She smiles, which is a relief. “Two minutes to be you?”
He scrubs at the frosting on his cheek as the water pours over them both. “You know. That ridiculous elf you binded with who hates being sticky.”
She reaches for his hands. “Let me.” She grabs a small towel from a shelf outside the shower enclosure and gently scrubs his cheek. “Should I be offended that you’re more distracted by frosting than by me?”
Her smile doesn’t fade, which somehow leaves him feeling loved despite his idiosyncrasies that others rarely understand.
Whether she understands or not, she loves him.
“You would have won out in the end,” he says softly as he rests his hands on her waist and presses his forehead to hers. “But I’ll enjoy you more when I’m not constantly reminding myself the frosting isn’t real.”
As the warm water washes away the stickiness, her gentle ministrations add to his longing. Longing for her. Every part of her. Her heart and her flesh. Her essence with no walls between them.
The water beading along her skin and soaking her hair draws out his heat as he looks at her, and for a moment, disbelief fills him. Not only that she’s his, but that there was ever a time he didn’t long for her with his entire being.
“I need you,” he whispers as he presses his cheek to her temple.
“Your shoes—”
Perhaps the heartlanding will understand this time.
He wishes them away, and they vanish. Thank the fates.
Her fire seems to have cooled a little. He’ll have to heat her up again.
“My head is full of thoughts of you now,” he whispers.
“Not frosting?”
“There’s still a little frosting claiming my thoughts.” He takes the cloth from her and gently washes away the frosting that made its way inside her gown, finishing with a touch that hitches her breath.
Then he stops, and after a few moments, she whimpers. “Cerian.”
“I thought you needed this to happen now,” he says near her ear.
Her eyes flash open, and she stares at him, breathing heavily as water runs in rivulets along her skin. He lets his gaze wander over her, and it takes all the control he can muster not to reach for her again.
Then he sets a hand on the shower wall behind her, leaning near her ear once more. “I was hoping you’d throw yourself at me again. But if you’ve changed your mind—”
She doesn’t give him a chance to finish before she clings to him and finds him in a kiss that sends his fire magic reeling.
Thank the fates for the water pouring over them both.
He follows her lead this time, even when she drags him from the shower to the bed before climbing on top of him. When a drizzle starts inside the castle, he doesn’t question it. He’s too busy trying not to light anything on fire.
Whistling wind. Where has she been hiding this passion?
He can barely think straight, so he stops trying. He just lets her have him, giving in to every touch of her skin against his.
Is she trying to kill him? If it feels like this, he may let her. It’s a good thing there’s hardly any wood in here, though he manages to wrap her in his vines anyway. She certainly doesn’t complain.
Every wisp of control he reaches for is like grasping for the wind. His magic is wild, doing whatever it wants, leaving him completely at her mercy. The words that fly from him at her touch would have earned a mouthful of soap from Grandmera when he was an elfling, but he doesn’t even try to rein in his tongue.
“Sanna,” he whimpers through gritted teeth when he can’t take the fire raging inside him any longer. “Sanna, please.”
And once she finally puts him out of his misery, every muscle in his body becomes jelly. There’s not enough oxygen in the heartlanding to fill his lungs as he gasps for air and looks at her in shock.
She seems as shocked as he is, and he weakly reaches for her, drawing her to his side on the soggy bed in this drizzly guest chamber in Levina. She’s breathless, and neither of them speaks for a few minutes.
