as before, it shattered, but this time the feel of my muscles rippling around him was even more exquisite. My lower body shuddered against his drives and then Wolfe suddenly froze above me. He threw back his head and yelled his pleasure as his hips juddered against mine. He throbbed inside me, pulsing and pulsing as he found his release.
“Fuck,” he panted, collapsing over me, one elbow braced to keep from crushing me. He nuzzled my neck as his other hand caressed my body, my breasts, my waist, my hips. He ground into me as if he didn’t want to lose our connection.
Lifting his head from my throat, our eyes locked.
I felt known. I felt known and loved down to my very soul.
Chapter 30
I never knew I could feel this close and connected to anyone.
We lay together after our lovemaking, his arm around me, my head on his chest. His heart thumped under my ear, not quite steady.
Despite my willingness to abandon myself to Wolfe’s loving, reality crept in quickly. My plan had never been to marry. If I were honest with myself, it was because I was afraid to care about too many people. The more people you loved, the more chances you had to lose one of them.
I didn’t want to love someone as much as I loved Wolfe and have to deal with the pain of losing him. Or worse, have children live with the daily fear of losing them too.
I’d wanted desire, passion, but not love.
Yet I loved Wolfe.
I could no longer use his parentage as an excuse to keep him at bay. L, in all her pragmatism, had knocked that wall down so I couldn’t hide behind it anymore. But I had other reasons not to be with Wolfe. I did! This bond with him would mean abandoning Haydyn to become a wife.
Not only did Haydyn need me but, as much as I loved Wolfe, I couldn’t imagine giving up my freedom to become a society wife. Haydyn and I had years of work ahead of us to reform Phaedra, work that would not be seen as appropriate for the wife of a vikomt. Work that only the Handmaiden of Phaedra would be allowed to do.
It wasn’t just a choice between Wolfe and Haydyn.
It was bigger than that.
It was a choice between Wolfe and the person I wanted to be.
What he and I had was wonderful now, but in a year’s time, I knew myself well enough to know I’d come to resent the cage of marriage.
Perhaps I could have Wolfe for a little while. Without marriage. An affair. We could be happy with that … I tried to convince myself.
For now, as we lay entangled, I didn’t voice any of my concerns, knowing those words would break this beautiful spell we were under.
Goose bumps spreading up my arm in the wake of his fingertips stroking my skin. “This is nice,” I whispered.
“Mmm,” Wolfe murmured and pressed a kiss to my temple.
I snuggled deeper against him.
“Thank you for coming after me into the mountains, Wolfe. I should have said that before.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So … you have psychic abilities now?”
He chuckled. “How long have you been waiting to pester me with questions about that?”
“Since the night at the Mosses’.”
“I didn’t say anything about it because I don’t want people to fear me.”
“Because you’re this astonishingly inconceivable, all-powerful mage?”
“Yes.”
I snickered and shook my head. “No one would be afraid of you, Wolfe. You’re too kind to people for them to fear you.”
“I can be fearsome if I want to be.”
I hid my smile. “I know.”
“I can be plenty fearsome.”
“Oh, I know.”
“I can—”
Afraid he’d want to prove how fearsome he could be, I cut him off. “You know, I’ve discovered something interesting on this quest of ours.”
Wolfe grunted at having been interrupted. “What’s that?”
I drew away from him to lean up on my elbow. I stared down into his handsome face. “Mage, Wolfe. Quite a few of them.”
Wolfe frowned. “Well, there have been some …”
I shook my head impatiently. “For a world in which the mages are apparently dying out, I find it strange to have come across over a handful of them since leaving Silvera. I mean, it seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“Meaning?”
“That mages are out there.” I gestured beyond the walls of the bedroom. “Lots of them. I’d bet Haydyn’s Somna plant on that.”
“Perhaps you’re right. If so, then …”
I sighed. “It has to be taken into consideration with everything else.”
“Everything else?”
Lying back down in