Heart of the Guardians: Adoring Destiny by Adrianna Adore (best books to read for self improvement txt) 📕

were still missing. The portal breach in the Ukraine had to be found and sealed. He had official duties and a hundred other things but none of that mattered at the moment. A part of him had been missing. A big, empty hole in his very being that he’d tried to fill with excitement, women and adventure had been made whole when he met her, the fiery girl who sat before him. He would never lose her again. He couldn’t.

“I will never tell you another untruth,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone has ever died of grieving but if you can’t forgive me, if you walk away, I think I might be the first.”

They stared into the windows of their souls, his dark eyes into hers and she leaned forward, found his lips with hers. The soft, tentative kiss ignited a fire and became deep and intense. His hands slid inside her blouse, ran up the length of her back and elicited a shiver of pleasure. All around them the woods sang with birdsong, the lake was still except for an occasional fish breaking the surface and there wasn’t another person around for miles. She wouldn’t be shy, she wouldn’t take whatever he was giving. She was going to take what she wanted, maybe punish him a little for leaving. Her breathing became shallow and her desire was becoming unbearable. Claire peeled the designer shirt over her head and let it fall to the blanket. His hands found the clasp to the bra and she slid out of it, her breasts firm and full as she guided the nipple into his mouth. It grew hard under his tongue and she wound her fingers in his hair to guide him to the other one. It needed attention, too. She knew how he liked to be controlled and she liked to be in control. Her skin prickled in pleasure as she tilted her head back and sighed with the feeling of his teeth as they nibbled, his beard as it tickled and his hands as they caressed.

She grabbed the hem of the tunic and slipped it up and over his head. It had soaked up most of the blood and the gashes seemed to be already healing. She had questions. The tattoos covering his chest and upper arms stood in stark contrast against the tanned skin and his shoulder had three slashes across it, still seeped blood. She pushed him down on his back, slipped out of her shorts and stood tall above him.

“Worship me,” she commanded, and he did, starting at her toes and working his way up.

Hours later, or maybe it was only moments, both of them sweating and trying to catch their breath, James wrapped his arms around her and she curled into him, her back against his chest. As their breathing slowed to normal, their hearts stopped hammering and their urgency was sated for the time being, Claire took his hands in hers. She held them over her heart.

“It beats for you,” she said.

“Without you, I am nothing,” he whispered in her ear. “Can you stay, Claire? Will you?”

She didn’t know him, didn’t know anything about the country he was from, the duties he would have, the world that he lived in. He was to be a King and she was a poor student from a small town in Washington. It was a fairy tale and she didn’t believe in fairy tales. She wasn’t Cinderella and with her nearly uncontrollable passion satisfied, she tried to see clearly. Love didn’t conquer all. Maybe there were rules he had to follow. Maybe she would be viewed as a gold digger and never accepted. Maybe loving her would destroy him and he would grow to resent her. She closed her eyes, kissed his fingers and was more confused than ever. She couldn’t make promises no matter how much she wanted to. She needed to know more.

When they reached the bed and breakfast Frank called for a car to pick him up. He insisted he couldn’t tarry for lunch but joined her on the porch when Mrs. Stalimanzer ordered him to sit. She fussed over the scratches and daubed them with a homemade poultice, tsked over the fading scars that covered his body, then draped one of her shawls over his shoulders.

“It will take them a good half hour to get here,” she said around her calabash pipe. “You stay right there, I’ll bring out some stew I have simmering.”

“She’s so nice.” Dana said as the old Gypsy woman disappeared through the doors in a cloud of cherry tobacco smoke, tinkling beads and a swirl of skirts. “Everyone here has been. It’s almost like it’s a different world. Have you known her long?”

“For a time,” Frank said, “since she was young.”

Dana squinted at him. The woman was much older than him, she was at least sixty or seventy and Frank couldn’t be more than forty. Maybe he meant young and pretty when he was just a boy. She didn’t have time to ponder it because Mrs. Stalimanzer came bustling through the doors with two steaming bowls, fresh baked bread and glasses of ice-cold buttermilk.

“When I come back out, those bowls best be empty,” she said and was gone again.

“You don’t want to get on her bad side, better eat up,” Frank said with a grin and a twinkle in his eye. “She can throw a powerful mojo on you if you make her mad.”

Dana chuffed, she didn’t believe in superstitions and voodoo hexes. She ate the stew, though. After the first bite, she couldn’t get enough. She’d never had wild boar and cleaned the last little bits of the stew with a hunk of bread. They ate mostly in silence and it was comfortable. Most of her dates were filled with banal small talk and the men usually tried to slip in double entendres or say something witty about sex every chance they got. It seemed like most of her