The Kiss (19 page)

 Wiping her eyes Grace looked up at the statues. They waited,
arms wrapped around one another, eyes locked together. Her wild curls that no
mere sculptor could ever create flowed around them both, binding them together.
If anyone had set out to purposely craft the image of love Grace thought that
it would look exactly like them. 

The old sorceress had been a bitch there was no doubt about it,
even more so than she, but a tiny glimmer of humanity had been left to her. She
wanted to make them all pay but she had also given them a chance. A chance to
grow and mature, a chance to become more than they had been. To realize what
was important in life.

“Not much longer now,” Grace said.

The stone began to shift and Grace, who had watched it happen so
many times, closed her eyes. When she opened them the statues were gone.

Her gaze went straight to the window overlooking the courtyard,
Eva’s bedroom. There, visible through the open curtains she saw them and taking
a deep breath she waited. Because now, at last, they would know…

Chapter
Thirty-One

Eva reached out and steadied herself against Adam, eyes wide,
heart beating frantically. “We’re back.”

Hearing her own voice again shocked her and Eva repeated the
words slowly, then shivered at the sound. “Oh, God, Adam, we’re really back.”

Pulling her into his arms Adam crushed her against him, relief
making his voice jerky. “Yes, we’re back.”

Head resting in his shoulder Eva tried to calm herself, though
God knows it was difficult. Shivers raced through her body, and she closed her
eyes taking a sort of mental inventory. She wiggled her fingers and sunk her
toes into the plush carpet. Everything worked, she could move again! It felt
freaking amazing.

“Adam that was…” She stopped, unsure how to continue. The last
year had been like something out of a nightmare, yet at the same time she knew
it had been the only way, and that deep seated knowledge had been just enough
to sustain her.  The moments when panic had threatened, when the endless grey
filled her, when it had all seemed like it might be too much she’d thought of
Adam—and something told her she was doing the right thing.

That something had been right.

“Eva, you—”

She stopped him with a finger against his lips, because she knew
he was going to lecture her. She’d seen it in the grey of his eyes this last
year and she didn’t want that right now.

Leaning forward she replaced her finger with her lips, skin
touching skin. Her heart raced frantically at the simple contact. Her dreams of
the last year finally finding themselves in action. Groaning Adam wrapped an
arm around her waist and pulled her as close as he was able. Their lips moved
in a frenzied rhythm, tongues swirling together, teasing and promising.

“Eva, we need to talk,” he said, pulling away from her, panting
slightly.

“No,” Eva cried. “Right now I need this. I need to feel you
inside me. I want every single sensation there is to consume my entire body.
Make me feel myself again, Adam.”

He heard the plea in her voice and since they were already naked,
there was no need to undress. In one swift movement Adam pushed her against the
wall, grabbed her ass and wrapped her legs around him.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “You were right there in
front of me all this time and I couldn’t have you, couldn’t even speak to you.”

Eva didn’t want to think about that, to consider the times when
she’d thought to go mad with longing. That was over now. Blinking she could
feel moisture dampening her eyes, as well as the insides of her thighs and she
arched forward in a wordless plea. She needed action, not words. “I’ve missed
you. Adam, all of you.”

With a strangled cry he lowered her slightly before slipping
inside of her, one quick thrust filling her to the hilt. Eva moaned as the
length of him stretched her, teasing her sensitized walls. “Fuck me hard,
Adam,” she demanded.

And he did, there against the wall he pounded into her, their
bodies moving in a quick, hard rhythm. His hands continued to massage and
squeeze her ass cheeks, and that in time with the pounding of his cock was
enough to send an orgasm crashing through her, racing through Eva’s now flesh
and blood body.

“Yes, Adam, yes,” she screamed.

He pulled away from the wall, dropping them both onto the bed.
His body covering hers. Sweat slicking their bodies, skin rubbing along skin.
“I need to fuck you hard, Eva,” he said. “Feel you again. God I need to feel
you.”

Eva stretched beneath him, pushing his cock further inside her
pussy. “Yes, give it to me, Adam. As hard as you can.”

So he did. He thrust into her, hard and fast and the sensation
was so intense she screamed out. Pleasure consumed her, tiny points of
awareness radiating along every single nerve ending. Eva reached up and wound
her fingers in his hair, pulling him to her. Their lips met, tongues dancing in
time with the pounding of his cock.

“Harder,” she demanded against him. “Harder.”

Adam responded by flipping her over, pulling her onto her hands
and knees. Face pushed against the bed Eva raised her ass to him. He filled her
in one swift movement. His cock reaching as far inside as it could possibly go.
Hands on her hips he drove into her, again and again. His balls slapping
against her thighs, his pelvis slamming against her ass.

The sensations were too much and Eva screamed out as another
orgasm exploded, tiny spots of light filling her vision.

Adam gave a hoarse groan, and she felt his hot seed pump into
her, his orgasm filling her, extending her own and sending tingles all the way
from her fingertips to her toes.

Collapsing onto the bed Eva’s whole body shook, tremors racing
across her skin. Adam dropped down next to her and wrapped her in his arms.
They stayed like that for several minutes, neither speaking, simply glorying in
the sensations they had been denied for the last months.

Finally it was Adam who spoke. “You sacrificed yourself for me,”
he said, lifting her chin to look into her eyes. Eva’s heart pounded as the
grey of the last year was finally replaced by the brandy she loved.
It was
worth it, it was all worth it.

“Yes, I had to.”

“How could you do it, Eva?” Adam demanded, his voice shaking. “I
never wanted that. I would never have asked that of you.”

Eva bit her lip, heartened by the ability to undertake that
simple action. “I had to, Adam. I love you to damn much to let you die.” Surely
he understood that? There had never been a choice, not since the first moment
their hands had touched.

Eva had spent a lot of time thinking about it. A whole year
trapped in stone had given her space to consider her actions, her feelings. She
knew now that, as Grace said, there were no coincidences, it happened as it was
always meant to. That first moment on the stairs, when he’d held his hand out
to hers and a spark had raced between them. It was that which sealed her fate.

She smiled slowly and stretched her body, her human body, out. If
felt so good to be back, to be normal again. She reached up and stroked the
warm skin of Adam’s face, she could feel a pulse beating beneath it and her
whole body shuddered.

A year, just a year but Eva had only just made it through. How
Adam had taken two hundred she did not know.

She ran her fingers through his hair and sighed. She loved him,
that love had not dimmed this last year, if anything it had grown stronger. 
Adam was hers, meant for her alone, and that was just fact.

* * * *

Adam sighed and closed his eyes. “And I loved you too much to ask
you to give up so much for me.” Didn’t she realize that? He would never have
asked it of her. The very idea of her spending a year trapped in the stone
filled him with horror.

 “It was never your choice to make,” she said. “I thought I was
going to forget but instead I got to stay with you, and now it’s over.”

“I would have spared you that, Eva. The awfulness of it.”

“I thought I’d been pulled into the curse,” Eva admitted. “Until
Grace spoke last year, I thought that I was to spend forever trapped in the
stone, with just those seven days in the real world.”

A single tear fell down his tan cheek, Adam could not stop it.
“I’m so sorry, lovely.”

Eva reached up and placed her hands on his cheeks, brushing the
tear away, cupping his face tenderly. “Adam, don’t you realize I would have
accepted that. I’d rather spend a week a year with you than not at all.”

“Eva—”

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been bloody awful,” she added,
wincing slightly, “the rest of the time sure, but I’d have made that sacrifice
to be with you. I love you, Adam.”

There was no doubting the sincerity of her words and Adam’s heart
swelled. How had gotten so lucky?
Ye’ll thank me one day.
Granny’s words
of so long ago came to him and Adam laughed softly. Had the old crone known?
Had she seen his wild Eva somewhere in his future?

“Eva, you’ve set me free,” he said. “You’ve broken the curse.
Broken it for all of us.”

She shook her head. “No, Adam, we broke it together.”

“I love you,” he whispered, planting a tiny kiss on her plump
lips, glorying in the feel of them.

Eva kissed him back, feather light kisses all over his face, as
if reassuring herself that he was a man again. “I love you, too.”

“It’s actually over.” He laughed, giddy with the knowledge, and
Eva laughed with him.

“We can do whatever we want,” she said.

“That we can and the first thing…”

He pulled her beneath him and entered her slowly, her body
contracted around him, and he shuddered. Eva was his, meant for him alone, and
that was just fact.

The End

www.emmashortt.co.uk

Other
Books by Emma Shortt:

'Twas a
Dark and Delicious Christmas

The
Valentine's Fae

Evernight
Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com