Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(65)

He yanked her arms down, kept her wrists clamped in his hand. And moved ruthlessly down her body. She cried out when he used his tongue. Arched and writhed and cried out again when he didn’t relent.

But the word she cried wasn’t no.

It was yes.

She knew what it was to burn. Knew what it was to give in to needs, however feral. But this, now, spurred her beyond the known. He shoved her over the edge only to whip her onto another. And again until her lungs seared and her heart beat to bursting.

When he released her hands so he could use his own on her, to press and grip and plunder, hers could only grip the sheets and let what he did rage through her.

Everywhere, everywhere those rough hands moved shuddered, as if her nerves lived over her skin now.

When he jerked her up, her head fell back. Her body quivered, every inch, at the threat of more. At the welcoming of it.

“No, no, you’ll look. You’ll open your eyes and look at the one who takes you as you’re meant to be taken. Look at me, damn you, look at the one who knows what lives in you.”

She opened her eyes, looked into his, so fiercely green they were nearly blinding. But in them she saw that need and that knowledge. For her, of her.

She gripped his hips. “I see you.”

Half mad, he thrust into her. He plundered her as his blood burned and his heart leaped where it had no business falling. Because he saw her, he knew her, and she him.

And so he feared both of them were damned.

Taken over, she thought when they’d both gone limp as wax. That one step she’d never allowed with another, she’d allowed him. To take her over—body, mind, and all she was.

Once that step was taken, how did she go back?

How could she go back?

When he rolled away, to lie on his back beside her, her instinct was to curl in. But she quashed it, stayed as she was.

Keep it light, she warned herself. She knew how to address facts and keep it light.

“Maybe I’ll keep that shirt. It obviously works on me.”

“You can have what’s left of it.”

Puzzled, she looked down, noted the torn remains of it at the foot of the bed. “We keep this up, we’ll both be walking around mostly naked.”

He rolled, grabbed the bottle of water from her nightstand, drank half of it down. Almost as an afterthought, he offered her the rest. “I’ve marked you.”

She took stock. Bruises on her wrists, a couple more here and there. “Nothing much.”

But he got up and brought her jar of balm back to the bed.

“You pissed me off,” he said, even as he stroked the balm onto the bruises.

“Bitch at me all you want because nothing’s going to reach the level of Sasha’s stern disapproval.” Now Riley hissed out a breath. “It flattened me. We should’ve told somebody what we were doing, where we were going. Sawyer wanted to get the makings of an engagement ring for Anni, and—”

“I figured that out on my own, though I figured you’d gone for a ring altogether. Doesn’t excuse it.”

“Message received, loud and clear. It was a slap to the whole unity thing, and thoughtless. Even with that, all of this . . . old habits. I’m sorry. Best I can do is I’m sorry.”

Because she still felt just a little fragile, she got out of bed, pulled on his torn shirt. “I’m going to— Wait. You said you figured out why we went. Has Anni?”

“She might have, as she’s no idiot, but I steered her in another direction. I suggested the two of you’d gone so he could find her a new dress, maybe some earrings. A present.”

“Good thinking.”

“It mollified her, as did the half a torturous hour she spent in the little shop that sells various trinkets.”

“I’d say I owe you for that, but considering recent activities, I claim paid in full. I’m going to grab a shower, then head down to finish the amends by helping with something domestic.”

When he made no move to join her, she went into the bathroom, closed the door.

Closed her eyes.

He’d shaken everything inside her, she realized. Shaken it, tossed it in the air so it fell back in an order she didn’t understand.

She’d figure it out, she assured herself. Whatever the puzzle, the problem, the code, she figured it out eventually.

She took off the shirt, realized it smelled of both of them, a mix of them. A blend.

And folding it onto the counter, she felt ridiculous because she knew she had no intention of tossing it away.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




After days of quiet, the routine of training and diving, Doyle calculated it was time, past time, to mix things up. He tracked Bran down in the tower, stood a moment watching as his friend wrote in the thick spell book.

It wasn’t all whirlwinds and calling the lightning, he thought. Some of magick was—well—toil and trouble, and more was, apparently, as pedestrian as pen and paper.

Bran set the pen down, studied what he’d written. Then he laid his hand on the page. Light flashed, held. Dissolved.

And a great deal, Doyle considered, was sheer and stunning power.

“Got a minute?” he asked when Bran glanced over.

“I do now. Things must be written down and the magicks sealed. For ourselves, and for those who come after.”