I gasped. “Fireflies! I read about them in a book once.”
“I found them after I set up the tent.” Aiden’s thumb stroked the back of my hand in that comforting way of his. But the touch felt too small for the spreading ache in my body.
“When I was young, I caught them in my hands,” he continued. “I tried to put them in a jar, but Nikella told me to set them free. She said their light would die in captivity.”
My heart trembled. I couldn’t look away from the dance of light. But our fingers had started a dance of their own, stroking and pulling at each other. His callused finger scraped over the sensitive skin of my palm.
“You make me feel the same way,” he said softly. “I’m never sure if I should reach out and catch you. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”
My breath stuck in my throat. Wave after wave of thunder rumbled overhead.
His hand cupped my jaw and gently turned my face to meet his. I was exquisitely powerless under those smoldering eyes.
“I crave your light, Kiera,” he murmured, “yet I would hunt for you even when you’re one with the shadows.”
Fireflies wove around us, making this moment feel surreal. But fear still whispered in my mind.
“You don’t know me, Aiden. Not truly.”
He placed a hand above my pounding heart and guided my hand to feel his as it drummed steadily in his chest. “I know this. I trust this. Everything else is just choices we made in a world where our hearts didn’t know each other.”
“Aiden . . .” I rasped, pressing myself against him.
He saw me as the woman who risked her life to save others, as he did. He saw the woman I desperately wanted to be, but couldn’t be all the time.
Tonight, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be his.
I closed my eyes, feeling the storm of our heartbeats as I felt the storm gather strength around us.
“I feel as though I’m back on the roof of the Temple,” I admitted in a ragged whisper. “Arms outstretched, floating on the wind, coming back to you.” Lightning flared, and I opened my eyes.
Aiden pressed his forehead against mine as the first raindrop fell. “Then let me catch you, Kiera.”
I curled my hand around his neck. “You already did.”
I kissed him in a burst of lightning and thunder. He kissed me back in a torrent of sweet rain.
My whole body sang with relief, then tightened with need as his lips clung to mine, capturing, savoring, keeping.
His hand trailed from my heart to my breast—where it lingered for a breath-shattering moment—then found a home on my hip.
He pulled me flush against him with a groan that dove straight through my core. His other hand wrapped itself in my braid and tugged my head backward.
I gasped, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue searching my mouth, his thumb skimming my exposed throat.
Gods, I wanted to drown in this feeling, in this kiss. I wanted it to last forever. It was like we’d never stopped. Like our last kiss had just been hovering in the air between us, waiting for us to find it again. To finish it.
We broke apart, panting. Rain dripped from his hair and jaw.
“No interruptions this time,” I said.
A dark chuckle rumbled from his chest, sending a shiver down my spine. “The gods themselves couldn’t keep me from you.”
He grabbed my hand, and we sprinted through the rain back to the tent. The air had cooled, and the fireflies had disappeared, leaving a blanket of darkness slashed here and there by blades of lightning.
We dove into the tent. I wriggled to the back while Aiden tied the flaps shut. I tried to keep my mucky boots off the blanket.
“Allow me,” Aiden murmured.
