“That was me,” he confirms.
Panic creeps up my spine, but somehow I keep my voice level. “You were asleep, though, right? That means you didn’t see or hear anything, right?”
“Right,” he confirms.
I let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Except for the part where you rubbed your hands all over my body, then cupped my genitalia while pressing your mouth into mine. That part, I was awake for.”
And suddenly, I am cold again.
Funny, I’ve been screamed at by Princess Seraphyne, slapped in rooms filled with her peers. Once, she made me dress up like a bramblehog and perform a little skit where she pardoned me, to kick off the Harvest Festival in front of the entire kingdom.
But I haveneverfelt anything like the embarrassment that crashes over me when the Stone Fae King lets me know he was awake forevery single second.
More water sloshes over the sides of the tub—this time when I attempt to get up.
“I was trapped this morn,” he says. His hands fall to my hips, and that’s the end of my efforts to get away. With barely a flex of his biceps, he holds me in place. “I believe I shall pay you back by trapping you, too.”
So that’s the story of how I end up in a bath being warmed by the insane body heat of a Stone Fae King, with my eyes squeezed shut, sending up prayers to the moons above to please,please,pleasetake me out early—before my already scheduled ritualistic murder. Just so I can get out of this situation.
But then Veyrion says, “It was my first kiss, too.”
What?
My eyes pop open, and I repeat the question aloud. “What?”
“It was my first kiss as well,” he says again.
“Does that mean you’re a virgin, too?”
“No.” His lips almost, but not quite, curve into a smile. “It is thought auspicious to have a release of some kind before battle. Either by one’s hand or into a willing vessel. But we Stone Fae only exchange kisses during ceremonies.”
“Like weddings.”
“Like weddings,” he confirms.
His hand lifts, talons curling gently around the back of my neck. “I did not dislike this formal practice for our upcoming ceremony.”
“You didn’t?” My heart stutters.
“No, I did not. Even inside the stone case, your lips felt very… full. And soft.”
A little of my newly found sass creeps back in. “That was the opposite of my experience.”
“Then perhaps we should have another first kiss,” he suggests, eyes dropping to my lips. “I am curious how it would feel… to be able to move this time.”
A hot flush crawls up my neck that has nothing to do with his heating up the bath. “Well, when you put it that way, I feel like some kind of creeper.”
“Well, Sallie Rosie, youdidcreep up to me while I slept and?—”
I capture his mouth in a kiss just to shut him up.
Kiss
VEYRION
Invitingher to kiss me was a mistake. I realize this the moment her lips touch mine.
