Page 28 of Fire Kissed
“Stop thinking and start sleeping,” Torben grunts on a quiet breath.
I shift toward him instantly, part of me just happy that someone else is as miserably awake as I am.
Deep green eyes like the center of a sea peer at me through thick, hooded lashes. Those eyes are so tired, barely open. And yet they refuse to close.
“You should take your own advice,” I whisper back to him.
“Don’t know what you’re whispering for. Those two can sleep through a herd of demons. Not one single worry in their demented brains.” He nods at the two men snoozing peacefully on my other side.
“My brain is perfectly sound, I’ll have you know. It’s the other one that’s the least stable of the three of us,” Latham quips.
A smile pulls at my lips slowly, laughter lying hesitantly against my lips.
Aric’s soft snore confirms his lack of care and worries... and possibly rational stability.
“His irrational mind is my favorite part of him, honestly,” I admit to the two of them. They both tilt their heads to look at me as if to check if I, too, have lost my mind. In these realms, I don’t know how anyone stays sane for long.
“It’s true. Sometimes I wish I had that freedom. That liberty to look at the rational world around me and not acknowledge a single dejected part of it.” The smile on my lips is a ghost of happiness now. The real world and the very real problems surrounding us are pressing in a little too hard tonight.
Latham’s hips shift across the smooth, metal roof until he’s pressed against my back. Then his arm wraps around me, melding me to his chest so perfectly that the rising anxiety quells. It quiets inside. It’s strange how he has that ability to calm a rocking storm within me.
“The real world has its good too, Rhys.” His words fan against the back of my neck.
Torben’s sigh tells me he doesn’t much agree with that statement.
He’s more bruised than the rest of us. He’s been here longer. I can tell. Or maybe he’s just seen the worst of it in the shortest amount of time.
Hela uses him in ways I don’t even want to think about. Gods know he can’t speak about it.
My hand slips out, and I slink my fingers through his calloused palm brushing against mine like a soothing balm skimming across his rough flesh.
Our eyes lock hard. Confusion hoods his gaze.
“Come here,” I whisper, barely speaking the words at all.
His hesitation lingers, hanging between us.
“Just let it go already and roll your big ass over here,” Latham scoffs when Torben’s uncertainty drifts on for a second too long.
The cloudy confusion in his eyes never leaves my gaze as he very purposely slides closer. And closer.
And even closer until he’s full-on hugging me against his broad chest. The scent of ash is all I smell, but the warmth of their bodies enveloping me is too good to mind anything else.
His nose trails over the crown of my head as he breathes me in too. Widespread fingers slip down the curve of my hip before settling against the softest part of my body. And then he pulls me. Hard. His grip tightens against my ass, and a gasp tears from my throat as he rolls us. My palms dig into his shoulders, and before I know it, I’m straddling my enormous, wild warrior. I’m looking down on the most beautifully rugged man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
And he’s smiling.
“You look good like this,” he whispers almost shyly, his palms brushing up and down my thighs just below the hem of my shirt-dress.
“Like what?” I ask.
His lips part with that hesitant but sexy smile. “On top of me.”
My mouth falls open, and I have no idea what’s gotten into him. Who is this deviously delicious man, and what happened to my safe and strong god that I’m so used to?
“Ahh,” Aric hums sleepily to himself. “Someone finally realized he can live sometimes. Hela doesn’t own him fully... Not entirely.”
A line creases Torben’s brow at the reminder of his abuser. Maybe that was his thinking. Maybe just like me, he understands that tonight might be our very last night of almost freedom.
