of control, disintegrates the moment that she parts her lips and tangles her tongue with mine. She tastes like liquid silk, like happiness and dreams. With a low growl, I anchor one arm at the base of her spine and haul her up against me.
Our kiss is feverish.
Wild.
It’s fucking heartbreak.
With every brush of her lips, I fight the nightmare of death and destruction. With every whimper that she feeds me, I taste her tears and terror. Her courage kept me alive, her fierce grit the only reason that she’s even in my arms at all. Sunlight hits my back, warming my shoulders, but there’s no turning away from Rowena.
I cup her face, my touch reverent, and angle her chin.
“I thought I’d never feel you again,” I growl against her mouth, feeling anguish like a dagger to the chest. “I wanted to hold you. Needed to kiss you. And I couldn’t move even a finger to reach for you.” Desperation floods my broken body, and I feel no remorse when I nip at her bottom lip and she shudders against me. “It was a f-fate worse than death.”
“Let me go,” she breathes, jerking her wrists against the restraint of my hand, “and then make a wish.”
Holding her gaze as I release her, my shoulders round forward when she presses her palm to my left clavicle. Her touch is a brand on my fucking soul. I feel her heat, the gentle pressure she exerts when she hooks a finger in the collar of my shirt to pull me down.
“Tell me your wish.”
“Touch me,” I rasp, brushing my lips over hers, “just touch me.”
Agony pulses in my thigh but I barely notice when Rowena’s hands are drifting down my chest to slip beneath the fabric of my shirt. Her palms are warm on my stomach, steady, and then she’s guiding me backward. One step then two, until my spine hits rough stone and she’s tugging on my shirt in a wordless order for me to strip.
I don’t need to be told twice.
Clutching the fabric at the back of my neck, I pull the material over the top of my head and toss it aside. My body is bruised. Scarred permanently in ways that it wasn’t a week ago. Dark lashes fan her cheeks as Rowena lowers her gaze to my chest. Gently, her fingers graze the tattoo of the raven before sweeping down to the Old Norse quote of Huginn and Muninn. With her palm laid flat over the script, she leans forward and presses her lips to the bruise dusting my collarbone.
My breath catches. “Fuck, Rowena . . .”
The breeze dances across my naked skin and Rowena’s lips land a little lower with each and every kiss. I dig my fingers into the stone, praying for strength when she’s clearly determined to send me up in flames. When she sinks to the ground, her fingers nimbly working the button of my trousers, I might as well be voiceless all over again.
Every word is jammed in my throat.
“If you’re Death,” she says softly, her lips briefly landing on my left thigh as she works my trousers down my legs, “then I’m the raven that you send to the slain.”
“If I’m Death,” I counter gruffly, locking my hands around her shoulders, “then you’re the m-mercy in my bones that gives me hope.”
And then I yank her up and slam my mouth back down on hers.
I devour her with possessive strokes of my tongue and swallow her mewls as I ease her against me, her spine to my chest. The stone wall offers support when I may not have managed otherwise, and I tip Rowena’s head to the side to give me room to play. Grazing my teeth over her ear, I sink one hand down past her sternum and stomach to cup the apex of her thighs.
With a sharp cry, her hips roll restlessly against my palm.
I take pity on us both.
My fingers sink beneath the elastic waistband of her joggers, and I feel her strain onto the tips of her toes. Waiting. Hopeful. Her breathing grows ragged as I trace the seam of her knickers—but I never delve beneath the cotton. It’s the anticipation of what’s to come that heightens the need. The sweet, fucking temptation that pulls me closer to where she wants me most with every pass. She won’t come until I’m buried inside her.
“Please,” she begs, panting, “Damien, please.”
I press a single finger over her center—and find her soaked. A