Page 161 of Dare

Then I turned in Jeryn’s arms. “One more thing.”

Jeryn hauled me against him. “Anything.”

“No more secrets.”

He ran his fingers down my arm. “No more confessions.”

“And be with me. Not just until we say goodbye but after. If we part ways, we do it with a plan to meet again, to stay together no matter the distance or time.”

“You don’t need to propose this.” His gaze burned into mine. “After almost losing you, I won’t let you go again.”

Flipping me onto my back, Jeryn dipped his head to my throat. “To the ends of the earth, I will meet you. Until the end of time, I’ll wait.”

Tingles spread along my flesh. I wound my legs around his waist, chuckling tearily as he growled into my neck like a hungry creature.

“Forgive me,” he intoned ruefully against my skin. “I could not wait to taste you again.”

The admission stalled my humor. A stampede of wild animals sprang loose in my chest while he tucked into my throat.

“Couldn’t wait?” I repeated.

“Could not wait,” he said.

Another pause. I might have teased Jeryn about his lack of patience. Instead, a grin stretched across my face. “That means you love me.”

48

Jeryn

At first, I did not respond. Could not.

The emotion seemed disproportionate to the upheaval inside me. The word was too small, the pronunciation too slippery. It didn’t sound deep enough, much less stretch far enough, lasting only a short while on the tongue.

Looming between her thighs, I raised myself above Flare and gazed down. Searching. Sensing. A spectrum of color draped itself across her body, and those sunlit irises rested on me. The sight inundated my being with insurmountable sensations, too overwhelming to compartmentalize.

A puncture. A squeeze. A softening.

My lungs. My stomach. My heart.

As children, we had suffered. Summer had taken everything from Flare, including her family and the chance to discover herself. The only thing left had been the rainforest, a realm that gave her a purpose. A way to cope through years of captivity, to define herself even though there was more to her, if she would only see it.

While I had spent my life terrified that I’d go mad from a siren shark attack. A bite that almost happened, but never actually had.

Flare wasn’t a born soul. But I could not say the same about myself.

Nonetheless, the shark had not made me cruel, and neither had my bouts of panic. True, they had created fear. But I had made myself cruel. In my ignorance, I had made the choice to be brutal.

That was the true definition of foolishness.

Yet she accepted me. Yet she forgave me. Yet she wanted me.

Flare lay naked beneath my form. Beautiful. Boundless. Flay me to hell and back, I could not take it.

If I loved her, then I would fucking love her.

Bracketing myself over Flare, I swung my waist, the probe of my cock urging a moan from her tongue. While spreading my little beast open, I hissed, “Every thought I’ve ever had.”

She arched into me and sighed, “Everything I’ve ever felt.”