I scoff to disguise my body’s reaction to him. “It’s my way of saying we need to be clear. I don’t want things to be confused between us.”
“Confused how?”
“This—what we’re doing now—is to keep warm. Nothing more.”
Kaidren doesn’t speak for so long, I think he’s silently accepted my assertion and is drifting off to sleep. Then, hegently rolls me over to face him. Embers from the hearth cast an orange glow over the sharp features of his face. “It could mean something. It could mean everything.”
My heart leaps at the suggestion. My mind is less sure how to react.
“I meant what I said before,” he says. “I can’t get you out of my head. So, I’ve stopped trying. Even after everything, I don’t regret kissing you.”
My throat feels as if it’s coated in a fine layer of dust. “Kaidren—”
He interrupts me, and I’m glad, because I don’t know how I was planning on finishing that sentence. “I know you’re aikkari, I know you’re the Shadow Queen, I know about your mother. You know that I poisoned my father. We have all the ammunition we need to be each other’s ruin. But I don’t want that. I just want you.”
This house is dim from the storm, but Kaidren is bright, and his face is beautiful. His eyes watch me with a hungry intensity that scares me almost as much as it excites me.
I’d be lying if I said I’m not tempted.
Good thing I’m an excellent liar.
I ignore the way my starheaded heart pangs in protest and shake my head. “You and me . . . we’re a bad idea.”
“Why?” His hand dips beneath my sjaal and glides along my waist until it rests on the bare skin of my back. “You kissed me back.”
The heat of his skin against mine after spending so long avoiding his touch makes it impossible to think. “I—” My brain is already mush. It stops working altogether when he dips his head, pressing his lips to the side of my neck.
I shudder. The rest of my sentence becomes as scattered as sunshine in the mountains.
“You what?” His free hand tilts my head, baring more of my neck to him. He kisses the hollow at my throat, leaving me buzzing to the tips of my toes. My eyes slip closed, chest heaving from the effort of holding myself back.
One hand sears my back, the other tucks an errant kinky curl behind my ear as his nose glides up the column of my neck. “What were you going to say?” His breath tickles my ear. “You don’t want me? Go ahead. Lie to me. I dare you.”
My eyes flutter open. His lips hover just above mine, a tantalizing gasp away.
I pride myself on being a very good liar. But as I trip and fall headfirst into the depths of his eyes—dark and wild and treacherous—I stop lying. To myself and to him.
I seize his face between my icy hands and kiss him.
Ophera is freezing; Virdei is colder still. For seven years, I’ve kept my heart frozen solid. As I drag Kaidren’s lips to mine, I’m set alight.
Flames consume me—where our lips meet, where his body melts into me, in my soul—and I can’t get enough.
Kaidren holds nothing back. He kisses me as if he’s starved. His lips pry mine apart, and he sighs into my open mouth. One hand cups the space where my neck curves into my jaw, the other draws lines up and down the slope of my spine. He tilts his head, giving him a better angle to coax my tongue to intertwine with his. I gasp at the newness of the sensation, and he swallows the sound.
Kaidren’s breaths become my own. My arms coil around his neck as we move together. I match each shift of his head, every swipe of his tongue, with my own.
I’m lightheaded when he pulls away. My mind spins too quickly to have a single coherent thought. Kaidren is smiling widely and unevenly and, after a beat, I realize I am too.
His lips graze my temple. “If that was honesty, consider me a liar reformed.”
I laugh. My cheeks are flushed and my hair is a mess, but with the way he’s looking at me, I don’t care.
His smile stretches wider, growing more lopsided. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.”
“That’s because you’re not funny.” I can’t stop grinning.
He chuckles. “I’m hilarious and charming.” He takes my wrist and kisses the golden ink of my tattoo. “And you are all of the above, not to mention beautiful.”
