“Let me up,” she commanded, pushing against the hard, molded plate of his golden armor.
“No.”
“This is undignified.”
“Perhaps. The answer is still no.” Her hair had come free of its pins. Brushing back a loose curl with his chin, he bent his head to nuzzle her neck. “You always smell so sweet.”
She shivered as his tongue traced a line up her throat that his lips then followed with kisses. “Stop that.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Dilys.” She glanced around, blushing at the sight of all the Calbernans, Summerlanders, and Winterfolk watching them with open interest. “Everyone’s looking at us. You’re making a scene.”
“Let them look. I want to kiss you, Gabriella. I want it so badly. But I vowed I wouldn’t kiss you again untilyoukissedme.” He pulled back to stare into her eyes. “Would you send me into battle without a last kiss from my love?”
She rolled her eyes. “How many women have you usedthatline on?”
“You’re the first.”
“I don’t believe you. And I’m not your love.”
“You are. The only love I’ll ever have.”
She blinked up at him, feeling her world tilt off balance. He was devastating to her equilibrium when he smiled, but he was even more devastating to it when he got all serious and intense and his voice took on that husky timbre that made every cell of her body leap to tingling life.
Then common sense reasserted itself.
“I told you before... you don’t love me. You can’t.”
“I can and I do.”
“No, I—”
He put a finger on her lips, silencing her.
“Siren though you are, you can’t Command my heart.” He traced the outline of her lips with a fingertip. “I do love you, Gabriella Aretta Rosadora Liliana Elaine Coruscate. And I will until the day I die.”
Despite her doubts, that sounded like a binding vow.
“So, will you kiss me?”
She shook off whatever enchantment he was working on her and set her jaw. “No. Now let me up. Your men are waiting.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his face against her hair for a second or two. Then he sighed and gave her a crooked smile. “You are a cruel, cruel woman, Summer Coruscate.” He shifted his arm, planting a hand firmly beneath her bottom and gave her a shove that set her on her feet.
“Cheeky creature.” She glowered at him for his familiarity, shook out her skirts, and set about repinning her fallen hair. But as she curled up her locks and shoved pins in place to hold them, she kept casting quick, troubled glances his way. What if hediddie? For all his confidence and capabilities, he was still mortal. And these pirates had not only proven themselves both willing and able to kill Calbernans—they had a specific grudge against House Merimydion. Dilys would be sailing into battle with a target on his back.
He was on his feet and gave all signs of being completely recovered from his earlier disorientation. Her mouth curled in spite of herself. Idiot. He’d just pretended to be “drunk on her love” as an excuse to pull her into his lap and beg her for a kiss. She shouldn’t find his antics amusing, but she did.
“Alakua.” Speaking the Sea Tongue word for “captain,” one of the officers from Dilys’s ship stopped beside him and clapped a fist to his armored chest. “Forgive me,Alakua.It is time.” The other men had already boarded the ship. Dilys was the only member of theKracken’s crew who had not.
“Tey.Thank you,” Dilys said. To Summer, he offered a final, small smile. “This is good-bye, then. Time for me to take my leave of you.”
“Yes.” He had already taken leave of her family. Though Wynter, Khamsin, and Dilys’s uncle had all said their good-byes at the palace, Summer had accompanied him to the docks to see him off. Spring and Autumn were further down the mile-long dock saying their farewells to Ari and Ryll and the other officers who’d danced attendance on them this summer.
“I will see you again when I return,” Dilys told her. “You still owe me two weeks of courtship.”
Kham and Wynter had agreed to let Dilys and his men continue the final days of courtship after they returned from dealing with the pirates. Assuming, of course, that theydidreturn. Summer thought about Dilys’s cousin, Fyerin, and his crew, all of whom had not survived their last encounter with these pirates. She clasped her hands together and squeezed her fingers tight.
