Asherton’s smile faded, and his eyes slid over her body, resting on her face. He gazed at her for a long, intense moment, sending her heart battering against her ribs. Slowly, he stood and waded toward her. Magdala stepped back, away from him and the devouring depth of his green-gold eyes. Her foot sank in the deep water, and her head dunked under.
“Whoa!” Asherton cried. He wrapped his arms around her and hoisted her up. She blushed and, laughing softly, rested her arms on his shoulders.
Asherton’s expression was drunk with longing and a fire that sucked her into its heat. Until that moment, she’d never seen him without his facade of wry smiles and clever retorts. In the vibrant, unearthly light, Asherton was surreal, and as she looked into his eyes, she felt as though she’d trekked for a hundred years in the wilderness and finally reached home.
With a swell of joy and terror, Magdala realized that she might love him.
Gently, he lifted his hand and laid it against her cheek, his thumb caressing her cheekbone.
The world shifted. The house and her father and her anger toward him, all of which had been fading day by day, finally melted like salt in water, and all she wanted was to bundle his broken, rejected heart in her arms and shield it from every balled fist and harsh word. To be his sanctuary. To find her sanctuary in him.
Reckless and mindless, she pressed her lips to his neck. He dropped his head back and sighed as she trailed kisses up to his jaw.
What are you doing? What are you doing? Stop, stop, stop!screamed a voice in her head, but she couldn’t stop, and she didn’t want to.
Cradling his face in her hands, Magdala gave in to insanity and touched her lips to his. It was a soft kiss, cautious. He responded with a gentle movement of his lips, nipping at her, and then he cupped his hand on the back of her head. Magdala tipped into him, and they pressed into a deep, consuming, hungry kiss.
This was madness. She could not have him, but she loved him. It was all she could think, over and over.I cannot have him, but I love him.
She slipped her tongue between his teeth, and his arms tightened around her, and then her hands were in his hair and his were on her back. He broke away and kissedher shoulders, her neck, up and up until their lips met again in a frantic flurry of passion.
Stop, stop, stop!
As if they both heeded the sensible voices at the same instant, they gasped, their eyes flew open, and they splashed apart.
“I’m sorry,” Asherton said, his chest heaving. “I didn’t …”
“I started it,” she said, bashful and flushed. “It’s just the energy from the chase. We’re all worked up.”
“Yes.” He drifted away from her, and she longed to catch him back and kiss him again. “Yes, that’s it.”
But that wasn’t it, and she could see that he knew it as well as she did.
She turned and returned to shore, then slipped onto the smooth bank. “That didn’t happen. We lost our minds for a moment, because we’re excited and tired and we’ve had a fight, but that didn’t happen. Besides, we don’t even like one another.”
Asherton’s eyes sparkled. “That’s not entirely true.”
“It doesn’t matter either way,” she bit back. “This never happened. And this will never happen again.”
He ran his hand through his wet hair, and Magdala’s fingers flexed, remembering the coil of his curls under her fingers. A few strands still wrapped around her pointer finger, and she plucked them off and tossed them aside.
Asherton sniffed, his jaw worked, and Magdala was foolishly startled at how well she could read him. How well she knew him. He was subduing a deep urge to kiss her again. And her paper wall of resolve was all that held him back.
“The tide is going out, so the moon is setting. We can probably head home,” he said at length.
Magdala nodded. “I’m sorry, Ash.”
He offered her a melancholy smile. “It was bound to happen eventually. At least Zephyr didn’t see us.”
Magdala laughed. “Thank the Only for that.”
Chapter 30
Magdala awoke to Zephyr scowling over his glasses at her, his lips pursed. Anton was snuggled against her side, snoring through his sharp teeth.
Magdala closed her eyes and pointed toward Asherton. “Oh look,” she said with feigned surprise, “he’s alive.”
Zephyr offered her a tight smile. “And I suppose you can explain why you two are both in the prince’s bed?”
