Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

“And if I wasn’t important to you, you wouldn’t have tried it.”

We stood there, looking at each other, for a long moment.

“What’s the takeaway?” Pritkin finally asked. “I want you safe; you want me safe. Yet we both have jobs to do.”

“You just quit yours.”

I got a half smile that time. “Perhaps. Or perhaps they’ll come back in a week or two, telling me that I can keep my rank and stay at court, as long as I do whatever insane thing they need at the time.”

“And will you?”

“No.” It was stark. “I meant what I said. You’re my priority. But I am coming back to court to help you, not to stay behind whilst you put yourself in danger.”

I stared at him, because going into danger with Pritkin scared me more than going alone. A lot more. I’d missed him—so damned much—this past month, but I’d also been fiercely glad that I didn’t have to worry about him.

That trip the damned demon council had forced me on, chasing after his soul, had fucked me up to the point that I almost preferred handling things on my own. Knowing that he was back here, probably hip deep in paperwork, had been a comfort. I didn’t want to lose that.

But I was going to have to, wasn’t I?

“I’m afraid,” I confessed, and bit my lip. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“Then don’t lose me.”

I laughed a little at that; I couldn’t help it. “You’re a hard man to keep up with!”

“And you’re a hard woman to love. But here we are.”

“But here we are,” I whispered.

And then I said to hell with it and threw myself into his arms.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

His lips were cold, like his cheeks, and wet with melting snow. But his mouth was warm, honey sweet and spicy, with an overlay of bitterness from the coffee. It suited him, I thought, thinking about the complex, mercurial, often contradictory man I knew. One whose passionate nature was concealed by a gruff, no nonsense exterior that few ever saw beneath.

But once you cracked that shell, a completely different person lived inside. One whose hands came up to frame my face, stroking my cheeks gently with his thumbs, before pulling me close and kissing me back. For a moment, his lips moved softly against my skin, and his tongue twined warm and silky around mine. And then something flared between us, and golden warmth spread throughout my body, banishing the cold.

I made a sound low in my throat, half sob, half desire, and the kiss went from sweet to fiery in an instant. And then explosive, like a match thrown onto gasoline. It swept us back down the stairs, along the path and into the room below. Snow scattered, clothes went flying, and somebody squealed—pretty sure that was me—before naked skin dove under the mound of blankets.

“You need rest,” Pritkin told me, looking conflicted, when I jerked his shirt open.

“I need you.”

He swore, which was not the response I’d been expecting. But then his mouth came down on mine, and I forgot everything else. I forgot my name, because a kiss from an incubus who isn’t holding back is almost literally mind blowing.

And he wasn’t holding back. I’d almost gotten used to that: passionate, but careful lovemaking, as if he was afraid to cut loose and be who and what he was. Which was probably the case, frankly.

I’d always known that Pritkin hated his demon half; that he’d repressed and starved it for years had come as more of a shock. From what little he’d said, I’d gathered that he worried about it taking over, and changing him if he used its power. As a result, our intimate moments had been of the distinctly human variety.

Until now.

I don’t know what prompted the difference. Maybe the same emotion that trembled my hands and caused my kiss to be clumsier than normal, because I didn’t know what I wanted to touch first. It felt like the first time, all over again, only more so, as if we were finally being honest with each other in some fundamental way that we never had before. Two guarded, mentally messed up people who had long ago learned to hide their hearts away, finally daring to trust.

And it changed everything.

The silver moonlight flooding the room suddenly felt like a silken caress. A lantern on a small table sent golden motes of light floating into the air, swirling and dancing around the bed. And when he jerked up another blanket, they scattered like fireflies, disturbed by the air currents.

I laughed, forgetting everything else in the wonder of the moment. I’d seen something similar in Wales, the only other time Pritkin had used his incubus abilities, which had turned an ugly, terrifying battlefield into a magical fairyland. It turned out to be even more powerful when I didn’t have the god of war bearing down on me.