Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(78)
“I want you, Fionn.” Her tongue sweeps across her lips as her gaze flicks to my mouth. “I need you.”
The air stills around us. Time seems to slow. She’s said words like that before. So have I. But it feels different this time. I raise my hand to her face as I hover over her, sweeping the fringe from her brow. She might have a crazy costume on, a face painted in smears of black and white, but all I see is Rose. Beautiful and bright. Shining through her mask like she was never meant to live behind one. I don’t think she ever has. And for the first time, maybe I know what that freedom tastes like.
“I need you too,” I say, my heart a molten core in my chest when her eyes flutter closed as my caress trails down her cheek. “I think I always have. I just didn’t realize how much until you showed up and changed everything.”
Rose’s eyes open, inky pools in the dim light. They don’t leave mine. She reaches between us and tugs my jeans and briefs down to grasp my length with a firm hand. When I shed my jacket and shirt, she lines me up to her entrance. I watch every subtle change in her expression as I push into her tight heat. Desperation and relief, pleasure and need, hope and secrets. All the things I think we both still want to say but are afraid to put out into the world in case they’re too fragile to thrive in the dark. But they’re still there, blooming in the night.
When I’ve slid all the way to the base of my erection, I pause, leaning closer, savoring the sweetness of her scent and the longing in her eyes. No one has ever looked at me the way she does. And I’ve never wanted anyone like I want Rose. Never admired anyone, never been as enchanted or enthralled by anyone. I’ve never been as awestruck by anyone, this woman who doesn’t just live her life but blazes through it like a comet burning through space, setting fire to the sky. I’ve never wanted to open up the darkest corners of my soul and show them to anyone like I have to Rose.
I’ve never loved anyone like I love Rose.
I close the distance between us and seal my lips to hers. I pull out slowly. Push back in. We pick up a rhythm, slow at first, gentle amid the horror and violence that’s melted into the backdrop like a distant memory. Rose’s fingers trace patterns on my skin, following the ridges of my spine. She hooks a leg across my back and takes my cock deeper. Every gliding stroke is heaven, her heat an embrace that I never want to leave. I break the kiss to press my lips in a line down her neck. Across her collarbone. Down her chest. I pull the cups of her lace bra down and expose her breasts. She gasps when I take her nipple in my mouth and tease it with my tongue. I scrape it with my teeth just hard enough to make her clench tighter around me. Then I soothe the whisper of pain with my tongue.
“I’m not going to last,” she breathes as I piston into her, the rhythm more urgent with every thrust. “I want to come with you.”
I take her delicate wrist and guide it down between us. Her fingers trace the muscle of my chest and the ridges of my abs until I turn her hand down to her clit. “Then you’d better touch yourself. Because I’m about to fucking fill this perfect pussy.”
I seal my mouth to hers and swallow the moan that tumbles free. Rose’s touch circles between us. The current builds at the base of my spine. I feel her channel constrict around my erection. Her muscles tighten beneath my hands, one of them folded around her neck, her pulse a hammer against my palm. Her head tilts back but the kiss never breaks. Not as a desperate scream threatens to burst free between us. Not as my balls tighten and I spill into her, pushing as deep as our bodies will allow. Not as the orgasm rolls through me in waves until my heart threatens to break out of my chest, its furious beats deafening in my ears. Not even when Rose’s muscles start to relax, her body boneless as my strokes gentle until they still. Even then, the kiss lingers. What was desperate becomes sweet. Soft. A tender, wordless conversation in the dark.
When it finally breaks, I stare into Rose’s eyes. Reality starts to creep back in, one piece at a time. The quiet crackle of static on the TV. The scent of the fog machine. The green and blue lights.
The body on the wall.
The things I’ve done.
Rose. I need to get her out of here.
I pull out slowly, not ready to part, to embrace the dread of the unknown when I’ve just felt the first moments of clarity that I’ve been searching for all my life.
“You need to leave,” I whisper.
Rose props herself up on her elbows, searching my face. Her skin glistens in the dim light with every breath, and I want nothing more than to feel her warmth again. “What do you mean?”
“I need to call someone to help with this,” I say with a nod to the wall behind me as I pull my jeans and briefs up.
“We can do it—”
“We can’t, Rose. But I know someone who can help.”
“I can stay. I want to.” A thread of panic weaves its way through her voice when she says, “I don’t want to leave you alone here with this.”
“Rose,” I say, my shoulders falling when she shakes her head. “I can’t. I’m the one who did this, and I’m not going to risk you getting caught up in the aftermath.”
Tears shine in Rose’s eyes as she sits up. “But—”
“Please,” I say, kneeling in front of her. I take her face in my hands. Her lip wobbles with mounting worry and the effort to hold back tears. She tries to shake her head, but I pin her with a serious and steady stare, one that brooks no argument. “I cannot. Risk. You. I will not. Please, Rose. I’m begging you. Just go back to the apartment, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”