Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,125

pull him into me. “All of you.”

Something comes over his painfully handsome features, and then his hand moves up to my face as he rests his weight between my legs. He brushes a thumb over my bottom lip, tenderly stroking. “No matter what happens after this, Summer, you are the love of my life. My mate. My queen. The person I want to spend eternity with. If this miserable life is a poison, then you are the antidote.”

“Valerian—”

He shakes his head. “You can tell me how amazing I am later. Right now, I’m going to make love to my mate. Unless you want to wait long—”

Growling, I reach up, twist my fingers in his silky, blue hair, and draw him into a sensual kiss. He pulls away, his lips swollen and wet. I pout, trying to drag him back down, but he shakes his head.

“I want to look at you.”

Those beautiful, ice-blue eyes hold mine as he lowers himself. I inhale sharply as he fills me, his movements devastatingly slow. The aching pressure becomes a crescendo, a chasm of fire spearing my middle, filling with heat and cold and a wonderful rightness.

He watches my reaction with predatory stillness, full lips parted, his eyes radiating both absolute love and unfathomable desire.

For me. His mate. His equal. His lover.

“You are the light in the darkness,” he whispers. “My salvation, my everything. No matter what happens, no matter how far apart we are or how dark it gets, I will always follow your light back to you.”

I moan. My fingers dig into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. A churning wildness is building, growing, a ravenous hunger that can only be sated by release.

A growl splits my lips as I hook my legs around his waist, arch my back, and drag him deeper. Waves of pleasure crash faster and faster and faster and oh, God, I’m going to shatter. Just disintegrate into tiny pieces. My heart swells until I’m afraid it will burst with love for him.

We’re interlocked, moving as one, as if we’ve done this a thousand times before.

Our movements become frenzied, primal and burning and exquisitely raw. But even as we both move harder and faster, our bodies locked in an ancient dance of pleasure and instinct, his kiss softens. His lips brush mine, tongue moving in gentle, furtive strokes.

That gentleness nearly undoes me.

Pleasure rakes over my senses like fire searing everything it touches. I’m hot and cold, fire and ice. Gasping, near the edge, I open my eyes to see a blizzard of snowflakes swirling around us, chased by fiery butterflies.

It’s all too much sensation and light and pressure, and when he whispers, “I love you, Summer Princess,” I splinter around him, my magic exploding outward like a burst of pure sunlight.

Afterward, I settle into his arms and try to memorize this moment. How vulnerable, yet safe, I feel. How protected and loved.

He kisses my neck, my shoulder blade, my collarbone, his fingers stroking lazily over the curve of my hip, my thigh. If his touch before was ravenous and hungry, filled with primal need, now it’s reverent and gentle, imbued with so much affection that my heart aches.

He brushes my hair with his fingers, combing out the tangles left by the sea and our love-making. His movements are slow, lazy, as if we have a thousand years of this.

I understand why. It’s easier to pretend we have a lifetime together to explore. To imagine I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel his arms around my waist. His lips dragging over my skin, voice teasing as we learn each other’s bodies.

It’s easier than admitting the truth—that the bond didn’t return.

His fingers pause over my arm where Hellebore’s tattooed flowers crowd, an entire sleeve of my fiancé’s cruelty on display. I don’t dare look at those overgrown flowers, but . . . deep down, I know it didn’t work.

Tears wet the corners of my eyes, spilling down one side. “Valerian—”

“Shh. I know. I just . . . want to hold you for a minute longer. To look at you, my mate.”

Claws of desperation sink their hooks into me, and I roll to face him. “We can run. Fight. If we—”

He silences me with a soft, bittersweet kiss.

A part of me knows how foolish I’m being. Even if we could leave the island, without the antidote, he’ll die.

His eyes take me in, those icy depths filled with unending love. “I love you, Summer Solstice. Always have and I always will. It doesn’t