“Forgive me,” he says. “This is difficult in the dark. Are you all right?”
Rather than responding with words, she finds his lips again, and he returns her kiss with a passion that leaves her breathless. His arms are strong and steady as he helps her onto the bed, not letting go of their kiss. His weight hovering over her as he guides her to her back makes it hard to remember how to breathe.
If the heartlanding wakes them anytime soon, she may never forgive it.
“Are you warm enough?” he whispers near her ear as his lips graze her sensitive flesh.
With the heat coursing through her at the press of his body against hers, it’s hard to imagine ever feeling cold again. The air is warm, and even the misty drizzle doesn’t leave her chilled.
But the most comfortable heat radiates from his skin, warming her through her flimsy gown as if there’s nothing between his flesh and hers.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers. “You’re letting off the most delightful heat.”
“The dampness isn’t chilling you?” He nuzzles her ear, his breath sending shivers racing along her neck and down her arm as she gasps.
At her response to his touch, he does it again, and she doesn’t even try to answer his question.
He trails more kisses along her neck until his lips hit the edge of her sheer gown. Does it even serve a purpose here in the dark? It’s damp, sticking to her like a second skin.
A moment later, he stills, and she gasps as his body presses against hers with nothing between them but the leather trousers he still wears.
Did she do that? Or did he?
“Cerian,” she whispers.
“Just be mine, Arisanna. Don’t think. Just...just feel. Let me be your safe place the way you’re mine.”
She nods against his shoulder. She longs for that, too.
“I love you,” he whispers. “Until my end of days.” His lips connect with hers again with the same passion he kissed her with in his treehouse. Smoky sparks flare against her flesh, but the mist grows heavier around them, dampening his fire once more.
As his muscled chest presses against her, her own fire blazes, and she searches for his ears in the dark, sliding her hands along his jaw until her fingers connect with their pointed tips. His kiss slows, and his breath grows heavy as he rests his forehead against hers.
“Whistling wind,” he murmurs.
Then he wraps his hands around her waist and rolls to his back, pulling her with him, and in a crash of tangled limbs, she lands on top of him on the ground beside the bed.
“That...was not what I intended,” Cerian says.
Before she can stop herself, she bursts into laughter, leaning into his chest as her shoulders shake. “Maybe you should have gone the other way.”
“I can’t see anything in this darkness,” he says, his laughter joining hers. His hands are gloriously warm as they span her back, and she relaxes against him. That was just what she needed to unknot some of her tension.
When their laughter fades, his fingers trace a line from her neck to her lower back, and her breath catches as her heart races.
His hands are free now, no longer supporting his weight above her.
Free to touch her. To slide along her skin.
“Are we...are we lying in the dirt?” she barely manages.
“I think it’s moss. It feels like the bed did.”
He makes no effort to climb back on the bed, and it’s probably just as well. There’s nothing to roll off of down here.
And the last thing she feels like doing now is moving.
The press of his hand on her back is gentle. Feathery. Sending chills all the way to her toes. And rather than terrifying her as it did earlier, the darkness is a comforting cloak, blanketing her bare skin.
