Page 107 of Paramour of Sin
“I really hope you’re not listening to me ramble,” I said. “But also sort of hoping you can hear me. Because I feel a bit lost here. I… I don’t know how to do this. I’m an incubus. I don’t really have relationships. Except, it feels right with you and Zebulon. And I want a future here. I want to go to sleep beside you every night and wake up beside you every morning. And I think Zebulon wants that, too.”
“I do.” His deep voice came from behind me, his energy gliding through the air as he manifested himself at my back.
I shivered. “How much did you hear?” I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings, too lost in my thoughts and talking to a still unconscious Guinevere.
“Enough,” he murmured, moving to the foot of the bed and around to the other side to slide beneath the sheets.
He pressed his chest to Guinevere’s back then reached around to pull me closer, hugging us both to him as his power sprang to life around us.
I closed my eyes, succumbing to the familiar sensation of his portaling energy, allowing it to breeze through my hair and along my bare skin. Silky sheets caressed my senses a short breath later as Zebulon effortlessly materialized the three of us in his bed back in Chicago.
His palm glided along my side. “Look at me,” he said softly.
A demand; one I obeyed by lifting my eyelashes and meeting his smoldering gaze. He studied me for a long moment, his pupils flaring as his hand found my hip.
My body reacted instantly, my arousal pressing into the softness of Guinevere’s abdomen. She had yet to stir between us, but I suspected she would awake any minute. And I wasn’t sure how she’d feel when she did.
“I’m sorry.” Zebulon’s voice was gruff, his irises swirling as he continued, “I’m sorry for using you without offering the requisite protection for all these years.”
I blinked at him. “My lord—”
“Let me finish,” he interjected, his grip tightening on my hip. Not painfully so much as desperately, like he needed my strength to find the words he wanted to say.
I remained quiet, allowing him to process his statement, and shifted my arm away from Guinevere’s waist to rest my hand against his side. His dark skin warmed my palm, his power a kiss of strength that called to my soul.
I could feel him inside me.
Growing and claiming.
Making me his.
I smiled, enjoying the sensation, and something in his gaze shifted, his own lips seeming to curl at the edges. “You like our connection.” He uttered it as a statement, not a question. “I should have offered it years ago. But I wasn’t ready. Amarella tainted me in a way I’ve never truly acknowledged. And it took her nearly destroying Guinevere… viamyhands… for me to truly see the man I’ve become. I should have known it was Guinevere from the beginning, and I would have, had I offered her my protection. What if I’d killed her, Zane?”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because of her. Because she showed me with her body what I was too blinded by rage to see.” His gaze shifted to the back of her head, and the beautiful colors blending in her hair. “She said she loved me—us—even as I was about to kill her.” The words came out on a breath, his expression filling with an emotion I’d never seen on him before.
Regret.
Not because she’d said those words. But because of what he’d almost done to her. I could feel that pain in his aura, read it in his eyes now as he continued to study her. “She said she loved us,” he repeated, awe in his tone.
I smiled. “Yes, she has a penchant for those declarations,” I said as her eyelids lifted, her blue eyes strong and alert.
She’d been listening this whole time.
Might have even heard my words before.
I wasn’t given a chance to warn Zebulon of her awareness, his deep voice already saying, “Her admission did something to me. I reacted. I gave her my blood, needing to protect her, to apologize, to make it right. I… I reacted without control.”
“Do you regret it?” I asked, my eyes holding Guinevere’s, noting the way she’d gone exceptionally still between us.
Zebulon did, too. His gaze lifted to mine before returning to her. He sensed her alertness, and maybe he had before, I couldn’t say, but that didn’t stop him from replying. “No. I think she opened my eyes to a possibility I’d been blinded to before. I think this entire situation has changed me irrevocably. It’s odd to think I have Amarella to thank for that in a way, as she more or less forced my hand by framing Guinevere.”
“I think we have Guinevere to thank, too,” I whispered, still focused on her face, the way her pupils dilated as her breath hitched. “She’s the heart we never knew we needed.”
“Yes,” Zebulon agreed, kissing the back of her head before burying his face in her neck.
“She speaks and acts from a place inside her that I once mistook as naïve and childlike, when in reality, I was the one acting immaturely,” I whispered. “I chased her away with cruel words, like a young boy too afraid to face the truth. Too afraid to give her the truth. Too afraid toembracethat truth.”
