“So… what’s your first question?” he said, leaning forward to nibble on my earlobe.
“Last night, when we said goodnight, you said I was wearing your insignia. What did you mean by that?”
He looked up in surprise. “I thought you knew, didn’t you?”
I shook my head and his brows furrowed.
“The earrings you are wearing match my godly seal. It’sa quill and a crescent moon. The quill represents the act of writing and recording knowledge, while the crescent moon symbolizes wisdom, mystery, and the cunning that comes with understanding the hidden aspects of the world.”
He lifted his shirt over his head and seeing his bare skin covered in tattoos was breathtaking. To my disappointment, he wasn’t trying to turn me on—well, not yet anyway—but he showed me a tattoo on his chest.
“If you look closely at the spiral formed by the ink, you can see that it resembles the profile of an owl, but only from a specific angle. A representation of how true wisdom and cunning are often hidden and require insight to uncover.”
I leaned closer to inspect the tattoo and a breath caught in my throat.
“It looks just like the earrings,” I whispered.
He nodded. “The shopkeeper saw you looking at them the first day at the Lodge and sent them over straight away. She said that I would find the right moment to give them to you and that they had always belonged to you.”
Tears filled my eyes.
Theo leaned back on the chair, but never stopped running his fingertips over my bare arms.
“I used to dream of you. Not of you as a person, but of the wordsmith. I could feel your power calling to me, but I could never find you. I always assumed you would be a man, simply because females played no part in my life whatsoever. Sometimes I saw little glimpses of the world around you in my dreams, but never enough to see who you were.”
I nodded and understanding dawned on me.
“That’s why you were so surprised to see me that first day at the temple.”
He grinned and ran his hands through his hair.
“It was bad enough that you were a woman, but you were just so stunning, Mae. It was agony to look at you, feeling this pull towards you and not being able to give in to it.”
I rose from his lap, pulling my shirt over my head. He groaned as he watched me sit down in front of his chair between his legs. I sat up straight, but he was so tall that I could not reach his face with my mouth. So I took his hand in mine and started planting kisses along the palm of his hands. My tongue darted out and traced little circles on his palm.
He drew in a shaky breath.
“Honestly, I am so sensitive, you could just massage my little toe all day and I’d be the happiest God alive.” He chuckled, and I smiled into his palm. I had never thought about it before, but it made sense that he reacted strongly to physical touch, after being denied any kind of physical comfort all his life. I’d have to be careful and make sure he knew he was in control. He lifted his hand and cupped my cheek lovingly. I marveled at the gentleness of his touch.
“Massaging your toe wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but all right,” I teased and pretended to move away but he held me steady with his hand.
I laughed and leaned up again, offering my mouth for a kiss. He leaned forward and the second our lips touched the world was on fire again. I could have stayed like this, but I wanted to touch him, show him what he had been missing out on.
So I gently pushed him back into the chair.
I lifted my hands and let them run over his muscled chest, reveling in the feeling of his unbridled strength.
He groaned at the touch, closing his eyes and lifting his arm up behind his head.
I leaned forward and started kissing his chest, from his pectoral muscles deeper and deeper down to the hem of his trousers.
“Do you want me to stop?”
I breathed, but he opened his eyes and looked straight into my soul.
“No, please don’t stop.”
So. Hot.
