Page 42 of Hunted By the Wraiths
“Bossy.” But he was already pulling at my shirt.
“You love it.”
“I do.” He got my shirt off, tossed it somewhere. His hands immediately found skin, tracing the new scars I’d collected. “I love everything about you. Your ruthless efficiency. Your terrible sense of humor. The way you’ve always been too good for me.”
“Shut up.” I was working on his pants, trying not to aggravate his wounds. “You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot.”
“Mine,” I agreed, and felt possessiveness surge through me so fierce it should have scared me. “You came back to me.”
“Always.” He caught my hands, stilled them. “Always, Maris. Even if it took all that time. Even if it hurt. Always.”
I couldn’t handle the sincerity in his voice. The raw honesty. So I kissed him again, putting everything I couldn’t say into it.
He responded instantly, his hands roaming my back, relearning my body. When his claws traced lightly down my spine, I arched into him, a gasp escaping. He did it again, deliberate this time, and satisfaction rumbled through his chest at my response.
“Missed that,” he murmured against my throat. “Missed learning what makes you fall apart.”
“I haven’t—” I started, then stopped. But he already knew. Could feel it in the connection between us.
“All this time?” His hands stilled on my skin.
“Don’t look so smug.”
“I’m not smug.” He pulled back to meet my eyes. “I’m... honored.”
“That’s worse. Stop talking.”
He laughed, low and warm, and the sound went straight through me. I’d forgotten he could laugh. That underneath the silent, intimidating exterior was someone who found the universe absurd and had decided to find that funny rather than depressing.
I pushed him back on the bed, straddled him properly. His hands immediately found my hips, steadying me. The pressure against his injuries made him wince, but when I tried to shift, his grip tightened.
“Don’t you dare,” he said.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m healing. There’s a difference.” His hands slid up my sides, thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts. “And I’ve waited forthis.”
“For this?” I said, then gasped as his thumbs moved higher. “We already… in the safe house.”
“That was breaking through the pain.” His voice was rough, his eyes intense. “This is the first time in a decade I’ve been able to justfeel you. Without the fight. A little soreness isn’t going to stop me.”
“So technically,” I said, my voice a little breathless as his thumbs moved again, “youhavewaited a decade. For this, anyway.”
“I wasn’t counting the year we were together before.”
“I was.”
Something shifted in his expression. Darker, hungrier. “Ten years then. Ten years since I first had you.”
“Had me?” I raised an eyebrow. “Pretty sure I had you.”
“Semantics.” His hands curved around my breasts, and I forgot what we were arguing about. “We had each other.”
I leaned down to kiss him, and he made a sound deep in his throat. Satisfaction. Possession.Mine, that sound said.Mine, mine, mine.
I ground against him, felt him hard beneath me, and his control splintered. Suddenly I was on my back, the shift so fast I barely registered it
