themselves like humans would, but I’m quite certain it’s a boy in my dreams. So I don’t know what to think.”
Renata’s mind whirled with the possibilities.
“I don’t have many distinct memories of my childhood after that. We were raised in the scribe house because there was no other place to keep us. So we were always around warriors with my grandfather and my uncle. Neither of them are talkative men. I know next to nothing about my mother or my aunt.”
Max started playing again, and Renata watched him silently. The song was a low, aching ballad. His fingers plucked the strings delicately, matching the mournful, crying wind of the storm. He’d never put a shirt back on, so her eyes feasted on him as he played. He was a banquet of rippling muscle and smooth skin turned gold in the lamplight. His eyes were closed as he played, and his top teeth gripped his bottom lip in concentration.
He was so beautiful it made her heart ache.
What would it be like to remember so little? To carry an empty pack through your life? Would it be a light journey or a lonely one?
Max paused. “I think what I’m most afraid of in this life is that I will get to the end of it—die in battle or just from exhaustion—and have no memories of home.”
Renata’s voice was hardly a whisper. “I have memories, but they bring me no joy.”
His voice hardened. “Is that why I’m so angry with you, Reni? You know what home is, and you reject it. You played for years—showing me peeks of a life with you—then you passed judgment. You told me what we had wasn’t good enough. ‘Move on, Maxim. You’ll never compare to what I lost.’”
Chapter Six
Max propped the guitar in the corner and walked to Renata. She didn’t want to sleep? Fine.
He pulled her to her knees on the bed and grasped her hip in one hand and her neck in the other. His kiss landed on her lips with the force of the wind battering the house. She met his passion with her own, wrapping her arms around his waist and sliding her hands down into the back of his pants, gripping his buttocks and bringing his hips to meet hers.
Max shoved Renata back on the bed and fell on top of her, searching for skin. She was still covered in a flannel nightdress and he hated it. Hated everything that kept her body from meeting his skin. Hated the distance between them. Her stubbornness. His resentment. Max sat back and grasped the bottom of the nightdress, shoving it up Renata’s body.
“Get rid of it.”
She pulled the flannel over her head and then she was his, lying before him, a dream of dark hair and long legs. Her reddish-brown hair splayed across the pillow. Her eyes were heavy and her lips already swollen from his kiss.
“I’m going to look at you,” he said. “It’s been two years, ten months, and four days since I’ve had the pleasure of it.”
“You’re—”
“Hard as iron?” He grasped his erection. “That’s not going anywhere.” He ran his palms from her knees up to her hips. “You, on the other hand, have a tendency to disappear.”
Max lifted her ankle to his shoulder and scraped his teeth on the tender skin behind her knee. She always jumped when he did that, and this night was no different. She reached for him, but he batted her hand away and pressed down on her belly, keeping her immobile as she lay before him. He played his tongue along her leg, up her thigh, tasting the arousal hidden by the soft hair between her thighs, but only long enough to leave her twisting. Then he spread her legs and kissed his way up her body.
“Max—”
“Quiet,” he said in a low voice as he shoved her knees open and settled between her thighs. “Did you miss me, Renata?” He guided himself into her body as her hips arched up and she let out a low gasp. “Did you miss this?” He seated himself to the hilt inside her, thrusting into her as he held her knee up, opening her body to him. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she hissed. Renata closed her eyes, her face a mask of tension and pleasure.
“Open your eyes.”
She obeyed him. Renata’s eyes met his, her gaze swimming in hunger, heat, and anger. She dug her nails into his buttocks, pulling him harder into her body with each thrust.
