The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2) - Gena Showalter Page 0,138

look he gave me...my heart thundered. He rolled to his back and anchored his hands behind his head. “Study me as long as you wish, Asha. When you finish, I’m going to give you the everything you asked for.”

Study him at my leisure? The best gift of all.

I sat up, resting on my haunches between his legs. His knees were bent, caging me in. Light seeped through the wooden slats that made up the walls, illuminating every amazing inch of him. Like, a lot of inches. So many. Now nervousness kicked in. No wonder the first time was supposed to hurt.

I forced myself to look away from it, cataloging the rest of him. Muscles galore. Skin dark and smooth. Scars, a testament to his strength. The piercing in one nipple. Tattoos graced his lower abdomen and legs, each one a rose. His own version of the ring? And his wings...those beautiful blue wings. I slid my fingers through the baby-soft down, and he moaned.

Perhaps I was his peace...and his pleasure.

After repositioning, I leaned down to kiss the rose etched on his left thigh, then lifted to kiss the one on his lower abdomen. He groaned, his muscles jerking beneath my lips.

Emboldened, I ran my hands over his chest...his thighs...his calves. Muscles continued to jerk. So sensitive. All my aches and tingles grew in intensity, slowly taking me over.

“You are beautiful, Sax. And powerful. And...perfect.”

“I’m not perfect.” His voice...passion-rough. “Far from it.”

“You are perfect—for me.” I returned my hands to his chest and flicked my finger over the metal bar stabbing through his nipple. A shaft of heat shot straight to my core. Too hot. Not hot enough. I needed...something. “S-Saxon?”

He understood. He rolled me to my back, hovering over me. Then...ohhhhh. The things he did to me.

He kissed his way down my body, his mouth hotter than the forge outside. He touched every inch of me, no spot taboo. He slid two of his fingers inside me. I moaned and I writhed, desperate for more and unable to stay still. The wicked things he did with those fingers...the sensations he elicited...rapture, ecstasy. My head fogged, my body hurtling toward some kind of finish line.

Pressure was building...building...my breaths coming faster and far more shallow. My thoughts fragmented, every thought a command. Want. More. Now.

“I think you’re ready for me, Asha.” He growled the words. He positioned himself directly over me, with my legs bracketed outside his hips.

“Please,” I begged. More. Now. I thrashed my head. I groaned. The pressure needed to splinter. Please, please, please.

Now!

“Going to make it all better, love.” He entered me slowly, and it hurt, just as my mother had claimed, but it also felt right. As if we’d waited for this moment our entire lives. As if we were building something strong—unbreakable. Once I’d adjusted to the sensation of being filled, he began to move, as slow as before, arching forward...drawing back. Forward. Back.

He held my gaze, as he liked to do. Forward. Back. Still so agonizingly, blissfully slow. For...ward. He draped one of his arms over my head, caging me in fully. I breathed his breaths. He breathed mine. The moment, the man, both were just right, utterly perfect, and it was then that I admitted I’d been madly in love with Saxon Skylair forever, but never more so than now.

* * *

We cuddled for hours. Saxon toyed with my hair, and I drew hearts on his chest. Every time I completed a new one, he smiled, and oh, it was a good look for him.

I know Saxon wanted me to wait and trust him, but I was starting to feel guilty. I wanted him to know the truth. And the fact that I did trust him made it so much easier for me to blurt out, “I’m not Leonora’s reincarnate. I’m my own reincarnate who’s possessed by her spirit. She’s a phantom, not a witch, and she’s able to jump from body to body, undying. That’s what I wanted to tell you before.”

He kept playing with a lock of my hair. “I know.”

“You know?”

“I figured it out.”

And he truly hadn’t cared. He hadn’t turned on me. “She’s possessed me all three lives. This time, she took up residence inside me the day of my birth.”

“How did she find you after the first life?”

“Magic, maybe. Instinct? The only reason she didn’t overtake me completely this time was because of my mother. Momma knew what Leonora was and took measures against her, paying a warlock for a