He took my breath away with how damn beautiful he was, especially when he was looking at me like that. Without pain in his eyes or shame or worry. Just Hawke and the evidence of what we’d done to each other.
“If you’re not tired,” he said, arching a dark brow at me as I moved over him on all fours, ensuring no parts of our bodies touched as I studied him. “Then I haven’t done a good enough job.”
I flashed him an incredulous look. “Maybe I’m just stronger than you think,” I said, trailing the tip of my finger over a six-inch scar along his left thigh.
“I might be the only vampire alive who knows how deep your power runs,” he countered, and I shrugged.
That was likely true, but he’d also held back with me tonight. I’d felt it, even when he’d let himself slip a little, he still hadn’t fully unleashed himself. Something I intended to correct before my two weeks were up.
I clenched my eyes shut, letting that thought blow away on a Hawke-scented breeze. In here, with him, I wouldn’t allow anything else to touch me—even traitorous thoughts about how this wasn’t our forever.
“You got this when doling out justice to the rogue demon who tried to slaughter a pack of werewolves thirty years ago,” I said, running my fingers over that scar on his thigh, then planting a kiss over it.
The muscle beneath tensed, and I flicked my eyes up to his.
“Yes,” he said, his brows drawn together.
I moved lower, running my fingertips over a scar comprised of puncture wounds. “This one is from the wolf in the 1930s. The one who had a taste for human flesh.” I trailed the tip of my tongue along that scar, relishing the groan from his chest. I moved to the other leg, taking my time as I worked my way up to his hip. “This one is from a decade ago–from the blade of a rogue witch.” I flicked my tongue along the scar, my eyes cast up to him.
“She’d poisoned it too,” he said, his voice strained with hunger.
I kissed that spot again for good measure, then looked over his abdomen. The male was glorious, tons of beautifully scarred skin over even more muscle. The body of a true assassin, and the sight of him fully bare to me like this, his submission to let me touch his scars, made my soul ache.
“This one,” I said, kissing the almost star-shaped scar. “Was the reason Alek mandated wearing vests on missions.”
“Bullets were a new thing.”
I continued kissing his scars and reciting his history, savoring every confirmation he gave me. I finally worked my way up to his face, and it was more vulnerable than I’d ever seen it before. Hawke was a vampire with hard, jagged edges, but the way he looked at me now? It wasn’t soft by any means, but…disarmed. That’s what he was for me.
“You kept your scars,” I said, shifting on top of him so that a knee was on either side of his hips. “When you could’ve asked Gabriel to take them away.” His own healing abilities would’ve been enough to eliminate most of the scarring, but our royal doctor would have easily been able to remove them entirely. “Why?”
Hawke shifted beneath me, scooting up on the bed until he leaned against the headboard, his arms wrapping around my lower back as he held me close. “Every scar is a reminder I’m alive, and the creature who tried to kill me isn’t.”
I grinned at him, my body trembling as I settled against him like this. There was nothing separating us, and I could feel every hard inch of him beneath me.
He studied my face, searching for something as he slid one hand in my hair. “How do you know all my stories?”
I leaned into his touch. “Being a princess isn’t all ballgowns and beauty pageants,” I said, rising up on my knees just enough to give my hand access to his cock. I wrapped my fingers around the massive length, squeezing it tight, just like he taught me. His hips rocked upward into my grip, a growl on his lips. “I have access to all the Onyx Assassin reports.” I pumped him in long, languid strokes, leaning down to hover my mouth above his lips. “I’d read your stories and imagine I was there, fighting by your side.”
Hawke shuddered beneath me, his grip tightening in my hair. I gasped at the sweet sting as he drew me closer. “Sounds like I’ve got a little stalker on my hands,” he growled, a devious smirk shaping his lips.
My fangs snapped out as I grinned back at him, pumping him hard in my hand. “Isn’t it funny how thin the line is between stalkers and mates?”
A rough laugh ripped from Hawke’s lips, and it stilled my hand, took my damn breath away. I’d never heard him laugh like that—so raw and unhindered and real.