But this? This is the part where we seal it.
“Promise you will tell me to stop, Oona,” Dagan says, his forehead resting against mine, voice low and rough. “If this is too much. If I am too much.”
I swallow.
Look up into those green-gold eyes, bright as wildfire and deep as forest shadows.
“You’re a lot,” I admit, my lips brushing his. “But you’re not too much.”
For once in my life, I don’t want less.
I want all.
His breath shudders out, and then he kisses me again.
Slow, deep, thorough.
Like he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second to learn me.
To map every curve of my mouth, memorize the way my breath catches when he nips at my lower lip, the little sound I make when his tongue strokes against mine.
Heat spirals low in my belly.
Moisture floods between my thighs, creating an ache I’ve never felt.
God help me, I want him.
My fingers find his shoulders, slide over hard muscle and the faint ridges of old scars.
He feels like living bedrock under my hands—solid, unyielding, safe. I curl my hands in his shirt, and the fabric simply unravels into dust, leaving nothing between my palms and his bare skin.
I pull back, startled.
He huffs the smallest laugh, eyes darkening.
“Perks of being Lord of Earth,” he says. “Stone obeys. So does cloth. Does this offend you, Oona?”
I answer by running my hands down his chest. Over the powerful lines of his torso, the flex of his abdomen as he fights for control.
His skin is warm—warmer than it should be—and the faint glow of the elder blossoms paints him in soft gold and violet.
“Not offended,” I whisper. “Very much the opposite.”
His answering growl vibrates against my ribs.
“Good,” he says, and his hands slide down, following the curve of my throat to my shoulders, then lower.
The gown Brianne chose moves like it’s alive, flowing where his fingers brush, thinning where he needs it to, until I feel the night air on my skin, cool against heat.
He doesn’t rush.
Every inch he bares, he pauses to kiss, to touch, to rediscover like he’s already obsessed and getting worse by the heartbeat.
“You’re trembling,” he says quietly, palm flattening over my sternum. His thumb strokes once over my racing pulse. “Are you frightened?”
“No,” I breathe.
Honest.
