“Nope,” he called down.
“Don’t worry!” Another silhouette of a head popped up next to his. A voice sing-songed down to them. “I can help you!”
“He brought Honey?” Kaelan muttered.
“Here it comes!” Honey called down to them.
More dirt rained down on them, big balls of it.
Magda plucked Hero from her shoulder, turning her back to the shower, curling over Hero as they were bombarded.
Kaelan huddled over her, shielding her head as well as his while she sheltered Hero. The simple gesture of kindness abated her annoyance at him.
Her crying? Over him? Yeah, right.
For someone who had spent much of his life as an imp, he certainly didn’t lack for ego. Not that she was surprised. He had obviously come of age—when a Pixie turns seventeen—more than a few years ago. He’d had plenty of time being beautiful in that green-eyed, slightly tortured, sexy-scar way. How long could it really take for a Prince to get so full of himself?
Besides, anyone who smelled like caramel melting on a wood-fired stove in the midst of a cedar forest probably hadn’t had any trouble turning all of the nymphs’ heads.
As the heat of his breath skimmed across her jaw and her throat like fingers slipping over her skin, her pulse quickened.
She forgot about the hail of dirt and that they were crouching at the bottom of a hole while Damion and Honey waited above.
A warm haze spread through her, stripping away her breath. A sudden sensation of rising, gradually accelerating, overwhelmed her. A new ache blossomed deep inside of her—for Kaelan.
And he was right there, eyes of green fire wide and dilated and full on her. He held himself preternaturally still, like a predator lying in wait to strike.
Hungry.
“Whatever you’re thinking, Magda” he said in a strangled rasp, “you have to stop.”
Her gaze fixed on the flushed hue of his lips. “I’m not—”
Before she could quell her Rae instincts, Kaelan’s mouth dove to hers.
He tasted better than he smelled, like warm salted caramel. He pulled at her, devouring her, with his mouth and then his hands. They dropped from their shielding position to grasp the back of her head.
His tongue plunged between her lips.
Hero wriggled from her grasp . . .
Her hands caught on Kaelan’s tunic, clutching the fabric tightly, craving the touch of his skin underneath.
Images unfurled in her head of his naked body against hers, down in the dirt, in this dank hole, it didn’t matter. Just so long as she could taste him, so long as she kept on soaring, so long as she could feel the searing heat of him all over—inside and out.
His hand slipped from her head, down the curve of her back. The other caught briefly on the top of her shirt and then slid over the swell of her breast, coaxing the peak with his fingers.
He was a Prince and she was a Rae. And in that moment, as her thigh pressed against the thick ridge straining against his trousers and the heat built inside of her—her own hunger—she didn’t know anything else.
And then a hard clump of dirt crashed onto her head.
The soaring halted and she fell, snapping out of the spell of her primal Rae instincts.
Kaelan ripped away, breathless and wide-eyed.
The dirt-shower ended.
“Magda.” His voice was ragged. He backed away, covering his mouth like he might throw up.
