Page 138 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She can’t help smiling, biting her bottom lip to stop it from spreading too wide. “Seen many of them, have you?”
“I neversawthem,” he admits seriously. “Not as I see you now.”
At his words, her entire body yearns for his, but she doesn’t wantto rush this. Not with Marcus. She wants to savor every possible moment with him because she might never get the chance to do so again.
Pushing off the wall, she takes a step forward.
“Let me see you then,” she says, voice shaky.
One side of his lips tips up playfully. “Fair’s fair.” He reaches for the back of his tunic and pulls it over his head.
Her lips part, and her breath wooshes out of her. What she saw of him after his run that one day and at the crystal pools left little to the imagination. But now, withnothingon, she realizes not even her own mind could’ve conjured this.
She takes another step toward him, but he flinches. Apprehension sneaks into his gaze.
Confusion and embarrassment muddy her thoughts. “Marcus?—”
“Don’t,” he breathes, not looking at her anymore, his hands clenched into fists. “I can’t—if we do this, there’s no going back. And I can’t lose you again.”
Standing naked in front of the man she’s loved for nearly half her life, she fights against the mortification creeping up her neck at his denial of her.
But it’s not that he doesn’t want her. It’s that he thinksshedoesn’t wanthim.
After all she said, all she confessed, he still doesn’t understand how much he means to her. That the thought of losing him tomorrow feels like someone’s peeling back her skin and pouring salt into it. She has to say it plainly, knowing he might not feel as deeply for her as she does for him.
“All this time, I tried to forget you. Told myself how I felt about you was fleeting and childish and meant nothing.” She tries leaning in again, and when he doesn’t flinch, she places a hand on his smooth chest, over his heart. “But I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, Marcus. When it wasn’t physically painful not to be near you. These past six years spent apart have proved that to me.”
He meets her gaze. Behind the desperate want, his blue eyes are torn—no,tortured—for reasons she can’t understand.
Instead of answering, he steps into her, placing a hand on her hip and another on her cheek. Heat spreads from where he touches her, and she forgets how to breathe for a moment.
His voice is rough when he speaks again. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this. Wanted you.”
Not longer than I’ve wanted you.
Despite losing all sense of anything but his hands on her, she says, “It can’t have been that long. You made it clear all those years ago that you weren’t interested in me. Though at least you did the honor of letting me down easy.”
His hand flexes on her hip and his dark eyes fall to her lips. “Nothing about denying you was easy for me.”
She leans in ever closer, their bodies not quite touching. The space between them feels as if it’s stretched too thin, waiting to snap.
“What about now?” She grasps his hand on her hip and places it between her breasts, over her pounding heart. “Does this make it any easier?”
The hand on her cheek shifts, his fingers delving into her hair. He grins loosely, as if he’s had a horn of Nettare. She can barely breathe at the sight.Stellae, the things his smile does to me.
“Drusilla Valerius, are you trying to seduce me?”
“It depends,” she whispers. “Is it working?”
He wrenches her forward so that they’re finally flush, and she gasps. His blatant interest presses into her, his naked chest crushed against hers.
“Yes. Stellae, yes.”
His words spread like wildfire along her entire body. She winds her arms around his neck and tips her chin up, pressing her mouth against his; his lips are warm, supple, his soft touch flaying her from the inside.
When her tongue flicks inside his mouth this time, he groanslow into their kiss, wrapping his arms tight around her. His skin burns against hers. She stands on her toes to be closer to him, running her fingers through his soft hair and gripping the roots.
