I really had no idea where this conversation was heading, but I was thrilled that he was talking and I was also willing to just—to just let it all go for right now, for these precious moments, to humor whatever was coming out of his mouth.
“Would you also be in a barely there bikini?” I asked.
I felt his lips curve into a smile. “You would not be able to control yourself if you saw something so amazing.” He tugged me back into the V of his legs when I had started to twist toward him. “You’d treat me like a piece of meat.”
“Oh really?” I laughed.
Roth leaned back against the cushion, bringing me along with him so that we were stretched out as the snow continued to fall. “Uh-huh. So I would just be wearing swim trunks.”
“Speedo?”
“Even I wouldn’t wear a Speedo,” he replied.
“How is a Speedo any different than me wearing what is basically dental floss?”
“It is. Just trust me on this.” He tilted his head to the side so I could see his expression. “Anyway, the swim trunks and itsy, bitsy bikini would also involve a sandy white beach. You’ve never been to a beach, right?”
“Right.” I bit my lip when he shifted so that his lips brushed the lobe of my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “So what about this beach?”
“The beach would exist in a tropical area, where it’s always warm and almost always sunny,” he went on, one hand toying with the hem of my sweater, the other lazily roaming up and down my leg, from thigh to hip. “The beach would be a place far away from here.”
“How far?” I whispered.
“As far as we want.” One hand traveled up to my chin and his fingers guided my head back. “I was thinking along the lines of Turks and Caicos.” He kissed my forehead. “I haven’t been there.” His lips coasted over my brows. “But I’ve heard of this place called Grace Bay.” He dropped a kiss on each of my eyelids. “White sands. Water the color of turquoise.” Then he kissed the tip of my nose. “Paradise, or so I’m told. We should go.”
I smiled faintly. “We should.”
His gaze met mine as he drew back. “I’m being serious. We can leave in the morning.”
My smile started to fade. “What?”
“It will take nothing for me to get us a private jet. Just a few words spoken to the right person, and then we’re on our way. It’s a little too far to fly ourselves.” His eyes searched mine intently, and I stiffened, because he really wasn’t joking around. “We could be there by tomorrow night.”
“Roth—”
“We can leave all of this,” he pushed on, his hand cupping my cheek. “Let the pieces fall where they may, but you and I will be far from this—”
“There’s nowhere we can go to truly escape this. The Alphas will intervene. The Lilin wants that, and even Grim has called it. They will bring about the end of the world. Hiding out at a beach isn’t going to save us.”
“We could try, dammit. We could try to survive,” he insisted, his eyes flashing bright in the darkness. “Leaving here promises us at least a tomorrow—maybe even a week or a month, but staying here—what do we have?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”
“You think I don’t know what’s been going on in your head since you realized your life was tied to the Lilin’s?” His hand curled around the nape of my neck as he leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. “Dammit, Layla, I know...”
My eyes squeezed shut against the sudden burn.
“You’re too good. You don’t see that, but I do. You’re too good, but I’m not.” His voice hoarsened. “Let me be selfish enough for the both of us.”
“What about Sam, Roth?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that you want to hear,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. You’re my priority. Forget the rest.”
I wrapped one arm around his neck, saying nothing as I tucked my head under his chin. His hand remained at the back of my neck. “I know you think there is only one way out of this. You give up your life to stop the Lilin,” he said, his voice thicker than before. “But I can’t let you do that.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
His other arm circled my waist as he shifted his head, his lips brushing my cheek as he spoke. “Then don’t.”
Roth made it sound so simple. The thing was, even he knew it wasn’t that easy. If we left this place tomorrow, there was a good chance we’d have days, maybe even weeks or months before the Alphas stepped in and attempted to wipe us all out. But how could I seriously enjoy those days or weeks knowing that I turned my back on Sam... God, on mankind? What was happening was so much bigger than us, so much more important than what we wanted or desired.
His hand spasmed, and he forced out the words in a harsh whisper. “I’m terrified.”
My heart turned over and then doubled up. Hearing him admit that was a shock to my system. I pulled back, meeting his gaze once more. “You’re never scared.”
“I’m not scared. I’m terrified,” he repeated, threading his fingers through my hair. “I’m terrified of losing you and that there will be nothing that I can do to stop it.”
There was a part of me that wanted to simply reassure him, but in this moment, all my defenses came crumbling down. The panic that rested in the pit of my belly expanded. Roth must’ve seen the fear in my eyes because he tugged me back to his chest.
“I won’t let this happen,” he said. “I’m the Prince. There has to be something I can do. I can go to the Boss.”
But if there was something the Boss could’ve done, wouldn’t it have already been done by now? Or could the Boss even step in at this point? It didn’t matter. As I clung to Roth, I knew, deep down, we really didn’t have tomorrow. If I delayed what I needed to do, I would not only lose Sam and the other souls the Lilin had already taken, but I ran the risk of millions of lives being lost if the apocalypse was in fact set in motion.
I ran the risk of Roth doing something even more stupid than what I planned, and if I couldn’t save myself, then at least I could save Sam. I could save the other souls. I could save the innocent people who would die because the end was coming. I could save Roth.
When Roth lifted my head, he opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want there to be any more words between us. I closed the distance, kissing him. He tried to turn his head, but I grasped his cheeks, refusing to allow whatever words he wanted to speak to form on his lips.
And when the kiss wasn’t enough, when he tried to speak again, I lifted up, planting my knees on either side of his hips. I pressed our bodies together, and when his mouth finally parted, my heart ached in the worst way, but he was kissing me back and it was scorching. His hands fell down my back, and his desperation amplified what I felt.
His muscles suddenly tensed, and then he was standing. I wrapped my legs around his hips. Our mouths were fused together and we stepped out under the snow. Wind picked up, tossing my hair around us.
I didn’t think we’d make it back to the stairwell.
We barely did.
Once inside the narrow hallway, the door slammed shut behind us, and Roth turned, pressing my back against the wall. We were tangled in each other, our breaths coming in short pants as the hardest part of him was pressed against the softest part of me. The snow that had fallen on us had melted, dampening our skin and hair.
We kissed. We clung to each other, and the outside world went on hold once more. Right now, these stolen moments were just about us. Nothing else mattered then except how he felt and our love for one another.
“Hold on,” he told me, and I wasn’t planning to let go.
Roth captured my breaths with his lips as he turned, starting down the stairs again. He kicked the door shut behind us, sealing out the cold, and when he turned, he knocked into the piano bench, toppling it over.
We almost didn’t hear it.
He carried me right to the foot of the bed, the whole time kissing me, drinking me in, and it wasn’t enough. Not even when he nipped at the sensitive skin below my ear, dragging a heated sound out of me.
We parted long enough to get rid of everything between us, and that took longer than necessary, because we kept stopping...and we kept getting distracted each time a shirt came off or a button came undone. Our hands. Our fingers. Our mouths. Everything about us was greedy.
When my back hit the bed and I stared up at him, thinking was completely impossible. He consumed me, but I knew it went both ways, because his hand trembled as he touched me and his voice shook when he told me that I was beautiful; when he said that he loved me, over and over. His voice quaked each time.
What came next was simply him worshipping me and me repaying the honor. There wasn’t a part of me he didn’t explore, from the arch of my foot to the many valleys on the way to my lips. Our eyes and hands were locked as we started moving together. And when it was over, we lay together, his hand trailing over my ribs, to my hips, and then we started all over again. We exhausted ourselves in all the love we felt and we held off the shadows by sheer willpower until there was nothing left.