Page 191 of Dare
My eyes glistened. My heart burst.
He dropped the satchel he’d been holding. I dropped the hibiscus flowers I’d been picking.
With a cry, I sprinted across the stones. On a growl, Jeryn charged. Launching his way, my bare feet threw flecks of dust into the air. Vaulting toward me, his strong body got larger, closer.
Divine Seasons. I was on him first, flinging myself into his arms. My body crashed into his, the collision wild and desperate and everything that mattered. A tormented noise ripped from Jeryn’s lungs. His hands snatched my hips and tore me off the ground, my legs hooking around his waist as he rammed me against him.
Balancing my ass with one powerful arm, Jeryn grabbed the back of my head, his gaze taking a precious moment to soak me in. Then with a snarl, his lips dove for mine. In a single move, he lunged my head forward, his lips seizing my own and breaking them open.
A fractured sound cracked from my throat as I clutched his face. Our mouths locked, fitting as they used to, as they always had. With our lips crushed, we threw ourselves into the kiss, the force of it encompassing every minute, hour, day, week, month, and year apart. And oh, this felt the new and old, different and the same.
So much had changed. Yet nothing had changed.
My nostrils inhaled needle forests and blustering winds. His touch ignited my soul. So achingly familiar, so eternally missed.
Jeryn.
The hard line of his jaw shoved forward, splitting my lips and pouring lava through my veins. In a rampant tempo, he flexed that hot tongue inside me, infusing my blood with pleasure and yearning. My cry melted into a moan, and I opened wider for him, our tongues writhing.
He still tasted of dark wine, still hissed in that same cutting way. Only now, the sound lasted longer, reached deeper. Rhythmically, he skewered my tongue with his, flexing into me until my thighs sizzled and my limbs turned to batter.
We should talk. We should slow down.
But when had we ever done anything in the expected order? And when had I ever cared about expectations?
I clasped him tighter between my legs, my breasts heaving into his torso, the sensations heady and surreal. Elated tears burned the rims of my eyes. Pained whimpers cluttered my tongue, which quaked against his own.
Our mouths clamped, the kiss shaking, tongues tangling. I weaved myself around him, welding my body to his, knotting us together. Never again, after this. Let no kingdom come between this ever again.
We lurched back only long enough to draw a sliver of breath. Then we switched angles and flew back into each other. A territorial noise grated from Jeryn’s lungs, and I smiled into the kiss, my delirious moans alternating with sobbing laughter.
On a rasp, Jeryn pried his mouth from mine. “Flare.”
“Jeryn,” I wept and chuckled.
He shook his head in disbelief. His thumbs stroked my cheeks, my eyelashes, my swollen lips. “I didn’t know if …”
If he’d redeemed himself. If he was worthy of me.
I sank my hands into his hair, the blue mane spilling between my fingers. Tilting my head, I gave him a watery grin, because this Royal shouldn’t have doubted.
“Silly man,” I said.
Happiness and desire flooded my being. That, and one other emotion. A feeling that belonged only to him, an enduring bond that hadn’t been severed and never would be.
Jeryn dropped his head to mine and braced me into his chest. “My little beast.”
“My villain king,” I whispered.
That’s what he’d become. A king of Winter. Yet he was still the man who’d claimed my heart in this wild, still Jeryn, still mine.
The king swooped down, his mouth aiming for me. In a sudden mood to play, I reeled back and nipped his lower lip. The movement jutted our waists together, his heavy cock flush against the cleft of my thighs. Wetness seeped from my crease, and a throb spread to my clit.
We panted into one another. Between the gaping shirt, his muscles hitched, and his pulse drummed into my own. Our fingernails curved, biting into one another’s flesh.
The king bared his teeth. “Say it,” he begged.
My mouth curled. “Work for it.”