Page 64 of The Incendiary

I pulled us deeper and pressed my mouth to hers. Within seconds, our hungry tongues glided against one another, soft, hot, and wet. I kept one hand on the curve of her right hip beneath the surface, though between the water’s buoyancy and how tightly her legs were wrapped around my waist, she didn’t need help clinging to me.

I drank in every needy little moan she gave me.

It was misery and heaven all at once, the way my cock rubbed beneath the swell of her ass each time our bodies shifted. I was starting to give up hiding how badly I wanted her. Wanting her was inevitable. What mattered was if I acted on it, and I wasn’t going to let us move past kissing until I put a ring on her finger. I let out a low, feral noise as my cock begged to sink inside her. And fuck, I could. It would be so easy to slide her panties to the side and feel how wet she was for me.

I dragged my mouth from hers.

“What?” she breathed, her face and neck flushing pink. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Ella,” I chuckled breathlessly. “Sweetheart, you never do anything wrong.”

“Then why do you always pull away?” she rushed out, insecurity plain in her eyes. “When we’re kissing, you pull away. Like you’re afraid.”

I cleared my throat. “Afraid is not the right word.”

“Do you not want me like⁠—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I snapped, a little more harshly than intended. “Believe me, I want you.”

“But?”

Fuck. This didn’t matter. My soul would seek hers in any age, in any time. “But you’re young, you’ve barely been out of that castle, and⁠—”

“You want someone older?”

“No,” I said sternly, bending down to catch her eye. “I want you. I want you so badly that I’m having a difficult time controlling myself, and I need to. I want to be gentle. I want to be what you deserve.”

She searched my eyes. “What do I deserve?”

A ring covered in gemstones. Security in every way. More than a poor blacksmith with an old, rickety loft above an ash-covered forge could give her, but I was too selfish to let that stop me from keeping her.

“You deserve to be cherished,” I told her. “You deserve every single good thing this world has to offer.” I tucked silver-blond hair behind her ear. She leaned into my touch, closing her eyes.

“I just want you to be you.” She gently scraped fingernails across the base of my neck. I had to fight to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head at the sensation. “What would you do if I told you to just be?”

I forced a swallow. That list was thoroughly thought through and never-ending. “Are you sure you want me to answer that?”

She smirked. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

“I would steal you away,” I rasped, voice low. “I would take you somewhere no one could find us. And I would spend every hour of every day and night with the taste of you on my tongue and my cock deep inside you.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Oh,” she squeaked through shallow breaths.

“Yes.” I brushed her soft skin with my thumb. “Oh.”

I watched her throat tense with a swallow. “You sound like you’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Constantly, Ella,” I insisted. “I think of you constantly.”

Her gaze softened with compassion, but she couldn’t fathom my depraved and possessive thoughts. She didn’t know her soft, featherlike touch on my skin made me desperate to feel her come around me as she cried out my name. I wanted to be the only man who ever kissed her, touched her, loved her in every way.

She was innocent, but her soul was wise. She challenged me yet gazed at me like I was the one that placed the moon, stars, and sun in her sky.

I was undeserving of her, which was why her next words had my eyes pricking.

“You’re a good man, Gavin Smyth.”

I cleared my throat. I didn’t fucking cry. Even as a young boy, when I fell or got burned on a spark off hot coals, I bit back the pain and turned it to rage, then funneled that rage into determination, efficiency, and survival. It was all I knew.