“Do I remember yesterday?” He chuckled. “Yes. Do you?”
She nodded, an over-exaggerated move that appeared to make her dizzy. “Well, I really didn’t want to do that. I mean, Ididwant the scroll, but I didn’t want tostealit from you. I actually wanted to do something else, and I thought maybe we could do that now.” Amma’s hands slipped off of his arms, and she pawed at his chest. “Do you think we could kiss?”
Damien forgot how to breathe for a moment until he managed to choke out, “You must be exceptionally inebriated to suggestthat.”
“Please,” she mewled. “It’s my only chance.”
Yes,exceptionallyinebriated.
“You’re not making sense. You said you had already—”
“With someone I…with someoneelse, I mean.” Her fingers squeezed his arm. “With you.”
That didn’t really clear things up, but he just shook his head. “You, kissing the most evil blood mage in the realm? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Amma whined, a pitiful sound as she shifted closer to him. She slapped a hand on either side of his face and held him still. “Damien, I’mserious. Don’t make jokes about being evil right now.”
“I am not joking. I am—”
“Shh. Stop. You’re not evil, I know it, it’s okay, you don’t have to pretend around me.” One of her hands slid over his cheek and to the back of his neck. Amma’s touch was soft, no longer clumsy as her fingers curled into his hair. She frowned with a slight pout in that way she did when she was being earnest, but then she looked sad too, like she already knew what he would say. “Do you wanna kiss me or not? Because I want to kiss you.”
Damien took her hands into his own, and she let him. It was a relief to have them no longer caressing his face, sending tingles down his spine, making him want them everywhere else, but then a disappointment welled up in him too. Disappointment as he realized a truth he’d been pushing away and swallowing down for too long.
“I do,” he admitted, then held his breath at the shock on her face.Fuck it, he thought, if she wouldn’t remember any of it, what would it hurt to tell her the truth? It would, at the very least, call her bluff and end this game she insisted on playing with him. “I want to kiss you endlessly, Amma, and never stop.”
Her eyes widened, pupils huge. For a moment he recognized the look—fear. He’d seen it dozens of times, hundreds maybe, but before his heart could sink and wallow that he had beaten her at her own game and she’d never meant any of it, a wicked smile crawled over Amma’s lips, and her tongue darted between her teeth.
Amma lunged. She was surprisingly strong when her intent was to sloppily plant her lips on his, but Damien was able to hold her in place. Well, that had backfired.
She whined again, breath heady with ale falling over his face. “What’s wrong?”
Oh, so many things, chiefly among them her drunkenness, but reasoning with someone about their own state of inebriation was nigh impossible.
Damien’s grip on her upper arms loosened slightly, and she leaned in closer. He wished he’d been able to finish that second ale himself, but even if he had, he would be just as in control, and she’d been woozy two tankards ago. But then, he did have control, didn’t he? She was only asking him to take it, and that put a new idea in his head.
“I do want to kiss you, Amma,” he said, dropping his voice lower so she had to shift her focus to what he was saying and not what she was still trying to do to him. He cautiously released her arms, sliding his hands to her back. “And I’m going to. Not just your lips, but every inch of you.”
Her eyes searched, trying to suss out what he meant, and then she seemed to get it. She made a small, excited sound and sat up straighter.
“Lay back for me.” When Amma collapsed into his arms at the simple command, he chuckled in the back of his throat, guiding her onto the cot. That had been easy, and she deserved something for it. “You really are a good girl, aren’t you?”
Amma’s face flushed even more, and like it was contagious, Damien’s skin felt as though it were on fire. She managed to loop both of her hands around his neck, tugging at him to lay back with her, but he caught them. With her fully on her back, he shifted up onto his knees and trapped her wrists against the soft pillow on either side of her head. “Not so good,” he mused, frowning. “Remember,Iam going to kissyou, not the other way around.”
She arched her back slightly, lips parted and eager, but there was no force under his hands to try and wriggle away. Of course there wasn’t—he already knew she liked that.
Amma took shallow breaths, breasts straining against the thin material of her chemise. He tore his gaze up to her face, though that was nearly as inviting, heavily-lashed eyelids fluttering, biting her full, lower lip.
“Now, close your eyes.” She did, and he waited a moment as her body settled into the bed, face softening, breaths coming a bit more deeply.
Damien waited, glancing down the length of her beneath him. Kissing every inch of her hadn’t been some fabrication, and with only thin silk between her skin and his tongue, it would have been the exact kind of torture she actually deserved for putting him through this. And then she stirred again, straining slightly against his hands still holding her in place, urging him on with a mumble of muddied, sleepy pleas.
“Quiet,” he whispered, dipping his lips beside her ear, the heat off her body radiating against him. “Patience is a virtue, and I know how virtuous you are. For now.”
Only her throat bobbed with a heavy swallow as she settled down again. Her next breath was deep and long. Then she took another, and when her lips fell open, they weren’t waiting and eager anymore.
Silently, Damien released her wrists and slipped off the bed, leaving her undisturbed. He pulled the thin blanket up from the cot’s foot and covered her. “Goodnight, Amma.”
She didn’t respond, already deeply asleep.
