As I squirm to scoot off his lap, Lore spreads his fingers and clasps me, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to make me feel like a fish caught on a lure.
The black dots in his eyes throb just as hard as my pulse. “Don’t move.”
His husky growl makes me go stock-still and scan the darkness for a threat. When the muggy air doesn’t move with more than steam, I murmur, “Why?”
His lids close, and his nostrils flare. If we were about to be attacked, he wouldn’t be closing his eyes, which means—
Something grazes the side of my knee, and . . . oh my Gods, are there eels in these pools? I’m not intrinsically scared of eels, but I heard they can shock a grown male with a flick of their tails. I’m in enough shock as it is at the moment.
When I feel it brush up against the side of my leg again, I yelp and plunge my hand under the surface to bat it away, wondering why Lorcan doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the feel of something slithering so close to his—
I freeze just as my palm connects with—
Lorcan shudders, and because our bodies are connected in many a place, the tremors shoot into me and make me rattle as though I were part-serpent. I jerk my hand back out of the water, feeling the imprint of his . . . of his . . .
“Eel?” Lore supplies.
My face burns, and although his mouth bares just the faintest hint of a smile, mine bares a full-fledged scowl.
“Forgive me, Fallon”—the thumb pressed to the bottom edge of my rib cage traces the curve of my bone—“but it’s been over five centuries.”
“Since someone’s referred to your junk as an eel?”
The crow master doesn’t just smile; he laughs, and the vibrations of his laughter shake me from heart to eyelash.
I hold my breath, then pulse it out. “Lore, this is . . .” I grab at the fingers hooked around my waist and attempt to pluck them off my skin when his thigh moves and—holy Mother of Crows.
This is what, Behach Éan?He shifts again, and the pinpricks of heat turn fiercer.
“It’s . . . It’s . . .”
His muscles contract, hardening, sharpening, and then ease before contracting anew.
Holy fucking Cauldron . . . “You need to”—I bite my lip to avoid panting—“stop. Lore. Stop.”
“Why?” His husky voice fans across my jaw.
When did his face get so close to mine?
He moves again beneath me, and my vision goes white as though the grotto has magically filled with a thousand flames. I smack his hard chest with the palm that touched—that touched a part of him I had no right touching.
You’re my mate, Fallon.He slides his leg against me like a man honing his blade on a whetstone, and the friction blanks my mind.My body is yours to touch; just as your body is mine to touch.
His words drop like pebbles into my mind, sinking deep, embedding themselves into my marrow. “Lore,” I croak. “It’s not right. You’re—”Not mine.
His mouth touches the underside of my chin, and the arm wound around my waist tightens, scooping me in closer, dragging my clenching center over the steel of his thigh. In some distant recess of my brain, I am screaming at the rag doll that I’ve become to stop riding a man’s leg.
A married man, no less!
Vows mean something to me. They should mean something to him.
If I come on his lap, I’d be no more dignified than the entertainers atBottom of the Jug. Shame pelts my thrumming spine. “Lore—stop!”
He stops, but it’s too late, because the wiry hairs peppering his thigh brush against my agitated nub and undo me.
Fifty
Iweep as I climax. My tears may fall quietly but my shame is deafening, as deafening as the clap of my abrupt pleasure. I clamp my teeth over my lower lip to keep it from quivering.
