“I noticed,” he managed. “You walked into a tree.”
She let out a soft, helpless laugh that he felt against his chest more than heard.
“In my defense,” she whispered, fingers skimming slowly along the defined lines of his stomach, “no one warned me you looked like this under all those very proper layers.”
He caught her hand, pressing it flat against his abdomen, his own fingers curling over hers to pin her there.
“You may stare,” he said, keeping his voice low and rough. “Whenever you wish.”
Her breath hitched. “What if I want more than staring?” she asked, the question barely shaped, more heat than sound.
His control frayed all over again.
He rolled, just enough to cover her without crushing her, one knee between hers, his weight a warm, solid line along her body. Moonlight caught in Poppy’s eyes, her gaze widening as she looked up at him.
“Then you tell me…” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth and the hollow beneath her ear, and then lower, along the delicate line of her throat, each press of lips slow and lingering, “exactly what you want.”
Her hands slid up his back, pulling him closer again, and for a few long, dizzy heartbeats, they kissed like the night might never end—slow, drugging kisses that tasted like yes and stay and more.
It would have been so easy to let it start all over; his body certainly wanted to. But when she finally sagged beneath him, exhaustion stealing the last of her strength, he felt it instantly—the heaviness in her limbs, the way her fingers loosened, the way her eyes fluttered.
He rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard.
“Sleep,” he whispered, brushing a knuckle along her cheek. “You need rest for tomorrow.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Bossy fox.”
“Correct,” he said softly. “Sleep.”
She obeyed him for once.
Chapter 64
Within minutes, her body relaxed fully against his, her hand slipping from his ribs to rest over the center of his sternum—right above the place every fox knew as the spirit’s core. She didn’t know what she’d done.
His entire being did.
Mingxi froze and then exhaled in a silent, shaken rush. Dangerously intimate didn’t begin to cover it.
She murmured his name once, barely a breath.
“I’m here,” he answered immediately, tightening his hold, as if the night itself might try to take her away.
She sighed, content, and drifted deeper.
A fox Guardian could enter trance at will—let the body rest while the mind sharpened to a quiet, disciplined edge. Normally, all it took was a controlled exhale and a deliberate loosening of his aura.
Tonight, he tried. He closed his eyes. Slowed his breath. Let his consciousness reach for that familiar stillness.
Then, Poppy’s fingers curled faintly over his heart. Every thought he had scattered. His eyes opened again, wide and very much awake. The usual tether into trance—duty, discipline, the quiet hum of the leyline—was drowned out by the soft sound of her breathing, the weight of her body trusting his, the faint soreness in his muscles where they’d moved together.
He could still feel her nails in his back. Her gasp against his neck. The way she’d said, “I want you” like it was the bravest thing she’d ever done.
Trance was impossible. He didn’t move. He didn’t dare.
Moonlight filtered through the branches, silvering the curve of her shoulder where the blanket had slipped. He eased it higher without waking her, fingers grazing her skin in the barest of touches, reverent.
He should have been cataloging threats, reading the wards, thinking of the route to the moonwell, the entity, the Traveler. Instead, all he could think—stupidly, fiercely, helplessly—was: She chose me. Not as a Guardian. Not as a shield. As a man.
