The kiss was a kaleidoscope of tastes, weaving us closer together.

“Thank you,” he murmured, kissing my cheekbones and eyelashes. “Thank you so much.”

I struggled to understand as his hands trailed down my belly. “For what?”

His mouth never left my skin. “For trusting me, even when I gave you no reason to do so. For giving me everything, even while I took more than I deserved.”

My eyes remained closed, my body hovering in his masterful spell. My voice was the softest melody. “You can feel that?”

He nodded, his hair tickling my ribcage. “I feel everything when I’m with you, Nila.”

I gasped as he captured my nipple again. His teeth threatened, slicing deliciously around the sensitive skin.

I turned rigid in his arms. More. Bite me. Mark me.

My fingertip tattoos burned with his initials. I wanted more. I’d paid the debts and survived the final one. I wanted the marks to prove it was him who saved me. He who decimated the contracts and war.

“I’m so fucking grateful for you.” His slow smile was pure truth. “So awed you’ve fallen for me.” He worshipped me, submitting to me in the most endearing male way. “You kill me every day because I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

“Stop. You don’t need to—”

He kissed me again. “But I do. I need to make you see it isn’t empty words or shallow promises. It’s the honest to God truth.”

My heart skipped. He’d given me so much, and he didn’t even know.

The mattress cushioned me as his bulk pressed me deeper into the covers. His sculpted arms trembled as he stroked me. His fever still glowed in his skin, and injury slowed his movements, but he never stopped. Never gave any reason not to take me.

For once, I’d like to make love without fear or regret. I wanted to surround ourselves in happiness and pleasure and shut out the world.

I ran my hands over his chest.

He quivered, his muscles hot and tight beneath my touch.

“I need you, Kite.” I pressed my lips into the hollow of his throat. “I need you so much.”

“And you have me. Now and forever.” His voice slipped from gruff to husky. He slid higher over me, dropping his head, his teeth biting my shoulder. Gathering me closer, he aligned our hips, pressing his full length against me.

Being in his arms was divine. A timeless world within a broken one. Untangling my arms from around his, I swept back salt and pepper hair, staring into his eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

He sucked in a breath.

“Beautiful inside and out.”

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to feel worthy of that. To like myself. To be able to live with what I am.”

“You don’t have to live with yourself anymore. You live with me. Let me love you enough for both of us.”

His arms flexed, squeezing me so damn hard. “Fuck, Nila.” Rolling me onto his front with a fluid show of masculine power, he hugged me as if he wanted to shatter every bone in my body. Then, as if the glued contact of our skin and overwhelming tenderness of the moment was too much, he rolled me again, pressing my shoulders onto the mattress.

He hovered over me, eyes heavy with lust, his jaw shadowed with sexy stubble. The attraction between us throbbed to unbearable levels.

We’d lived through more than anyone would in their lifetime. And despite all the wrongs we’d endured, the delicious provocative taste of danger still lurked around us.

Jethro was dangerous. He would always be dangerous—not because of his lineage or wealth but because of what he was. However, he was also the gentlest person I’d ever met, building walls and mechanisms in order to live in a world of overstimulation and noise.

He was also the strongest person I’d ever known. If I dealt with physical imbalances upsetting me daily, I couldn’t image the strength it took to stay true to yourself even when there were so many avenues in which to disappear.

His hands gripped my hips. His mouth parted, pressing against mine. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss, sending me spiralling in his arms. His lips were soft but demanding. His tongue silky but possessing. There was no escape from such control.

I sensed him everywhere, all around me, inside me. His flaws. His triumphs. But most of all his selfless love. He loved me enough to do what he did to his father. Enough to follow me around the world. And enough to put an end to the six-hundred-year-old feud between Weavers and Hawks.

I skated my hands over his taut spine, tracing his hips to grab his cock. The heat of him was still damp from our shower.

“Ask me again. Now that it’s all over.”

Jethro frowned, his pulse thundering. “Ask you—”

Then understanding filled his gaze. He kissed me sultry and sweet. “Nila ‘Threads’ Weaver…will you marry me?”

The intensity in his voice burst my heart.

I nodded. “Yes. A thousand times yes.”

“Everything you feel for me, Nila. It’s so intense. Too intense. I need you to never take that away from me. I don’t think I’d survive if you did.”

“I promise.”

A lazy smile—the first I’d seen in weeks—stole his lips. “I’m going to make you keep that promise.”

The melancholy disappeared as the dawn switched brighter into daylight. “Oh? How so?”

His hand slipped down my body, moving between my legs. “By claiming you every day for the rest of our lives.” His gaze hooded as he stroked my clit with sensuous fingers. Everything about him was wicked and wild and so shamelessly real. “Help me, Nila. Help me show you how much I love you.”