“I could still slip up. Now’s not the time to test this, and I definitely shouldn’t test it on you.”
“You haven’t gilded anything involuntarily since you woke up,” he points out, still prowling toward me.
I back up, shaking my head. “Let’s just save the kissing for when the sun goes down. It’ll be like old times. It’s too soon to do this right now.”
My back hits the cave wall, and he’sright therepinning me in place without even touching me. “On the contrary. This moment has been a long time coming.”
His broad chest blocks out the light of the cave, his head tilted down to look me in the eye, and I can’t breathe. My mind screams with doubts and fears, even as my body whispers with desire, spine bending ever so slightly to get closer to him.
“Slade.”
“Auren.” He leans in close, the plume of his warm breath skating against the skin of my cheek. “You’ve touched me during the day already.”
“But—”
“You’re not going to suddenly gold-touch me.”
Watching him from a few feet away is one thing. But when he’s this close, when the exhales make our chests skim against each other, and when I can see every facet of his green-flecked eyes, it’s hard to think. It’s hard to doubt. It’s hard to fear. He’s so all-consuming that my mind just stutters to a stop.
“Kiss me,” he says.
My breath hooks at the back of my throat. “We shouldn’t.”
“Oh, but we should.” He shifts again, so close that I can feel the air move between our cheeks.
My mouth has gone dry, my whole body flaring with want I can’t tamp down. I’m practically clasping the wall at my back as if it’ll keep me from melting right into him, but I’m not sure how much resistance I can truly put up.
Behind me, molten gold slips from my palms, wetting the stone wall. “My power’s slipping,” I whisper shakily as he softly blows against the bend of my neck. Chills flare from his purposeful breath, my skin somehow feeling both cold and hot at the same time.
“Kiss me,” he commands again.
I want to.
“You want to,” he says, like the jerk is reading my mind.
I immediately shake my head. “No, I don’t. I don’t even like kissing you. It’s the worst.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” I reply tartly. “You have bad form. I should’ve told you before.”
A laugh escapes him just as he reaches down to trail a finger over my collarbone. Even though it’s covered in my shirt and coat, that simple touch makes me think of skin-to-skin, which I’m sure is exactly the point. “Bad form? That sounds unfortunate.”
“It—it is.”
“Mm-hmm.” Slade moves his finger lower until it grazes against my abdomen and then catches against the waist of my pants. “Have I told you how much I enjoy watching your ass in these pants?”
“The sentiment is mutual.”
Another laugh escapes him, making my stomach tumble over itself.
He leans back to look at me, the heat of his body like a warm blanket I want to dive beneath. “Kiss me.”
My fingers dig into the stone, and I hear the soft patter of gold starting to drip onto the floor. “My magic...”
“You have control of it,” he says, his tone nothing but pure confidence.
“I could slip—”
