“Yes.”
“Because of me.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of my hand almost touching your—”
“Yes.” Clipped. Barely controlled. “Because of all of it. Because you’re pressed against me listing everything you want to do to me while I try to remember that honour exists.”
“Honour is overrated.”
“You won’t think so tomorrow morning when you remember this conversation sober.”
“I’ll think it’s the hottest conversation I’ve ever had, and I’ll be annoyed we didn’t follow through.” But she settles her hand over my heart and leaves it there. Truce. “Fine. Your heartbeat. My favourite place. I’ll stay here.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Even though you’re wrong about the honour thing and I’m going to prove it by climbing you like a tree first thing in the morning.”
“Krilly.”
“Shh. I’m memorising your heartbeat.” Her eyes drift closed, then force open. “Don’t let me sleep yet. I haven’t told you about the dream.”
“What dream?”
“The one where you pick me up and press me against the cave wall and—”
My hand covers her mouth. Same gesture as the root cave, the first night, except this time her lips curve into a smile against my palm and the warmth of her mouth sends a jolt straight through me.
“Mmph,” she says against my hand. Then, muffled but unmistakable: “Mmm-you should know—mmph—the wall thing is very—mmph—important to me.”
“Sleep.”
She licks my palm.
My hand jerks away, and she grins up at me with the unrepentant delight of someone who has found the exact combination of actions that makes a male with decades of combat training lose his composure entirely.
“Yourface,” she says, delighted. “Your face right now is my new favourite thing.”
“You are the most dangerous being I have ever encountered, and I’ve fought creatures with more teeth than you have bones.”
“But I’m cuter.”
“Devastatingly.” The word escapes without clearance. “Nowsleep, before I do something we’re both going to have very strong feelings about in the morning.”
“Promise?”
“That is not the threat you think it is.”
She laughs, bright and unguarded, and the sound does something to my chest that no arena wound ever managed. Then the drowsiness wins, her eyes closing for the last time, her bodygoing heavy against mine with the boneless trust of someone who has decided this is where she lives now.
Her hand stays over my heart. Her breathing slows, deepens, evens into the rhythm of genuine sleep. The flush fades from her cheeks by degrees, the fruit’s effects receding, leaving behind the woman who said every one of those things and meant them all.
She shifts in her sleep. Presses closer. Her mouth finds the junction of my neck and shoulder and rests there, breathing warm and even against my pulse, and every exhale sends sensation down my spine that my newly liberated nerve endings receive with exquisite, agonising clarity.
Her leg tightens over mine, pulling herself closer. Her hips settle against my side with a pressure that is not accidental even in sleep. The enhanced sensitivity is still operating, her body seeking contact the way a root system seeks water, and the warmth of her against my hip is specific and devastating, and I am going to lie here for hours feeling it and maintaining composure through sheer force of will.
Hours.
