courtyard, surprised to find the door unlocked and unguarded, happy to fee the cool night air brush against the sticky sweat on my skin.
It wasn’t the celebration that was bothering me tonight. I’d enjoyed everybody’s happiness, had laughed and felt content to relax in the company of women who were quickly becoming friends.
While standing there, I’d realized my world had changed so drastically, so fast. I felt dizzy from it.
I was no longer the spoiled child given everything except for company. No longer the brat that lashed out with hatred because inside I was dying what felt like a slow, agonizing death.
It was a good feeling to find that, despite everything that happened in my life, an equilibrium had been achieved. Wrongs had been righted and debts repaid.
But still, there was something bothering me, my thoughts constantly drifting back to the fight I witnessed, to the prize that comes at the end.
It sickened me. The shouting. The bloodthirsty expressions of an audience that cared nothing for the destruction of lives, but who happily paid thousands to see those lives brought to an end.
I walked while thinking about it, wrapping my arms around my abdomen and eventually finding myself hidden within the shadows of the central maze.
My mind raced through the events of my present life, but also danced among memories of the past.
Of Callan.
Of my parents.
Of a life lived in a gilded cage.
Unsure if there was anything that could be done about it, I wandered the narrow paths, breathed in the sweet scent of roses, tipped my face to a night full of stars scattered haphazardly across a sky far too large for me to comprehend.
I needed this silence, this solace, this moment when I could take a breath and calm down. And I must have spent at least an hour on my own before the quiet shuffle of dry leaves sounded behind me, a pair of warm arms wrapping around my body before I had the chance to turn around.
“Are you thinking about running again?”
His deep voice was the most tempting of poisons, a sound that coursed through the veins threatening to destroy you while seducing you all the same.
“Only if you promise to chase me.”
Callan smiled against my cheek, his body leaning over mine.
“To the end of the Earth. Just like I always have.”
Entangling my fingers with his, I tilted my neck, shivering against his mouth running along my skin, the feeling exquisitely male, hotly sensual, a whisper of sin that told me he had only one thing on his mind.
Barely able to talk with the promise of sex charging the air, I asked, “And you’ll continue torturing me, won’t you?”
“Every day, each punishment more agonizing than the last.”
My thighs squeezed tight, heat blooming inside me as his hand ran up to take possessive hold of my breast.
I could feel his erection pressing against my back, the threat of his seductive violence, the strength of a body that bore my scars.
Teeth grazing the lobe of my ear, Callan’s fingers pinched the tip of my breast, a shock of pleasure running through me at the taunt.
“What’s on your mind? I know you’re upset.”
He brushed my hair aside, the tip of his nose running up the back of my neck. Breath shuddered out of me, my arms reaching so I could bury my fingers into the midnight silk of his hair.
Callan took full advantage, one hand kneading my breast while the other explored down, a feather touch between my thighs. A tease that made it practically impossible to think, much less talk.
The intimacy of his touch was devastating, the masculine claim, the fierce possession. Fingertips dragged up my thighs to pull my skirt with them, his thumb brushing between my legs with the intent of driving me crazy.
I swallowed the soul-crushing need he always drove through me.
“The fights,” I managed to confess.
A graze of teeth on my shoulder followed by a kiss. “Would you prefer I give them up, become an accountant instead?”
Laughter bubbled up my throat. “Somehow, I think it would kill you to be stuck behind a desk with pencils and a calculator.”
I melted into him when his fingers traced the outline of my panties, surrendering more when a sound of male satisfaction growled in his chest, his voice a whisper, “Yes, it would.”
His fingers dipped down, slid against the wet heat of my arousal. I groaned, needing more, hating the slow torture of his patience.
Steeling my spine against the sensual assault, I said, “It’s not the fights