Page 239 of Fury

He rubbed my shoulder. “Ah baby, a little grout and elbow grease, and we can build us back up. As long as you don’t mind it being a little crooked here and there, maybe chipped in places.”

“No, I don’t mind.” I traced a line over his facial scars. “We could paint it red, paint it yellow.”

“Blue green, too,” his deep, scratchy voice caught as his hands moved up my middle, over my breasts to my neck, stroking me there. His index finger touched the tattoo of Zoë’s compass on my chest. “Tell me why this N is different from the others, why it’s on fire. A blue fire.”

“It’s not an N. It’s a Z on its side, it just looks like a fat N. It’s my secret little way to have Zoë’s name on me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I didn’t feel worthy of having her name or even her initial tatted on me. The Z on its side reminds me that I gave up having a place in her life, that I’m on the outside. I can’t claim that Z.”

“No, baby, no.” He touched his lips to mine.

“Her letter is in a blue fire,” I whispered. “A blue flame burns hotter than a red one, you know.”

“I know.” He kissed me slowly, the caramel flavor of the whiskey melding with the flavor of him across my tongue.

“Do you forgive me?” I whispered. “I need to know.”

“You kept her safe.” His thumb brushed at the side of my face. “Yeah, it’s hard when it hits me, not going to lie. And it keeps hitting me, but those hits are not so rough and turning into positives, one at a time.”

My fingers stroked the side of his face, his scars, his beard.

He pulled me in closer against him. “Baby, I don’t hate you. I want to love you more, better than before. Those feelings didn’t go away. Been burning deep. I stifled them, wrestled them down, chained them up, but I don’t want to anymore. I can’t. I just can’t. There’s no reason to.”

His eyes studied me. Those harsh eyes that had once impressed me with their steadfastness in all the screaming insanity that had cavorted around us now gleamed at me. Expectant. Warm shimmers of light, gentle rays of possibility.

He slowly tasted my lips, his tongue nudging my mouth open to receive its blessings.

I opened, I received, I gave.

He cradled my face in his hands. “We got a clean slate now, baby. We can have that life we always wanted together with nothing and no one hanging over us. We can do this.”

My fingertips dug into the back of his neck. “It’s been such a long time.”

“That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t,” he whispered against my lips. “You and me matter. Us together. If you still want it.”

“I still want it.” The breath squeezed from my chest, and I kissed him.

His hips rose against mine, offering more friction. “I’m cutting it loose now, baby. Tell me that’s a good thing. Tell me that’s what you want. Tell me, I need to hear you say it.”

“Cut it loose,” I breathed, meeting his body, squeezing my thighs around him. “Cut it loose.”

I kissed him. A hungry kiss, a kiss that discovered and demanded, invited and provoked, that insisted on healing. I soared in his taste, a taste that brought me back to the heady, lust-filled thrill of our first love and all its thousand, gentle and hard, intimacies. The clarity of believing, the spice of danger, the slices of risk. I reveled in the odd hum that rose in the back of his throat, the firm hand that held my head close to his own. My heart pounded out a strong, steady beat.

“I want you. I want you inside me,” I murmured. I lifted and helped him pull down his zipper and tug down his pants until his erection was free.

“Oh shit,” fell from my mouth at the sight of his hard length. That was mine. All fucking mine.

He tugged at my tunic dress, clawed at my panties. “I’m ripping.”

“You’re asking?”

“I figure your panties are pricey, one of a kind—”

“Rip it!”

He did, and a wild expression flared across his features at the sound, at the graze of his fingers against my wet slit. I took his cock in my hand and rubbed myself over it, getting it slick. His jaw tightened, his hands sliding over my ass, finding me. I let out a cry.

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