in his eyes. It was inevitable, and they both knew it.
And that broke her heart all over again.
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll come back to you, Z,” she said, fiercely. “If I’m forced to leave, I’ll come the fuck back.”
He stroked her hair. “We’ll deal with it when we must.”
He didn’t believe her.
But she would come back. What was to keep her from going back and forth? What was to keep her from taking the cure to the Others, then flying back to her Z?
Not a thing.
Not one damn thing.
Her heart pulsed with happiness. “Z. I’ll come back to you.”
He smiled, finally, his eyes darker green in the stingy moonlight. “You’ll come back.”
Then his face, worn and weary but still the most beautiful human face she’d ever seen, blocked out everything else as he lowered his lips to hers.
He kissed her, his mouth opening over hers, his breath sweet and hot. He drifted lower to kiss her neck, and she glimpsed the tree under which they lay, high and dark, watching over them. The breeze, full of flowery scents and honey and a hint of rain, whispered through the branches.
She was in the arms of her love.
Pure love, true love.
Forever love.
Because of that, Skyll was a perfect place.
She urged him back to her lips, greedy for the taste of him.
He lifted his face, just a little, just enough to speak. His lips tickled hers when he spoke. “If I could go back, I’d be a zombie for you, sweet thing. I’d be your dead to command. I’d be anything just to…”
He put his forehead against hers, unable to continue.
She closed her eyes, for a second. Steeling herself against the regret and the sorrow and the pain, she reached up to cup his cheeks. She looked at him.
“We did exactly what we could do at the time, baby. We can’t afford regrets. It was all we knew how to do. It was who we were.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re together now.”
He turned onto his back and pulled her on top of him. “And that’s pretty fucking amazing.”
He kissed her then, kissed her with all the passion she’d denied him before. Kissed her hard and hot and deeply, as though that kiss might be their last.
It wasn’t safe, but neither of them cared.
They had their moment, and they were taking it.
Z was with her.
Z.
“God,” she moaned. “So good.”
“I can make it better,” he promised, and he did.
There was magic in their mating, and neither of them would have denied it. In her world, if they’d given in—if she’d given in—it would not have been the same.
And she found some consolation in that sudden knowledge.
She devoured him with her stare, her lips, her hands, and refused to let any other thoughts interfere with Z and what he was doing to her, with her.
Every sensation was heightened, every scent more potent, every nerve ending raw and sensitive.
He trailed his fingertips over her skin and gooseflesh erupted. The stubble on his chin rasped across her chest, leaving a burning trail that seemed to spread over her entire body.
His tongue was at once soft and rough as he probed and explored and tasted.
She wrapped her fingers around his erection and his groans were like physical touches, sinking into her brain, her heart, her body.
And when he slid inside her, she could feel every inch of his hardness as he pushed himself in with excruciating slowness.
Once again, she was overcome with something so much more than an orgasm. She felt his seed as he released it inside her, felt it coating her insides, felt it moving throughout her entire body.
Her orgasm had no ending. It went on and on, painful in its forceful pleasure. Wave after wave of something she’d never known and couldn’t comprehend attacked her, ripped her apart, and then put her back together.
And it felt so very fucking good.
No. Not good.
It was everything.
She couldn’t speak, or see.
She could only feel.
When the throbbing, overwhelming orgasms finally eased up and she could speak, the first thing she blurted was, “What have we done?”
She had no idea why.
But she knew.
They’d done something big. Something…
Huge.
Fate was a manipulative bitch, and she and Z were its puppets.
She had no doubt.
She could only hope that whatever they’d done was, for once in her fucking life, something good. Something pure.
And maybe it was.
Exhausted, she fell into a sleep that was as deep and dreamless as death.
When she woke up, Z was standing over her, shaking her shoulder,