Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Did you love him?” The question is a low rumble of sound.
“Someone is going to see you!”
“Did. You. Love. Him?” Xaden lifts his head and pins me with a look that borders on feral. “I have to know. I can handle it. But I have to know.”
“Oh, for Amari’s sake.” I grab the lapels of his flight jacket and yank him into my room, and he flicks his wrist, shutting the door behind him. The loud click tells me he’s locked it, too. “I was with Halden years ago.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that.” His brow knits as he nods. “I picked up on a lot of things he was thinking.”
I blink. “That’s not how your signet—”
“Did you love him?” he repeats.
“Holy shit.” My hands fall from his jacket. “You’re actually jealous.”
“Yes, love, I’m jealous.” He splays his hand over the small of my back and tugs me toward him. “I’m jealous of the armor that holds you when I can’t, the sheets on your bed that caress your skin every night, and the blades that feel your hands. So, when the prince of our realm walks into my classroom and starts talking to the woman I love with what can only be considered intense familiarity, and then has the audacity to ask her out right in front of me, naturally, I’m going to get jealous.” He brings our bodies flush.
“And put him into a wall?” My hands skim the cold skin of his neck to cup his chilled cheeks. He’s been outside for a while.
“I told you I would.” His gaze bores into mine, and my pulse skips. “Back in Aretia, remember? Right after I put you on my throne, spread those beautiful thighs—”
I slip my thumb over his perfect mouth. “I remember.” And so does my body, which is instantly heated.
He nips the pad of my thumb, and my hand falls away. “I told you I’d feel jealous and then I’d kick his ass. I might have turned, but I’m still a man of my word when it comes to you.”
“You’re Xaden Riorson.” I rise up on my toes and press a kiss to his chin. “Shadow wielder.” Another at his jaw. “Duke of Tyrrendor.” My mouth brushes just beneath his earlobe. “Love of my life. You have nothing to be jealous of.”
His hand flexes along my spine, but then he steps back, putting a few feet between us. “Did you love him? Violet, you have to tell me.” The sharp edge of desperation in his voice does me in.
“Not the way I love you,” I admit softly.
He retreats until his ass hits my desk, then stares at the floor. “You loved him.”
“I was eighteen.” I search my memories, trying to think of a better word to describe what I’d felt for Halden, but come up blank. “We were only together about seven months—a little before his Conscription Day until December. I was infatuated and enamored, and at the time, that rush of utter beguilement was what I knew of love. So yes, I loved him.”
He grips the edge of the desk, and his knuckles pale. “Fuck. And he’s going with us. I caught that, too.”
“Yes. And I get it.” I cross the distance between us. “It’s really hard for me to see you anywhere near Cat—”
“I never loved Cat.” Xaden’s head whips up. “Sure, the idea of”—he swallows like he might puke—“Halden putting his hands on you makes me want to put him back into the wall, especially given the fact that he can touch you and I can’t, but knowing he’s been here—” Xaden puts his hand just beneath my collarbone. “Has me considering murder so there’s no chance of him worming his royal ass back in.”
“He can’t touch me.” I lift his hand and press a kiss to the center of his callused palm before putting it back above my heart and holding it there. “This will only ever be yours. You could leave me or even meet Malek, and it still would be. I’ve made my peace with knowing there’s no getting over you.”
He moves faster than I’ve ever seen, and in a blink, his hands are full of my ass and I’m up against his chest. “Stop me if I cross the line.”
That’s the only warning he gives before his mouth is on mine.
He lays claim to every inch of my mouth like it’s the first time, with deft, skillful flicks and plunges of his tongue that devastate me in the best possible way.
The second he surges forward, I can’t bring myself to care why he’s kissing me like tomorrow doesn’t exist. The world tilts, I feel the bed beneath my back, and I only care that he never stops. We can live right here, never taking it a step further as long as he keeps his lips against mine.