Page 89 of Grim and Oro
The heart I locked away for centuries has started beating again. I canfeelit.
It’s sitting right in front of me.
She’s my heart.
My hand grips beneath her knee, and I can feel her longing, feel everything. “Portal me to my room,” she commands.
Here it is. The cliff we’ve been skirting, the fall we’ve been avoiding. Because this isn’t just physical. Not for me ... and not for her. I can feel it.
I press her fully to my chest—and push us both over the edge.
There is no room for fear here. Fear of heights, fear of feelings, fear of anything.
She gasps—but she is not afraid. Shetrusts me.
She opens her mouth, but she doesn’t have time to form a single word before we’re landing on her bed. She’s atop me, straddling me, and I’ve never seen such beauty in my life.
Anger, hot as flames, that I sent us tumbling over. Her eyes are fixed in a glare. But that fury dies away the moment she shifts forward—
And feels every inch of me against her.
Her feelings melt into deep, sweet desire. She moves again, rocking her hips, and I’m at risk of embarrassing myself from that single movement.
She writhes against me, as if desperate for the friction, as if she’s aching as much as I am. Her back arches and she grinds against me harder, her nails scraping against my chest, her shoulders hiking as she gasps.
I laugh darkly beneath her. “The sight of you, on me ...”
Yes, she has well and truly ruined me.
I curve my hands beneath her hips, gripping her ass, and wonder what it would be like to let her continue, let her chase her pleasure, let her do whatever she wants to me.
But—
“Not tonight, Hearteater,” I say. Even two sips of the Skyling wine can cloud her judgment.
When I have her, I want her fully aware of every movement. I want her to remember every single second.
I want the only haze to be the result of how well I’ve pleased her.
“Sleep,” I say, and her irritation is like a dozen daggers pointed in my direction.
I laugh softly and pull her toward me, tucking her into my side. I never used to see the appeal of sleeping next to someone, but I do now. I want her next to me every single moment of every single day, even while we’re dreaming.
“Remember to dream of me,” I tell her, and I wonder if she knows I meant it when I told her she’s in all of mine.
SUMMER
I am greedy, I am selfish. I am despicable. While Isla is breathing softly against my neck, tucked into my side, her leg draped over me, while she sleeps more soundly than I have seen her sleep inmonths, I tell myself I’m going to tell her the truth.
I’m going to tell her my plan. I’m going to tell her about the sword. About how I have no intention of going to the Centennial.
I go over it in my mind, again and again. Each scenario has the same ending.
Never seeing her again.
When her green eyes blink open hours later—when they widen, like she thought for a moment that this was all a dream, when they crease when she smiles, when she buries her face against my throat, embarrassment and happiness blooming from her, I find that I can’t.
I can’t.
