Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Carissa Broadbent (best book recommendations txt) 📖

my skin, but I couldn’t pay attention to his words — couldn’t pay attention to anything but the movements of his tongue making love to me, too much and not enough at the same time, too gentle and too rough.

Two fingers slid into me, and my hips bucked, and that was the end. I unraveled, a wave of pleasure cresting and crashing, and I was still shaking when Max gave me one final kiss at the apex of my thighs and crawled over me. I was nothing but nerves, nothing but instinct, as my limbs encircled him again, as my mouth found his. It wasn’t enough. I needed more, needed him closer, needed his breaths timed with mine.

He pushed into me easily, my hips rising to meet him. Gods, I had forgotten, how good it felt, how right, to be together like this — to be so full of him. He kissed me deeply, the taste of both of us mingling on our tongues just as his fingers clutched mine, as our limbs tangled, as every part of us intertwined. Our movements found a rhythm that was as natural as it was hungry, his strokes firm and demanding, my body meeting him at each one. Already, I could feel another wave cresting, pressure growing where he touched the deepest parts of me, his thrusts growing harder, his breath more ragged against my mouth.

“Again,” he said — commanded, begged. “Let me feel you again, Tisaanah.”

And as if to give me no choice but to comply, he pushed deep, sinking his teeth into my throat.

My climax hit me so hard that for a few incredible seconds, I separated entirely from the world, connected only to him. I returned just soon enough to open my eyes to see him follow me, his head thrown back, his muscles taut. I grabbed him and pulled him to me in a rough kiss as his climax shuddered through me, riding out the aftershocks of my own. The kiss softened, slowed, as our crescendos faded.

Softened, yes, but did not break.

We were not ready to let each other go. And still, we did not speak. He kissed me, and kissed me, hands roaming each other until he slipped into me again. I could not be close enough. I wanted to feel him everywhere.

And I knew — surely, we both knew — that soon enough there would be words and worries and reality.

But for now, there was only this. Nothing but each other, sharing our bodies and our breaths, and everything that words were too weak to explain.

I felt boneless and dazed by the time we exhausted ourselves. I was used to being tired by now — I was now always, always tired — but this was the pleasant sort of exhaustion, aching and satisfied at once. Once Max and I untangled ourselves from each other, we staggered to the washroom, filled the bathtub with water that Max ensured was delightfully scalding, and lowered ourselves in with groans of weary satisfaction. And now, there we both sat, Max leaning against the back rim of the tub and me in turn against his chest, his arms encircling me and his chin against the top of my head.

“This feels nice,” I said.

Not the warm water. Him. Being beside him. Feeling him all over me. All these weeks, and I hadn’t even allowed myself to dream of this. Didn’t allow myself to dismiss the uncertainty that he would make it back alive.

And now that he was here? I never wanted to let him go.

“Let’s stay here for a very long time,” I said, making a show of stretching. “I will not move, and so, neither can you”

“Yuck.” I couldn’t see Max’s face, but I could hear the wrinkle over his nose. “You recognize that we’re essentially marinating in our own filth right now.”

I eyed the water, tinged grey. Fine, he wasn’t wrong.

“Our filth?” I said. “Your filth.”

“A bold assertion, considering that you just came from the training ring.”

“And you just came from…where, exactly?” I craned my neck around to eye him. “You have much to tell me.”

“Were my letters not detailed enough for you?”

“Your letters were good. But I like your voice better.”

“Likewise.” And yet, I felt the way his arms tightened slightly around me, and the unspoken hesitation of all it implied. When he let out a long breath, I knew he was clearing space for all the words he needed to say.

I knew it, because I was doing the same thing.

He kissed the top of my head.

“You first,” he said.

The words poured out of me. I had spent these weeks in a state of constant performance. I had Serel and Sammerin, but there were so many things that I couldn’t tell Serel and so many things that I didn’t want to show Sammerin. With Max, words came easily — and even the ones that didn’t, he heard anyway.

I told him of the battles, and how I won. I told him of Eslyn, and what Sammerin and I had done to buy time for the slaves that my own actions had endangered. I told him of every feat, and every fear. I told him everything.

And for his part, he did the same. I listened as he told me of the battle in Antedale, and those that followed. I had heard all the stories here, of course, when they were spoken of in terms of victory and strategy and numbers. But rendered in Max’s voice, the wins and losses weren’t matters of statistics. They were human.

I loved that about him. I loved it, and gods, I had missed it.

We talked for hours, so long that we didn’t even notice that the water had gone tepid by the time we trailed off into silence. When we finally decided it was time to end our bath, I stayed behind for a few minutes to wring out my wet hair. Then I went to the washroom door and leaned against