Page 54 of The Incendiary

No one was going to keep me from her.

“You’re filthy.” She wiped ash off my cheek with her thumb. “And sweaty.” But she pressed her soft lips to mine, not seeming to care. I longed to deepen the kiss, but she was right. Groaning, I pulled away.

“I suppose I could use a bath.” I studied the seventeen freckles cresting over the bridge of her nose. A distraction from the way her loving touch sent blood to my groin. I couldn’t let myself carry her straight into the bath with me.

She unwound her arms from around my neck. “Okay. I’ll wait here.”

But I, the clingy motherfucker that I was, decided I wasn’t ready to leave whatever room she was in. Instead, I locked my hands together behind the small of her back and nodded at the large bag she’d dropped. “What is that you carried all the way here?”

She smiled and brushed her light fingers over my chest. “Did you think I wouldn’t bring you something for your birthday?”

“I wouldn’t have cared if you hadn’t.” I cared more about how she felt pressed against me. And how it would feel to have her fingers in my hair while my tongue was between her legs.

“Well, I did. Let me show you.” She reached behind her back, and I begrudgingly let her escape from my hold. She blew out a heavy breath when starting to lift the bag.

I lunged to help her. “Let me⁠—”

“I’m stronger than I look,” she insisted, despite her clear exhaustion. I watched as she strained to lift it, but doing so seemed important to her. There wasn’t much in her life she’d been allowed, and she was stronger than she looked in more ways than one.

She managed to hoist the bag onto the table and began to remove items. My mouth fell open as she laid each on the wooden table next to my forge. An entire new set of blacksmithing tongs, far nicer than Isaac’s fifteen-year-old pair, which I still used. And five new steel hammers, all with different heads.

“I found this book on blacksmithing in our library.” She withdrew a thick tome cased in worn black leather from the bottom of the bag. “Not that you need it. You know what you’re doing, but I thought you might like it. I doubt anyone up there will miss it.”

It was the most thoughtful gift I had ever been given. The cost of it all had to be quite a lot.

“Ella, this is too much. I can’t⁠—”

“You can.” She lifted on her toes and pressed her soft, full lips to my jaw. “It’s not too much, not for you. Besides, I don’t have many people in my life to give gifts to, so if you don’t accept it, I might cry.”

Chuckling, I returned a gentle kiss to her adorably scrunched up nose. She rested her palm on the side of my chin and caressed my scruff with her fingers.

“Thank you, Aryella,” I said softly, even though thank you didn’t feel like enough. It was insecurity I rarely let myself feel. I was too stubborn to let it keep me from her, but sometimes the truth was hard to ignore. “You know I can’t… afford nice things⁠—”

“All I’ve ever had are nice things.” She looked up at me with an adoring smile. “Nice things don’t make me feel alive. Warm. Safe. Free.” She kissed the bare skin of my chest, despite the sweat and ash. “But you do.”

Gods, there was so much love inside her. Like honey fresh off the comb in late summer. So sweet that your body can barely take it, and yet, you can never get enough. She raked her fingernails along the nape of my neck in a way that made my body excited for things she wasn’t ready to give me.

I marveled at how she found aches hidden inside the tiniest crevices of my being and soothed each one. Her touch was the remedy to every depressing and infuriating thought. Before her, a woman’s touch had been a means to an end, but now? Hers was a necessity; I needed it like I needed air to survive. I hadn’t realized how hollow my life had become until she blazed in and filled it to the brim with love and light.

“Well, who am I to deny you that?” I palmed her cheek and brushed my thumb reverently over the arch of her brow. “Gods, you’re perfect.”

She hummed a sweet little laugh, then wrapped her arms back around me, despite the oppressive heat exacerbated by my forge. “I’m far from perfect, but I could get used to hearing you say otherwise.”

She pressed a soft kiss to my jaw, and I took her bottom lip between my own. The sound of her surrendering sigh demolished my restraint. Possession and hunger coursed through me. I turned us both, lifted her onto an empty table, and crushed my mouth to hers.

I would happily chase her whimpering sounds forever. Our mouths moved together in perfect synchronization, like we were made for each other. I darted my tongue out to trace her bottom lip, and she responded with a swipe of her own tongue against mine. I dug my right hand into the table with enough force to give myself splinters.

I was thoroughly convinced that nothing and no one in the history of humankind had ever felt or tasted as divine as Aryella Jay Whitlock. Nothing and no one ever would.

“Ella,” I breathed, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other on her thigh. Her fingers on my bare skin were intoxicating. So soft and light, but bold and exploring, sending lightning straight to my groin until all I could think about was her wrapped safely around me while I thrust into her. Heat gathered at the base of my spine.

“Shit!” I pulled my mouth from hers and planted my hands beside her legs. I dropped my forehead to her shoulder. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to blow in my pants.

“Gavin?” One of her hands shot straight to my cheek, the other over my collarbone. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” My voice was strained, and my eyes were closed. I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed her dainty knuckles, reminding myself where we were. Who we were.

“What’s wrong?”