And that shifted something in him. In his heart, in his soul, he wondered:
How could anything forbidden breathe life to my fire like this?
He didn’t question it.
It had been so long since he’d really been alive...as if every fiber of his body had forgotten what it was like tofeelthings.
And perhaps he had never felt anything to begin with.
He wanted to reach out to her. He wanted to take her as his own, becauseby the gods,he could not ignore the feeling that she washis.
And he was hers.
But he held back.
He waited.
Until she reached behind her, suddenly, and opened the door to the catacombs. Cold air rushed out, stinging his tearstained cheeks. Then she laced her fingertips through the front of his cloak...and pulled him with her over the threshold.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
His heart was in his throat. He could barely breathe.
“I’m taking you someplace private,” she said, as she shut the door behind them, bathing them both in darkness.
He raised a pale brow, the way he always did when he looked at her. Like she was a question he’d happily spend the rest of his life trying to answer...and he would.
“So you can kill me?” he asked. And for some reason, a smile came across his lips.
His heart continued to pound.
And pound, and pound, and pound.
“No,” Ezer said. “So I can kiss you.”
And it washerthat pulled him down.Herthat chose him. And when their lips met...the cold was gone.
And there was only fire in its place.
Every part of him came undone at that kiss. Every part of him turned molten, until he was burning, until he thought he mightcombust. The hunger swept over him as their lips met again, and their tongues met, too. And he’d never been so desperate for her touch, her attention, her body pressed against his.
This was unlike the dreams he’d once had of a different woman in her place.
This was something new.
It was bold and it was beautiful, not a sunrise, but a sunset, bursting through him until he laid Soraya down. Until he scoured the stain of her from his heart, because this wasEzer...and no one else in the world could ever amount to this.
She wanted him.
She wanted him, in a way he doubted anyone ever would again.
He was hers, and finally,finally...she washis.
They kissed until he had her pressed up against the icy stone wall, but he didn’t feel the sting of it. He felt only the need writhing within him for more. So, he cradled her with his body until he pulled her into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, and suddenly there was too much space between them.
She started to fumble at the buttons on his tunic, almost frantically, as if she couldn’t wait to rip them apart. He gasped as she tore them open, and a few went flying into the darkness. He gasped again, as her fingertips slid across his skin.
He pulled away, trying to search her face in the shadows. He wanted to look at her, wanted to remember this moment, to burn it into his brain like a song and play it over and over again.
