“Are you saying I am a fool?” Was it stupid to provoke him like this? Definitely. Did it feel better than anything she’d done since she’d almost lost her head on the butcher’s block? Absolutely. Would she regret it?
Lory was still debating when Falcrest pounced, so fast she barely saw him move, his arm trapping her against his chest as he spun her back to his front.
“I’m saying you’re playing with fire, Lory, and not the good kind. It’s smart to fear people who are out for your blood.” His breath hit her ear in a hot gust as she held still, calculating her options, but the sensation of his muscles pressed against her back made the heat return to her skin.
“What ifI’mout for your blood? You’d be dead in a heartbeat because you don’t fear me—because youunderestimateme.”
“You said you didn’t want anyone to kill me because you wanted to be the one to do it.” The words sounded like from a different time, when she hadn’t burned in a stone chamber and Khayrivven Falcrest hadn’t carried her through a pyramid to save her.
“Something tells me my blood isn’t what you’re out for.”
“Are you talking about your body?” His smirk was obvious in his tone. “Because you’re not trying to fight your way out of this.” His arm tightened around her chest firm enough to make it clear there was no escape, yet gentle enough to show her he wouldn’t hurt her. “Are youangryyet, Lory?”
Guardians, his scent… Why did he have to smell so good, the sage and embers dominating today, a new, unfamiliar note joining the intoxicating blend. Lory wasn’t proud of how greedily she inhaled when all she should have done was stab him in the thigh, but something kept the smoldering anger at bay. Something potent and searing hot, dancing along her skin in all the places Falcrest’s body was pressed against hers.
“Not angry enough, I suppose.” His mouth was at her ear now, breath tickling her skin. “Maybe we should step it up a little.”
Without a warning, he dropped his arm, but he didn’t step away, and Lory didn’t move.
“Do you want me to make you angry, Lory?”
Guardians, that voice… Like molten honey, it trickled over her skin, making her ache for a single touch of those lips on her neck. Just one tiny touch.
“Or do you want me to do something else?”
Lory’s breath hitched as he shifted his weight behind her, and she only realized she was fully leaning into him when his chuckle danced over the shell of her ear, tickling and taunting.
Angry. She should be angry with him, but the heat was spreading from where her body was pressed up against his, so strong, so powerful, and everything she should run from—yet there she was, unable to peel herself away.
She had to do something, not just lean there like an idiot.
Reaching deep into the annoyance Falcrest so expertly built in her when he wanted to, Lory spun on her heels, but he didn’t step back the way she expected, didn’t raise hissword or hold her at arm’s length. Instead, he let her stumble into him, and as she caught herself against his chest with her free hand, his eyes flared like torches above her, wandering to her mouth and lingering as emotions warred on his features. His hand flipped up to her face, halting an inch from her cheek in that familiar motion, and Lory couldn’t stop herself from acknowledging how perfectly kissable his lips seemed from up close, even more so than from a distance.
“I’m tired of being angry.” Lory’s words dissipated on a gust of heat as Falcrest lowered his face an inch before freezing, gaze finding hers.
“Good.” His fingers twitched an inch from her cheek, but he didn’t touch her.
“I think fear isn’t the way for me to go either.”
A shuddering breath left Falcrest as he shut his eyes for a second as if to put whatever emotions were stirring inside of him back into a box. “Careful what you’re asking for, Gutter Gem.”
“I’m not asking anything.” Lory’s fingers curled into his shirt as she rose to her toes, licking across his lower lip the way she’d done in her dream, and where she’d found smart words to push him away then, her mind went blank at the taste of salt and sweet spices. So familiar…
Falcrest’s groan reverberated through her body, his hand flipping to the back of her neck, pulling her closer as his mouth molded over hers in a greedy kiss. Whatever she’d dreamed it would be like to kiss him, this was better. Dangerously addictive, with the way his tongue slid against hers, stroking and teasing, and his touch?—
“What are you doing to me, Lory?”
Like fire. His hand was like fire as it brushed the side of her neck, so delicately, she couldn’t tell if it was intentional or if his subconscious was making it. What she could tell was that his body reacted, hips rolling against hers, and she almost choked on a breath when his muscles weren’t the only part of him hard enough to cleave stone.
“You weren’t joking about what you can do with your mouth,” he gasped between kisses, dropping his sword and lifting her from the ground. Lory’s legs wrapped around his waist, fingers digging into his shoulders as she glued herself to his lips, savoring the explosion of sensations inside her stomach.
Smoldering embers, her skin igniting at every breath they shared until she could no longer think and her dagger lay forgotten beside Falcrest’s sword.
“Lory—”
His voice was a touch of fire, while his mouth seemed to feed the flames building inside of her. She wanted him. Guardians, she’d never wanted anyone as much as she wanted Khayrivven Falcrest. And he was the worst possible choice, and not only because he was above her in Ashthorn hierarchy. She hated him—or at least she remembered hating him a minute ago, but the way her body reacted to him told a different story.
“You’re on fire, Lory.”
