“Have you been planning this all day?” she asks softly.
“Just for the past few hours. We were having such a good time, I...”
“Didn’t want it to end?” A smile slips onto her face, and she relaxes against him. “Won’t your family worry when we don’t return?”
He shrugs. “I often stay out in the woods overnight.”
Yet another facet of her complicated elf. It’s not really surprising, though. He’d probably live in the woods if he wasn’t a prince.
With a wife.
She glances at the treehouse again. It’s big enough to lie down inside, and there even seems to be a makeshift bed of sorts.
A bed. One.
Stars above. He wants to sleep beside her.
Together.
“Are you all right?” he asks. Then his walls go up again. “I’ll return you to Windhaven. I don’t know what I was—”
“Cerian, stop.” She places her finger over his lips the way he did to her that morning. “I don’t want you to take me back. Not tonight.”
Relief fills his eyes.
“Do you have blankets in that bag?” she asks as she lowers her finger, and his eyes grow wide.
“I should have planned this better.”
Laughter flows from her, and his mouth ticks up.
“I guess you’ll have to keep me warm,” she whispers.
Did she say that out loud? Judging by the flush creeping up both their necks, she must have.
“I’ll try not to set you on fire.” His brows wrinkle in frustration, and without thinking, she reaches up to smooth them. Are his depleted plant-magic stores affecting him more than he’s letting on?
As she trails her fingers over his brows, his breath hitches.
Taking her cue from him, she whispers, “Tell me if it’s too much.”
His throat bobs as he barely nods, and she lifts her other hand. Does she dare touch his ears?
Without taking her eyes off his, she slips her fingers past his temples, and he stiffens.
Maybe he’s not ready for that.
Pulling back, she drops her hands. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
“No. Please. Don’t...don’t stop.”
She searches his face. The vulnerability written in his gaze—and the longing—crosses the space between them, twisting something in her heart. Affection. Caring.
No, something more than that. Something deeper. Undeniable.
“Cerian,” she breathes. “I...”
His brows wrinkle, but he doesn’t prompt her. He just waits for her to finish.
