Page 85 of Dangerous Exile

“But I want to. That is the difference. I want my place in this world to be with you. With you where I can laugh and be free and not be constantly glancing over my shoulder, searching for the next man trying to take me down. I want simple. I want a life where seeing you puts a smile on my face and I don’t have to fight it, don’t have to hide it in order to keep you safe. I want to lie under the night sky with you in peace.”

Her eyes went wide, the spark in her chest exploding. “You want to be my hero, don’t you?”

The right half of his face lifted, close to pained. “Maybe I do.”

She splashed forward in the tub, her hands clasping around his face. “Talen, you already are. I’ve just been waiting for you to admit to it.”

He reached out, grabbing the full of her wet body and yanking her out of the tub, dragging her onto him as he stood, soaking his shirt, his trousers. His lips found hers as her slippery feet found traction on the wet floor.

His kiss hard, desperate, but giving way to the resignation that this was it. There were no excuses. No sense of searching for penance. He wanted what he wanted.

And he wanted her.

Her head went light with the realization, hope for a future with this man finally finding actual roots. Roots that would grow.

He pulled away slightly, his breath a caress against her face. “Then I admit it. I want—no—I need to be the hero you deserve.”

She laughed. “Except you don’t. You don’t need to be a hero. You don’t need to be an earl. You just need to be you. The man that made me fall in love with him despite my reservations—my mistrust. The man that held me and pointed out the stars. The man that thought I was worthy of being taught how to fight on my own. The man that knows me, my body, like no one else. The only man that I trust.”

His lips found hers again as he crushed her body into his once more, but she was having none of it, her hands slipping between them, fast with the fall front of his trousers and yanking the lawn shirt off his torso.

A growl shook his chest that she’d dared to break their kiss for even a second. A growl that was soothed the moment she wrapped one leg around his waist, then the other, lifting herself onto him.

The bed had its place, but this wasn’t it. This was carnal, the need for him to be inside of her crushing.

She ground her folds against him, his swollen cock already long and hard for her, just like she liked him. Her hands clasped around his neck and she pulled up as he lifted her by the waist, setting her directly on his member and thrusting upward.

The length of him to the hilt in one ragged thrust.

His mouth dropped to her neck, her chest, his tongue finding new spots to ravage as she arched backward against his hold on her back, her hips writhing.

She needed this fast and hard and he was always one to satisfy. His raspy chuckle into her skin told her he knew exactly what she wanted.

His hand slipped from the small of her back to her waist and he lifted her again, her thighs hitching onto his hip bones so she could balance herself.

Perfect.

She lifted and dropped, riding him at her own frantic pace until he slipped one hand between them, his thumb sliding into her folds to find her nubbin and increase the friction.

She yelped, her breath no longer her own, the pressure building harder than it ever had before, deep within her. Upward and another devastating plunge downward. For how hard she stretched backward, he held her stable on him, driving farther into her with each stoke. Until she was splintering, screaming, as she shattered into a thousand shards of light firing through her body.

Her contractions wrenched him along with her, his body shuddering as the wet heat of him exploded, burying into the depths of her.

Her body quaking, she fell forward onto him. Her arms draped over his shoulders and her ankles locked behind him as her face nestled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. As she rode the ebbing waves, her fingers spread across his back, reveling in the fluttering of his muscles, the shivers that ran across his skin every time her sex contracted on his cock.

She wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t either.

Their bodies entwined, both of them refusing to let the other go. Neither would move for the chance of breaking the perfection of how their bodies fit together. Their souls.

Until finally, Talen broke and staggered three steps backward to land in the pink chair, though he refused to let her body leave his, his cock still firmly within her, her breasts still heaving against his chest. She curled her legs up on either side of him, straddling him, not willing to break away either as her left hand moved to splay upon his chest, her right locked firmly around his neck.

The only motion he made to ease the crushing hold he had on her was for his left hand to drag up her spine, his fingers entwining in her loose hair, dragging through wet strands over and over.

She let it go on for minutes before she broke the silence, her words into his neck. “You are still worried.”

His hand stilled in her hair. “How do you know?”