Page 89 of The Forsaken

Biting the inside of her lower lip to keep back the smile she knew he would hate and become defensive about, Andromena pushed back that curl.

“All this to say, Andromena. Loyalty and friendship Culross has driven my every action and decision. It’s why I…”

“Abducted me?” she drawled.

Adorable color suffused his cheeks. “I won’t bother to point out again that no abduction actually occurred.”

How unfortunate.

“That day I acted for Culross.” Passion blazed in his eyes. “If I were an honorable man, I would tell you I regret it. I would tell you I would have chosen differently. But I am not a better man, and I would do it all again, because it brought me to you.” He caught her wrist and drew it to his mouth, his lips brushing the sensitive inseam as he held her gaze.

She shivered; her body stirred as it always was by even his slightest touch.

It was why she was slow to register what he said…

“You are all I want, Andromena,” he placed another kiss. “I will consecrate myself to you. Your happiness. Your every wish.”

Her breath caught. She waited. Waited for the three words she craved with her soul.

“You are my captain. My queen.” With each word, he glided a path of them along her forearm. Until he at last reached her lips. “I love you,” he whispered.

At long last, everything she had dreamed and believed impossible. I love you.

Edgar fell to the floor.

She gasped.

No. He knelt before her. “You have fixed me. Healed me. You who never even raised an eyebrow at my parentage. That I might be tainted. You gave me reason to hope and believe and dream—to put my ghosts to rest. Now, I beg you, give me your forever. Together, we will slay every dragon.”

We will slay every dragon

We. She and Edgar together.

And the squeeze about her lungs; the vise that had held her in a punishing grip, eased, and lightened, and was no more.

“What say you, love?”

“Yes!” A sob left her. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she caught it too late.

A sheen glazed Edgar’s eyes. “I’ll allow you only the one,” he said thickly.

But tenderness failed them both.

Andromena and Edgar met mouths with a violence borne of their denial—of one another, of this moment, of how long they had fought what stood between them. He tightened his hold at her nape, angling her the way he wanted her, deepening his plundering.

She opened her mouth and welcomed him inside.

They surged as one.

“God, Andromena, you are all I never knew I wanted, what I needed,” he rasped against her mouth.

With the kitchen around them, the sounds of their breathing and the restless shift of their bodies filled the space.

Edgar drew her farther from the doorway. As they passed through the doorway and into the adjoining hall, his mouth never left hers.

As they went, they frantically shed garments.

They tossed their gloves first.