“Cover your ears.”
I obeyed immediately.
“Enough!” he roared.
I giggled as the echoes died out along with the knocking.
“Now, come here.” Rian pulled me up against him and nuzzled my neck. “Let me smell you one more time before I go. Taste you.” He kissed me, his tongue sweeping across mine despite the early hour. His hands kneaded my ass and clutched at my back until he drew away. “Tell me you're mine.”
“I'm yours,” I said instantly.
“No one else?”
“Are you mine?” I shot back.
Rian grinned. “Utterly.”
“Then there is no one else for either of us.”
“No one else,” he agreed. Then he grabbed my chin. “Don't even look at another man with lust, Galin.”
“I won't. I promise.”
“Good. I want all of your lusty thoughts. All your desire. You save it for me, my jewel.”
“It's impossible to do otherwise.”
Rian rumbled happily in his chest and stroked my hair. “You look more like you belong here than I do.”
“I bed?” I teased.
He snorted. “No, in Sken.”
“I thought the Sken Dread is known to have redheads?”
He lifted a brow. “Most wouldn't classify me as a redhead, and even if they did, blondes outnumber me. It's the same for many of the other races of this region.”
“Like the Hulfrin?”
“Yes. Precisely. You were born to live here, Galin.”
“I do feel as if I'm finally where I belong.”
Rian locked stares with me and something passed between us. Neither of us clarified that it was with him,anywhere with him, that I belonged. But it hung unspoken in the air.
Rian broke the silence with, “I have some things to attend to the next few days.”
I nodded. “My next day off is in three days.”
“Perfect.” He kissed me one last time, then reluctantly released me and climbed out of bed.
We got dressed together, then I walked him downstairs to the shop door. I had a desire to offer him breakfast, but I knew it was best to see him off as quickly as possible. If he didn't leave soon, I'd get as clingy as his sleeping self. I opened the shop door to find a new set of knights waiting outside along with a carriage. Rian looked at them, then shut the door, and pulled me into his arms.
“Three days,” Rian said. “And then I'll come for you.”
“I'll look forward to it.”
“No one else, Galin,” he growled the reminder.
