A grunt-like scoff.
“But you know, you make me forget the world I left behind,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “That cannot be a goodthing.”
“We all leave worlds behind. I’d like to believe that’s a good thing.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Your past?” Calliope asked. That world, she could understand. Some worlds weren’t meant to be carried forward. Others were meant to be loosened from the heart.
His lips brushed hers. “Past, future, everything except every moment with you.”
He bit back a grin. “And you claim not to be romantic.”
“Don’t fool yourself.” A sneer touched his features.
She chuckled. One fact stood above the rest: A part of her, perhaps the biggest part,wantedto be rescued. Not slay the villain herself. A part that longed to lay the burden down. Simply be happy. But him? In a curious twist of fate, she’d save him, even if it meant she perished in his stead.
Fanciful thoughts, no doubt.
“Nevertheless, I really must go.”
“Why a candle shop?” he asked suddenly, his thumb idly tracing a circle on her skin as though the question were nothing.
Calliope didn’t have to think to answer. “My mother. I used to sit with her while she coaxed light from wax. The motion of her hands. The puckered brow while she deeply concentrated on her task. Her smile when my father interrupted. Him joining their efforts. Starting my shop, it’s... it’s the only part of them I could keep alive.”
“You are honoring them. Noble.”
She smiled at him. “Noble, eh?”
“Noble.” He shifted, hovering, no,loomingover her, his arm braced in the pillows, caging her in with the sheer breadth of him. Her breath hitched as his shadow fell across her face, his eyes dark and determined, as though he’d read every frantic beat of her heart and had decided precisely what to do with it!
And she had a clue.
“Maxen,” she whispered, nerves tangling with sudden want. “I really—”
Her words cut off as his mouth found hers. A slow, deliberate kiss that unraveled her protest before it ever formed.
Between breaths, she tried again, desperate for reason. “I—”
Kiss.
“Need—”
Kiss.
“To—”
Another kiss, harder, hotter, until her thoughts frayed completely.
“Go,” she managed, though the word came out ragged, half-melted against his lips.
He claimed her thoroughly then, robbing her of all thoughts until there was nothing left but the feel of him, the taste of him, the wild certainty that she belonged here.
With him.
Her fingers curled helplessly in the bedding, the other slipping up to his chest. Stars, sun, and wax, his heart pounded beneath her palm.
“I can’t stay,” she whispered against his mouth, though her lips sought his even as she said the words.
“You can,” he answered, his hand cupping her cheek, holding her still for yet another kiss. “And you will.”
