Andreas kisses me long and lingering, looping his arm around my back to hug me to him. Then he nestles his head next to mine while he holds me against him as if he never plans to let me go.
A shaky laugh spills out of him. “That was—that was really something.”
“Yes.” And somehow something in me wants even more. My nerves quiver like there’s still a fire smoldering on deep inside.
Andreas eases back and frowns, touching my collarbone with a tentative finger. “Did you have a bruise here before? I didn’t mean to get rough like that.”
I glance down, unable to see what he’s pointing to, but my gaze catches on his chest. I reach up and brush my finger over the top of his sternum. “You got one too.”
There’s an imprint on his coppery skin, fingerprint-sized and round, but it doesn’t exactly look like a bruise. Or maybe it does, but one formed by the smoky part of our blood rather than the red stuff. Like a dab of shadow risen to the surface of his flesh.
The sense of our beings twining and merging comes back to me with a heady shiver. I glance up at him.
“We got so close we left a mark on each other.”
He studies the spot for a few beats longer before lifting his gaze to meet my eyes. A fond smile crosses his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling with so much affection I automatically smile back.
“I hope that’s what it is,” he says. “I prefer that to the symbol they marked us with.”
I skim my fingers down his side to the tattoo on his thigh that matches mine. His gaze follows their trail and halts on my torso.
He touches a raised ridge of scar that slices across my ribs. Another, shallower but wider, near my belly button. Another, just a thin white line cutting down toward my hip.
His voice comes out taut. “These look pretty new. You got them… from the cage fights?”
I nod, feeling abruptly, weirdly shy. “It was hard to get through them totally unscathed. I did a pretty good job.”
“I’m not criticizing you.” His jaw tightens, his lean muscles flexing against mine. “When we’re finished with this mission, we’re going to track those assholes down and obliterate them from existence in every possible way.”
My stomach gives a little lurch. He has no idea how thoroughly they’ve already been obliterated. But that’s the last thing I want to talk about—even think about—right now.
Instead, I pull him into another kiss. Our lips move together more tenderly than before, but a fresh waft of desire flares between my legs.
Andreas eases back just an inch with a shaky laugh. “It’s amazing, being with you. I feel like… like every part of me is morealive.”
My smile stretches wider, my momentary uneasiness fading away. “Yeah.”
We sit up together, Andreas’s arms wrapped around me, and he kisses my forehead, but a trace of tension returns to his stance.
“I want to just stay here with you,” he says, “but I’ve got to— Jacob and the others have to pull their heads out of their asses and see what idiots they’re being. You haven’t deserved any of this. The bullshit has to endnow.”
Twenty-Eight
Riva
The second Andreas leaves the basement, his borrowed jeans hastily pulled back on and his tight curls still rumpled, the room feels achingly empty.
Sitting on the bed, I rub my arms, but that only rekindles the memory of his hands running over me, his body moving against mine, reminding me of what I’m now missing. I’ve become a live wire, my nerves risen up through my skin so that every sensation is twice as sharp.
My claws are still out; I can’t quite will them to retract. The scent of our shared desire still laces the air, thickly enough that I taste it with every breath.
My blood thrums on through my veins, pulsing with an exhilarated energy I don’t know where to aim.
I touch the spot on my collarbone where Andreas said I was marked. A fresh tingle ripples through my body.
I can sense him—vaguely, but with enough of his flavor that I know it’s him. He’s standing still, high enough above me that he must be on the second floor.
That’s all I can tell, but the knowledge sends a new thrill through me. If we’re separated again, I don’t need to cut myself open to track him now.