Lifeblood (Everlife #2)(88)
I wrap my legs around him, clinging to him.
The earth moves—
No, no, it merely shakes, but Killian holds me upright.
“The Buckler is down. We can be seen here,” he says, and kisses me again.
I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to push a series of buttons on his keyboard without breaking our kiss, whisking us both to—
I lift my head, panting as I take note of my new surroundings. A cave. Our cave. The one in the Urals, a few miles from the asylum.
Soon after my escape from Prynne, I had to fight three giant brutes intent on...well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m scrappy, even wily, but at the time, I was also freezing, not to mention weak from starvation and a recent beating. Killian found me and carried me here, where he patched my wounds.
That was the day I learned about his Shell and his status as a Myriadian Laborer.
A moment of panic. Does he know how close we are to Dior? Then I calm. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to be near her to insist I return her to Myriad, and yet he remains focused on me.
A frigid wind whistles outside the cavern walls. Not that it matters with our Shells. He pulls a switchblade from his pocket. Instinct sends me rearing back. He frowns at me and stabs the blade into his left arm.
I suck in a horrified breath. “Stop! You’re hurting yourself!”
“No, I’m disabling my comm.” Beautiful Lifeblood trickles from the wound. “But feel free to kiss me better.”
“How about I kick you worse?”
With a mock growl, Killian stabs the blade into my left arm. I feel—
A slight prickle. “That was anticlimactic.”
He chuckles as he wrestles me to a pallet of soft blankets and pillows. When he pins me, a hank of dark hair falls over his brow.
“No one can see us now,” he says. “I can do whatever I want to you...”
I lick my lips. “Oh, yeah? So what are you going to do?”
“This.” He tickles me, and I burst into laughter.
“You’re a closet romantic,” I say, brushing my fingertips over his jawline.
His eyes are hooded, his lids at half-mast. “For you. Only you.”
Not just pretty words, but beautiful, exquisite. “Never, under any circumstances, hurt yourself for me.”
He gives another mock growl. “I’ll do what I want, when I want. You’re not the boss of me.”
I snort. “How long have you been planning to tell me that?”
“Weeks.”
Now I smile at him. “Have you been planning this little getaway just as long?”
“Longer.”
Ann-nn-nnd I fall even deeper in love with him. Just like that.
“It’s one of the reasons I had to enlist Sloan’s help,” he adds. “I kept disabling my comm and needed a believable excuse.”
Butterflies take flight in my stomach. “So she knows everything you’re doing for me, and you seriously, without any doubts, trust her?”
“I do.”
Still. My earlier nervousness returns. To place our future in the hands of my murderer... “Killian...”
“No. No more talk about Sloan. I want to talk about us...about you. You undo me, Ten.” A raw admission, his voice low and husky. “You fight for what you believe in with unmatched passion. You fight for the people you believe in. You even fight to help and save your enemy. I’ve never met anyone like you, with a heart big enough to love a boy who has done such vile things.”
Tears well. “We are not our pasts.”
“See.” He nips at my lips, and pleasure zings through me. “Big heart.”
We kiss again, and it isn’t long before I’m caught up, swept away, and he is the only life raft. When his hand slips under my shirt to tease me, I writhe against him, already hungry for more. Every caress ignites desire for another. He knows just how to touch me, just how to stroke and knead to drive me to a fever pitch, plying the Shell with maximum sensation.
Even though our realms could get a lock on us at any time—maybe? possibly?—I can’t keep my hands off him. I learn him. Every ridge of muscle in his Shell. Every inch of silken skin. Every masculine nuance that makes him different from me.
But I wish I could feel him. The real Killian.
He groans when I do something he likes, and he moans when I do something he really likes. At the same time, he makes me groan and moan. He knows my body in ways I never have. He knows where I’m sensitive, and where I ache most.
He’s panting as he lifts his head and meets my gaze. Shadows and light flicker over his features; finally the dark captures the corners of his mouth. A mouth pulled taut with strain.
“All right, lass. We need to stop.”
Noooo! Gimme! We need to continue.
My fingers comb through his soft, soft hair before settling on his jaw. So strong, with prickly stubble that tickles my skin. I’m trembling. “You’re...right.” I don’t know where I find the strength to halt our interlude. “I don’t want our first time to be with Shells.”
More than that, I want to give him a reason to live.
His eyes glitter down at me. “And I don’t want to go further until our futures are decided.”
Do I dare hope? “You mean until you’ve officially defected?” To survive, he needs to defect.