Bold Beautiful Love -- A Temptation Court Contemporary Romance: Temptation Court: Passion in New York Read Free Page B

higher…
    As Cassian empties himself inside me.
    He hisses through the climax, baring his teeth in the moonlight. Strains his head back on a groan of primal release. Finally lunges back down, shoulders hunching, as he plunges his mouth to mine, soaking up my sobs with his passion, pulling in my sorrow to every inch of his own soul. No doubt in my mind lingers about it, as he drags up with eyes glittering like an animal with a bullet in its side. There is pain there—the kind only possible from a creature familiar with the stuff—but there is also resilience and resistance, born of a resolve to go on. His amazing tenacity.
    The next instant, his features turn tender. He rubs a thumb across my cheek, his stare trailing after the moisture he wicks away. Presses his lips together, to send a hard gulp down his throat. “Thank you, beautiful woman.”
    I cannot contain a watery laugh. “Thank me ? For which part? The first, second, or third time you shot me to the stars.”—I nod out the window—“beyond those?”
    “For taking me with you to them.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “For letting me in. For letting me see all of it. To share it with you.”
    I unravel my hands from the pillow. Reach them both up to his face, exploring the regal angles of his cheekbones, the bold lines of his jaw. Finally, while brushing the sweat-damp hair from his forehead, the chance comes for my own deep gulp. My throat struggles with it, thickened by emotion. “Thank you for not giving up.” Narrowed gaze. Teasing rebuke. “Despite the unorthodox methods.”
    He flashes a smirk rivalling every sultry male cologne ad in Times Square. “It worked, didn’t it?”
    I drub his shoulder. “Revelation by fornication cannot always be our go-to plan.” I emphasize the point by pushing my face against his right hand—and the newly healed gashes there. “Not always the wisest choice, hmm?”
    He sobers then nods. The memories are still fresh for us both, of the night his own emotional exposure became too much, right after nearly screwing my eyeballs out of their sockets. The crashing emotional walls had been his instead of mine, already tenuous because of the past—and its pain—he had revealed to me that night. Releasing himself physically had torn him apart inside, the price eventually paid by the glass door of his master bathroom shower—and the fist he drove through it because of those violent feelings.
    Was that only two weeks ago? It feels like two decades now. We have been through so much. Has it been too much?
    And now, we are flying straight into the heart of more conflict.
    But we are doing it together. Stronger than we ever were. And bound to each other in a newer, more profound way.
    The same conviction glows like fire on emeralds from the depths of Cassian’s eyes. He brushes his thumb upward, tracing the arch of my eyebrow. “I know this trip won’t be easy for you, Ella.” His voice is full of those same quiet flames. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right beside you…through all of it.”
    Just like that, the tears are hotter behind my eyes. I manage to smile through them, nestling my face into his palm. “I know.”
    I am capable of saying little else, unable to find any words capable of communicating so much. My gratitude for him. My love for him. My need for him now more than ever, as the miles close between us and a homeland that has, for the last two months, been an unchanging part of my core being…a constant in my soul, despite so many other things that have changed around me, within me.
    Now I wonder if anything about Arcadia will be the same.
    Petrified about what I shall do if that answer is no .
    A soft but protesting sob escapes. Despite Cassian’s rock-solid solace, I give in to a moment of uncertainty…and fear. Nothing is the same—a truth I always felt myself ready for, until it applied to the constant in my world. Arcadia. Home.
    A home I will no longer recognize, based on the