I was moving for her. She had known. All along, she had known.
I pulled her into my embrace, and she drew tighter against me. She had been waiting for this, since I had found her mark, she had accepted it. Her arms around my shoulders, I pressed my lips hard against hers, regaining all of those moments I’d denied myself the touch, and she melted into me, her breath a soft moan of relief. The kiss was deep, fire and passion and unpinned desire. My hands slid lower down her back, squeezing her to me, and she slid her legs over mine. She smelled of sweet pea and strawberries, and something all her own.
Her head tilted back as she tried to catch her breath and I trailed kisses down the line of her neck, stopping just above her chest, at the tiny divot centering her collarbone, to collect myself. She was mine, she was in my arms, and she was mine.
My hand slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, finding the heat of her lower back as my mouth skimmed over her throat on its return to hers. The kiss became gentle, teasing, and soft. My hand slid over the length of her thigh, and then up, touching the skin between her open collar, the pulse hammering at the base of her neck, and into the caramel waves of her hair. Her eyes came open, hazy and gratified, and the soft, deep green of the sea. Our lips drew apart and we simply watched one another, both of us knowing we could stare into these eyes forever, and then it happened. And it was a coming home.
It was peace, settling deep within my chest, a feeling of rightness. It made me whole, and it threatened to tear me apart. A longing so intense it was painful tore at me, and I knew I would never get enough of her. I could never leave her. It would always be Emily.
Emily.
I realized I’d spoken then, murmured her name, and she gasped.
“Did you feel that?” she whispered.
We sat pressed together, face to face, but it was as if our souls were suddenly seamed, bound so tightly as to be one.
“It’s the bond,” I said.
She stared at me in stunned astonishment. “It’s like, like my insides are tied.”
I automatically gave her space. “Is that what it feels like to you?”
I could hear the worry in my tone, and I realized I’d been afraid of what it would be for her. None of the elders had known how the bond would affect the chosen, what it would do to one without our power.
Panic slammed into me. What if it has enslaved her? Like the sway.
She blinked, searching my face. “No, it’s like… Like lacing up a good pair of running shoes—”
The fear waned at her denial, but when her words sank in, the short-lived determination to hold my expression faltered.
“… that feeling, when you have them good and snug,” she said, her gesturing hand falling to rest over my heart. “That security.”
My chest eased. I felt a tug at the corner of my mouth. I cleared my throat. “Did you just compare our bond to running shoes?”
She stared at me a moment, searching for a better comparison for something so indescribable. Her brow curved speculatively. “A five-point racing harness?”
I laughed, and then pulled her closer. The words felt right in the old tongue, and I knew she would understand them. Loosely translated, the sentiment was something like, “love’s embrace,” as I spoke them low, to the only woman who would ever hear them again.
Her skin flushed and she repeated them back before leaning forward, suddenly desperate for another kiss.
Chapter Twenty-five
Strategy
We lay together, my thumb pressed into the crook of her elbow, fingers wrapped around her skin, while my lips traced feather-light kisses down the line of her jaw.
“Aern,” she whispered, trying to bring my attention to the insistent knock at the door.
I released her arm and slid my hand lower, to the bend of her knee, drawing it firmly over my hip. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, pressing slow kisses to the delicate skin below her ear. “Nothing else matters.”
She sighed, but it was the wrong kind of sigh. She pressed a hand against my chest to look at me, a grimace forming on her perfect lips. “I’m afraid it does matter,” she said.
I waited, fighting the urge to continue my explorations.
“It’s Morgan,” she said.
I cleared my throat. That was a mood-killer. “What do you