“That water has to be getting cold,” I say, eager to have him close to me again. “Do I need to turn around so you can get out and dry off?”
He laughs, though it’s a mocking sound, one that makes me giggle. “I just don’t want to stun you with my natural beauty,” he says. “That’s all.”
I arch a brow. “I’ve seen naked men before, you know. While I’m sure your manly bits are lovely, I doubt they’re anything new.”
“Seen? Or been with?” he asks.
“Both.”
He starts walking toward the river’s edge, cupping himself, water sluicing off his body as more and more of him comes into view. “You’re experienced, then?”
I don’t like thinking about Emmitt or the boy before him, a boy I met at market in Penrith. Both are gone forever now.
“Experienced enough. I’m certainly no novice.”
As he reaches the beach and shakes water from his hair, I take a few steps back, until I’m standing in the middle of the fires, shielded by walls of heat. Rhonin strides toward me, and I can’t look away. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, though I wish he would lower his hands so I could seeallof him.
He steps into the warm island I’ve created and stops, leaving a single stride between us, his body glistening in the firelight. I swallow hard at the sight of him, the water running from the strands of his hair over the thick curve of his smooth chest, his hard nipples, the rippled plane of his abdomen. Gods, I’m already aching, and he hasn’t even touched me yet.
I’m anything but shy, so I hold open the blanket like wings. “Come here. Let me warm you.”
Those bright, innocent cerulean eyes sparkle in the firelight as he looks down, running his gaze over my body. When he meets my stare again, some of the pure innocence that lives inside Rhonin seems to have buried itself away, replaced by desire. I see it in the way he moves with a little more confidence—stepping close and looming over me.
His lip is quivering from the cold, so I fold the blanket around us both, resting my hands behind his neck as I press my body against his, skin to skin. His breath hitches at this first contact. As for me, my breasts suddenly feel so heavy, like they need his touch. His grip. His kiss.
“You can let go of your bits now.” I look up at him with a smile. “I can think of far better things you can do with those hands.”
He hesitates, like he’s uncertain what to do, but finally, he slips his palms over my hips. A shuddering breath leaves him as he grips my flesh. “Gods, you feel so good.”
Rising on my tiptoes, I lean close, speaking my words against his mouth. “I bet I can feel even better.”
He lifts his hands and cups my face as I press my lips to his, and in a matter of seconds, I’m swept away in Rhonin’s kiss. His tongue is the grandest tease, tasting me, moving in ways that make me grow wet with longing. He may seem innocent and inexperienced in some ways, but in this, he is a master.
In Malgros, Rhonin said that one day I would kiss him because I wanted to, not because of a bargain, and he was right. We kissed for a long time that night at the inn, and again the night we went hunting near Elam. Both times, I’d wanted to taste his kisses more than I wanted to breathe. Tonight is no different.
I want his mouth everywhere.
We kiss the way we spar, meeting each other’s every movement with the perfect response. I press closer, kissing Rhonin deeper, groaning into his mouth as I feel his erection grow hard against my stomach, though he pulls away before I get the full effect.
“I want you,” I whisper. “I want you inside me. Now.” I let the blanket fall, our skin blessedly met with warmth from the fires, and begin trailing my hands down his chest, his abdomen, needing to touch more of him. But he grips my wrists, stopping me. Again.
He leans his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “You can’t say things like that to me. And you can’t touch me like that.”
A frown takes over my face. “Why not?”
“Because I want to give you everything you desire, Helena. You have no idea how badly. But I…I’ve never…”
I pull back and look up into his eyes. “You’ve neverwhat?”
For a moment, thoughts whirl through my mind like leaves chasing each other in the wind, reasons trying to form as to why he can’t lay me down right here in the middle of this warm beach and take me for hours. In truth, I can’t think of any.
But then, I no longer need to search for answers, because just like with the way we kiss, I’ve learned Rhonin in other ways, too. That look on his face. That sweet innocence. That tenderness and worry.
I slip my hand up to his cheek. “Rhonin. Have you ever been with someone like this before?”
He exhales, the sound at its edges one of relief. “No. Not like… Not like whatyouwant. Other things, yes. Of course. But life in the Eastern army didn’t exactly lend itself to moments of pleasure such as this. There simply wasn’t time, and the last thing any of us needed was a child. We don’t have birthbane in the East. It simply won’t grow. What wedohave only works some of the time, so sex is a great risk.”
Now I’m embarrassed, for not realizing this earlier, because suddenly everything makes sense. Every timid moment. Every nervous smile. Every second of hesitance.
