The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

and see her wake in the morning, her face soft with sleep and her eyes wanting him. Now he seemed to be handed a second chance, a gift he did not—could not—possibly deserve.

While he lay writhing in feverish pain back in San Francisco, the thought of Esta had been Harte’s only comfort. The knowledge that he had to continue on, if only to make sure he made things right for her, had kept him fighting against the fever that had ravaged his body. How many hours had he spent in that limbo between life and death, holding on only because dying meant never seeing her again? In those dark, painful hours, how many times had he imagined this? Hoped beyond hope to be worthy of it.

Of her.

And then, after she’d saved him, he’d spent all of those days so close to her without ever touching her—not really—even though his fingers burned to feel her skin. To pull her close. He’d held back, because he knew he couldn’t risk it. Because Harte understood too well the danger he was putting her in simply by existing. Because of Seshat.

But thanks to the terrible emptiness caused by the Quellant, Harte didn’t have to worry about Seshat—not for a little while longer, at least. The time would come when the goddess would rouse herself, push past the fog of the drug, and make her presence known. That he didn’t doubt. But for now Seshat was silent. Absent. It was only himself and Esta, alone in the middle of the night-dark country, and the space between them brimmed with possibility.

He’d dreamed often of kissing her, of course. Even as he’d burned with the shame of all that she had to do for him as he had healed, each time Harte had collapsed into sleep, his traitorous brain had conjured Esta in his dreams. But with Seshat within him, he’d given up the possibility of ever having a moment like this.

You are not negotiable, not for me.

Had he been standing at the time, the words she’d spoken to him would have brought him to his knees, but once they were safely out of the hospital, neither of them had approached the issue again. In the hours and days since, he had not allowed himself to hope for the feel of Esta’s hands cupping his face, the weight of her body pressing down on him, as it was now, as she moved over him and deepened the kiss, her legs on either side of his as she caged him in. But now he didn’t have to hope. Now she was there in truth, over him. With him.

He wanted to tell Esta to wait, to slow down, because he wanted to remember every brush of her skin and taste on her lips. But her mouth was ravenous, her hands tugging at his shirt and pushing it up over his head, like she was driven by something more than need. Harte thought it felt too close to desperation, but then her cool palms ran across the bare skin of his chest, and he forgot about slow. He forgot about anything but the scent of her, softly clean and barely floral, and the feel of her, smooth and strong and his.

This time there was no echoing laughter. This time Seshat was locked away and could not mock or threaten.

Esta broke their kiss long enough to pull off the scrap of material she was wearing, and as she lifted her arms over her head to remove it, the moonlight sliced across her bare torso, illuminating the curves of her body. But she didn’t give him nearly enough time to look or revel in the moment. She was kissing him again, hungry and insistent, pressing herself against him, the soft roundness of her body against the hard planes of his own.

Her hands were everywhere, like fire burning along his skin, and Harte was aware suddenly of what his illness had taken from him. His leanness was all bone and sinew without the strength he’d once had. But Esta didn’t give him time to be self-conscious.

“Esta—” Her name was a prayer on his lips, and he could not have answered, even to himself, whether he meant for her to stop or to go on.

“I like the way it sounds when you say my name like that,” she whispered against his neck, a smile in her voice as she nipped at his shoulder.

“Wait,” he panted, as her lips explored the planes of his chest, farther down his torso.

Esta paused only long enough to look up at him, her golden eyes glinting in the darkness, as bright as the stone in the Dragon’s Eye. “I want this, Harte. Tell me you want this too.”

“Of course I do, but…” She moved again, and his words fell away, along with his reluctance.

What was the point of being chivalrous when her touch was turning his skin to flame? The heat of her mouth left a trail of fire across his skin. And when she rose up over him, burning as brightly as a phoenix, Harte knew for certain what he had perhaps always known, even from that first moment in the Haymarket, when he’d seen her across the ballroom and had felt instantly drawn to her. No one would ever match him so well. No one would ever fit with him as she did.

However much time they might have left, however much time Esta might steal for them—days or years or eternities—it would never be enough. There would never be anyone else for him but Esta. Not ever again.

The train lurched around a curve, and Esta lost her balance, falling onto him, her bare body like a brand against his. Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, Harte knew that it was too much, too fast. But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. He shifted so they were side by side, equals as they’d ever been, hands roaming, mouths ravenous. An ecstatic fumbling need drove them onward toward some