Chapter 1320

Night came gently, a velvet hush that seemed to caress the canopy and soften every breath. The stars above blinked through the tree gaps, but even they felt closer now - more intimate, more aware. Jude lay in the center of the moss altar, a tangle of bodies around him, skin against skin, limbs draped across his chest and thighs, soft sighs threading through the warm air like sacred incense.

He didn't remember falling asleep. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe sleep was irrelevant now. His body didn't ache, though it should have. It felt charged, alive, like the rhythm they had created still lived inside his blood. The forest was pulsing in time with his heart.

Emma stirred first, the soft curve of her breast pressing to his ribs as she turned and looked up at him. Her lips, swollen and still glistening, parted in a sleepy smile. "You didn't break," she whispered.

"I thought I would," he murmured, brushing her hair back.