“Perplexed.”
I stop outlining the shape of her inked feather.
“It’s the first time anyone has expressed a desire to keep me. Well, outside of my family members, but it’s not so much a choice on their part as an obligation, since, you know, blood ties and all.” The smile that quirks her lips feels like a chisel to the doubt encroaching my chest. She relocates her fingers from my shoulders to my nape. “I would like to go home at some point before winter rolls over Glace.”
“Worried you’ll miss out on one of the monthly sacrifices?”
She laughs. I never thought I’d be one of those poor sods who’d wax poetic about a woman’s laughter, but Gods, the waves of her delight are nothing short of transcendent.
“I must absolutely know what went through Aodhan’s mind when he concocted such a tale.” She uses her knuckle to spring a tear from her eye.
I smile but then grow serious. “You can go home any time. I hope you know that.”
I slide a lock of her silken black hair behind the rounded shell of her ear, my gaze lingering on the ruby spiked hoop she uses to bloodcast.
“Just…come back.” What is it about the girl on my lap that makes me act like some lovesick teenager? Could she have cast a spell on me?
I decide against asking, because if she didn’t, my desperation might drive her away, and not just for a short trip home, but for longer.
“You could come with me?” she offers.
“I don’t think that’d be very wise.”
“Are you that terrified of my parents?”
“No.” I weave my fingers through her hair. “I just have a kingdom on the brink of a civil war and a resentful niece on the loose. I’d prefer to avoid someone staking a claim to my empire.”
“Right…” She purses her lips, shadows blunting the violet sparkle of her irises.
When she’d asked me what my favorite color was earlier, I’d almost blurted, “Your eyes. Your eyes are my favorite color.”
Thankfully, my tongue had reined back the preposterous revelation.
“Let’s not discuss revolutions tonight. Let’s not talk at all,” I murmur, eyeing her lips, which she keeps wetting with the tip of her tongue.
I lean forward and take possession of her mouth again. I’m aware it’s been a while for me, and that perhaps I’m misremembering the past, but I can’t recall ever experiencing a yearning as violent as the one I feel for this shifter princess. It’sdebilitating, like some fever that sweeps through the body and capsizes one’s cognizance.
Every inch of me she touches palpitates and grows hot, making me want to strip off my shirt so she can melt away more of the frost that dwells beneath my skin.
With every press of her tongue and flex of her fingers, she consumes my restraint.
She consumesme.
I still don’t understand how she could have ever believed, for even a second, that there were no sparks between us. My blood damn near liquifies the lining of my veins each time I so much as think of her.
As she slants her head to deepen the reach of our tongues, I grip the outside of her thighs. My cock is so engorged I worry I will pop my zipper. May her father have mercy on my wanton soul and never learn the depths of all the wicked things I wish to do to his daughter.
She pulls away to catch her breath. I allow her three deep inhales before I clasp her waist with my hands, her gaze with my eyes, and her lips with my mouth.
I’m not ready for this kiss to end.
Not ready to walk to her door and wish her a goodnight.
It dawns on me that I probably won’t be ready for any of that later, even though it will have to happen, or it won’t only be her mouth I fuck with my tongue. The thought of exploring her, of kissing her Glace-shaped birthmark and tasting her bare pussy, has the demon in my pants weeping like some sunshine-blasted icicle.
Back to my room I must go.
I slide my hands under her ass, then stand without breaking the kiss. When I start walking, her arms tighten around my neck and her feet lock around my waist. It takes everything—and I do mean,everything—inside me not to head to her bed.
