“I meant, metaphorically. Or whatever it’s called. I’m one hundred percent invested in us.”
The ring slides right down to the base of my ring finger. I push it off before… Well, before he notices it fitsthatfinger. He probably wouldn’t, or if he did, he wouldn’t care like I—for some reason—seem to care.
“We’re from two different worlds, Electra.”
Before I—again—jump to the conclusion that he knows what I am and has been pretending otherwise this whole time, I ask, “Is this when you confess you’re an alien?”
He doesn’t even smile. “I’m not an alien.”
“Well, I’m not either,” I murmur conspiratorially.
He catches my elbow and tugs. “Come here.”
I climb him.
His large, callused hands shape my waist before sliding around me and holding me so tight that it smooshes our chests together, and I’m forced to lay my cheek in the scoop of his shoulder. “Would you marry me?”
I try to push up to see if he’s kidding, but his grip is unyielding.
“Not now, obviously. In the long run. Would you ever consider marrying a man like me?”
“No. You havewaytoo many mood swings.”
“If I weren’t so moody, would you?”
“I’ve known you for all of two weeks. Plus, I’m only twenty, Cillian.”
“You see…”
“What am I supposed to see?” I manage to press up onto my forearms this time.
“That you’d never consider it.”
My mouth purses. “Do explain how you drewthatconclusion?”
“From how fast you’re finding reasons why it wouldn’t work.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being real. Even though I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything before, I’m starting to think we’re impossible.”
“Whatever happened to the cocky dance instructor dead set on making me fall for him?”
“He backed up and took a good, long look at his life—and himself.” Cillian’s expression is no longer tortured, just plain tragic.
“How about he stops navel-gazing and looks around him instead? Maybe then he’d see that he managed to get the girlandland an invitation to visit her homeland. A privilege, since tourists aren’t allowed in Atlantis.”
His pupils shrink before dilating when I sit up and straddle his hips.
“In case that was too subtle for you, what I’m saying is that you won me over. Which, let me tell you, is an actual feat, Lowry. So quit your pity party.”
His hardening dick brushes against my ass. I lift off his abdomen to welcome his length through, then sit back down and begin to torture him and myself with a hip thrust.
Like rubbing a magical lamp, the friction clears his sullenness right up. In minutes, his stare has taken on a feral, possessive quality, and his fingers have claimed my flesh.
He grinds me against him. Although his ridged length against my clit feels divine, I lift up once again, not to relocate myself elsewhere but to relocate him elsewhere.
“Electra,” he gasps-rasps when I’ve made his crown vanish.
