The Return

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  I’m saying that, but there’re other firsts I want from you. Other things that I want as mine before we move to that.”

  “But—”

  “That’s what I want,” he told me as he shifted, sliding his hand down my stomach, between my thighs. “This is what I want.” His hand folded over me, and my hips rose. “And there are a lot of ways I want it. A lot of ways I’m going to make it mine.”

  Oh geez.

  He slipped a finger through the wetness and then inside me. My entire body tensed, and as he began to move his finger slowly, he watched me. “That’s one of the ways.”

  “Seth.”

  His eyes flared bright and he did something with his hand that caused my head to kick back and my breath to come out in short, quick pants. “You’re so beautiful like this,” he said, twisting so that his gaze dragged down the length of me, to where his hand was. “You have no idea.”

  My hips were moving in rhythm to his hand, and the sounds that were coming out of my mouth would probably embarrass me later, but right then, I couldn’t care less. I threaded my other hand through his hair.

  “There’s another first I want.”

  The smile that appeared on his face was nothing short of sinful. I caught a glimpse of it before he kissed me deeply and then worked his way down, lingering in some areas more than others. He kissed a path around my belly button and then slipped his tongue in, and by then my hips were grinding against his hand. I was so close that, when he pulled his hand away, I cried out.

  And then he kissed me where his hand had been.

  “Seth,” I hissed, my fingers tightening in his hair. “I…I’ve never done this either.”

  “Figured that, Josie.”

  “But, seriously, I haven’t—”

  “I know. And it’s all mine,” he said. “Relax.”

  I couldn’t relax for a thousand reasons. He was between my legs, his breath warm against my thigh as he blazed a path to my center. When his mouth closed over me, heat flooded my veins and he made a sound that reminded me of a man starved.

  “So fucking sweet,” he said.

  My heart doubled its beat as he kissed me just like he’d kissed my mouth. Slow and soft at first, and then deeper and wetter and hotter until I was squirming so much that he placed a hand on my lower stomach, holding me, guiding my hips to match the thrusts of his tongue. Sensation pounded through me, intense and beautiful. I didn’t think how intimate this was, but instead I reveled in how perfect it was with him.

  “Seth,” I breathed out his name.

  He went deeper and faster, and I was aware of his hips moving, as if he couldn’t control himself, and something about that made me run red-hot. Somehow I innately knew he was as close as I was, and I wanted that. I took a breath, but the coil deep inside me sprung. I cried out, and I heard his husky, throaty sound against the softest part of me. The release pounded through me, stealing my breath, as I liquefied under the crushing, pulsing and throbbing whirl of sensations.

  Seth stayed with me, easing me down and slowing it all until I could catch my breath. My hand slipped from his hair, falling limply to my stomach. He kissed me one more time, then each of my thighs, before he lifted up.

  Through a haze, I thought his expression looked kind of startled, a little knocked off his axis. That was okay. He’d blown my axis apart.

  Climbing up me, he kissed me softly, and there was a mingled taste of both of us. “You okay?” he asked. “Perfect,” I murmured. “I have no bones.” He chuckled. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  His face softened as he pushed off the bed. Reaching down, he grabbed a quilt and dragged it up to my waist. It felt long enough to cover all of me, but when his gaze fell to my breasts, I figured he’d done that on purpose.

  With eyes half-open, I watched him stop at the dresser and pull out another pair of boxers. He looked over his shoulder at me and winked. “That was a first for me.”

  Completely unashamed.

  I loved it.

  I grinned a little as he disappeared into the bathroom. I heard water running, and I imagined he was cleaning himself up. He returned in a few seconds, and I hadn’t moved an inch.

  He climbed into the bed, sliding an arm under my back. He rolled me onto my side and then he hauled me back, nestling my butt into the cradle of his hips. His arm was tight around my waist, our bodies sealed together.

  “You still with me?” he asked.

  “I…” It took a moment to gather my wits. “I never knew it could be like that.”

  Seth pressed a kiss against my bare shoulder, and then he shattered my heart a little. “Neither did I.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  MY HEART was still pounding, and I wasn’t sure how much time passed as we lay there. Josie had a hold of my right hand, my dagger hand, and was dragging the tip of her finger along my palm, tracing idle designs.

  She never knew it could be like this?

  Hell, I hadn’t either. For real. Never in my life had I found release without getting my boxers off, and even as powerful as that had been, I still wanted her now. Like a caveman, the word mine, mine, mine repeated over and over again, and yeah, that was a first. Kind of fucked with my head, feeling this strongly. Wasn’t like it was something that had happened overnight. It had been building for a while.

  She knew everything—every fucking thing about me, and she was here, in my arms, gloriously warm and soft. Lucky? That didn’t even cover it. She was…she was a gift. Salvation.

  It was dangerous feeling this way, because it made me want to think about things I couldn’t have. A future, for one thing, and then there was the fact that she was virtually a weapon. One day she would face off with Hyperion. My arm tightened around her waist.

  I didn’t want to think about any of those things right then.

  “When I was a little girl…” she said. Since we had settled in together, she started talking about random stuff, and I didn’t want her to stop. I liked the sound of her voice. “I was really chubby. My granddad used to call me Butterball.”

  I grinned against her throat. “I like your butterball.”

  “Oh my God,” she laughed. “That sounds so wrong.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I bet you weren’t chubby. You were probably born with an eight-pack.”

  Dipping my head, I pressed a kiss to the crescent-shaped scar on her neck, pushing down the anger that accompanied seeing that tag. “I was the fittest baby around. Could lift two bottles with just one fist.”

  Her body shook with her soft laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

  Unable to help myself, I nuzzled her neck, eliciting a shiver out of her. I was already ready for round two, but I held that in check, satisfied with holding her. It didn’t take long for her to drift off to sleep in my arms. And even though I was tired, I found myself wide awake, centered on her, soaking in the slow and steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her lips were parted, and the long length of her lashes.

  As I lay there, for what felt like seconds but could’ve been hours, the lead ball in my stomach resurfaced and got a little heavier. Doubt crept into my thoughts, diminishing the sated haze. It wasn’t regret. Fuck no. I would never regret these moments with Josie. The dread ran deeper, rooted in everything I’d experienced. It was that icy, nagging sensation that even though I held her right now, she was going to slip through my fingers, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I was only operating on a few hours of sleep, but as corny as it sounded, I felt like I’d slept for a week when I woke up and found Josie right where I’d last seen her, in my arms.

  She was awake, her face turned to me, and a small smile pulled at those lips. “Morning,” she whispered.

  Closing the tiny distance between our mouths, I kissed her softly, ignoring the sudden resurgence of what I’d been thinking about before I’d fallen asleep. Her lips were soft and warm under mine, and hell, I didn’t want to move from
this bed.

  “Training,” she murmured when I lifted my head. “We have…” She gasped as I trailed my tongue along her lower lip. “We have to do training today.”

  “I’m your instructor.” I rolled, getting her right where I wanted her—under me—as I planted my elbows on either side of her head. Her legs parted, and I settled between her thighs. I’d do some crazy shit if I could get my briefs to magically disappear so there would be nothing between us, but the softness of her breasts against my chest was pretty damn awesome all on its own. “You can be late.”

  She grinned up at me as she placed her hands on my chest, the touch tentative. “Well, thanks for giving me permission.”

  “No thanks necessary. I’m just that accommodating.”

  “I have a feeling that if we don’t get out of bed right now, we won’t.”

  “I don’t see a damn thing wrong with that.” Lowering my head, I pressed a kiss to her temple and then another against her cheek. “Besides, I promise you’ll get your heart rate up in here.”

  “Oh my God,” she giggled as she slid her hands around my neck and tangled her fingers in my hair. I liked the way that felt. Hell, I liked everything about this morning.

  My lips found hers again and the kiss… Yeah, it was wild how something I’d done a hundred times before could feel so different, so new. I wasn’t sure what to really make of that, but she was right. The last thing we needed to do was to let…this…get in the way of training her.

  Sometimes my maturity surprised me. This was one of those moments I wished I could fall back on the more selfish, don’t-give-a-fuck Seth.

  Sighing, I kissed her once more, taking it deep and making it count. This time, when I lifted my head, I rolled my heavy ass off her and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “You’re right. We’ll be good today.”

  Josie lay there for a moment, her face flushed and her gaze unfocused. The sheet had slipped, revealing a rosy tip, and yeah, that whole maturity thing fucking sucked.

  She went across the hall before I went back on my newly rediscovered restraint, long enough for us to shower and change into the training attire. Maybe forty minutes had passed before we met back up in the hall and the moment our gazes connected as she slipped the hoodie on over a tank top, her cheeks flushed pink.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. We just stood there in the silent hall, staring at one another. I honestly had no idea what to say. This… I didn’t have any experience with this. Spending the night with a girl and not having sex. Seeing her again and not wanting to veer in the other direction.

  Josie tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she glanced up the hall. “You ready?”

  I nodded and we started down the hall and we made it halfway before I did something totally cheesy. I reached between us, found her hand without looking, and threaded my fingers through her.

  She looked up, surprise flickering over her expression, but then she smiled, and yeah, that smile was worth it.

  Things were…a wee bit awkward.

  Both of us were trying to pretend that a few hours ago we hadn’t been lying in bed together. Well, I was trying to pretend that I hadn’t been completely naked and I was doing everything in my ability not to let myself think about where those fingers and that mouth had been. I was seriously attempting to not think about any of that, leaving it to a more appropriate moment to obsess over.

  I was failing.

  Although doing training today had been completely my idea, it wasn’t my brightest. My thoughts were scattered and hung up on everything that had happened last night.

  Seth circled me. His chin was dipped down and his lips curled in a half smile that was totally at odds with what we were doing. So were those amber eyes. They were full of wicked secrets that made it hard to concentrate. I kept thinking about what would happen when we were behind closed doors.

  He snapped forward, swinging out an arm. Unprepared, I darted to the side instead of blocking. “Pay attention,” he murmured.

  Lifting my arms into position, I narrowed my eyes. “I’m totally paying attention.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He whirled around, his arm flying. Instead of running, I stepped into the attack, using my forearm to block the hit. The impact was jarring, straight up to my shoulder, but I was getting used to it. The first time I’d successfully blocked a blow, I’d hopped around the mat like a demented bunny whimpering.

  “Good.” Seth dipped, and I knew he was about to kick. I hated those. Stepping back, I swung my arm down in an arc like he had taught me, blocking the kick before it connected with my stomach.

  “You could be a little quicker.” He straightened as I rolled my arms. Strutting past me, I jumped and let out a little squeak when his hand connected with my behind. I spun toward him, my mouth hanging open. He winked. “See. You should’ve anticipated that.”

  My eyes narrowed, but before I could do something really stupid, like try to kick him, the doors to the room opened and Luke strolled in.

  “Yo,” Seth called out to him, swiping a bottle of water off the mat. He took a drink. “You’re early.”

  He nodded as he dropped a backpack by the door. “Yeah, well some shit went down in class. It ended a little ahead of schedule.” “What happened?”

  Luke stripped off his sweater, revealing impressive biceps as Seth handed the water over to me. “Some shit, just not as bad as what went down in the cafeteria.”

  “Oh no.” I took a sip, stomach unsettled.

  Stopping in front of us, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “A pure and a half got into it. Chairs and desks ended up broken.” He looked at Seth, expression distant. “I don’t see this getting any better.”

  “Me neither.” He turned to me, flicking his finger off the bottle. “You need to drink more.” Turning back to Luke, he didn’t see the face I made at him. “What do you think Marcus is going to do about it?”

  He shrugged. “What can he do? Separating us isn’t going to help anything. I told Deacon I didn’t want him running around. I know he can take care of himself, but he…he tends to be a bit too optimistic about things.”

  “True,” Seth murmured.

  The comment about Deacon struck me as odd, but the guys were obviously ready to get back to training. I screwed the lid on the water and set it aside. With Luke here, we practiced more blocking techniques until I felt like I couldn’t lift my arms. Then we moved onto breaking holds.

  Something else I wasn’t particularly great at.

  I started with Luke, who did a front hold with his arms around my mine, capturing them against my sides. There were a couple of ways to get out of the hold. I could throw my weight back by lifting my legs, hoping to throw the attacker off balance. Or I could throw my weight forward, bringing the attacker with me, but that required getting my legs positioned right, and it wasn’t like Luke was going to stand there and let me do it.

  “You’ve got to stop treating Luke like he’s Luke.” Seth stood on the sidelines, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re holding back.”

  “I am not.”

  Behind me, Luke chuckled. “Yeah, you are.” I shot him a look over my shoulder.

  He raised his brows. “There are a lot of things you could’ve done at this point. Stomped on my foot. Or slammed the back of your head into mine.”

  Well, he had a point there, but…

  Seth cocked his head to the side and waited.

  “Shit,” I muttered crossly. They were right. I didn’t want to hurt Luke.

  “You’ve got to let go of that, Joe.” Seth moved forward, unfolding his arms. “If you can’t, this is pointless.”

  Our eyes met, and Seth didn’t have to say it. I saw it in his gaze. There was a huge part of him that didn’t think I was capable of doing any of this. I looked over his shoulder at the wall of weapons and there was a mental recoil that hadn’t faded from the first time I’d seen all the knives. If I was being honest with myself, there was also a par
t of me that was unsure.

  Christ.

  I could do this. I had to do this.

  Luke’s arms were still around me, and I… Hell with it. Squeezing my eyes shut, I kicked my head back. The top of my skull connected with Luke’s chin. Pain flared, rippling across my scalp,