I feel my face heat and bite my lip. “I mean, your bare skin will touch the locket at some point, and what if the warding doesn’t hold, or that beam of light comes back, or—”
“Soli, stop.” He smiles down at me and reaches out to touch my hair. “If Artemisen wanted me to die, she could have killed me easily enough at any point on this trip. She’s the goddess of balance and nature. What could be more part of nature and balance than lovemaking?”
“I’m afraid to take it off, even for a little while. Is it worth risking your life to find out?” My voice is a whisper, and I know the answer must be no. I don’t think she’d let me die in flames now that I’m on the quest to free her. But anybody who touches me so intimately? Could he be safe?
“You’re thinking too hard again,” he murmurs, and then he pulls me tightly against his chest and kisses me so deeply I can’t think. His kisses and the feel of his muscled body against my breasts steal my breath, my reason, until I’m left dazed and staring at him when he finally lifts his head.
“I think we’re okay.” He grins and glances down at the amulet, no longer glowing but simply resting in its magically warded case.
“It stopped glowing. Maybe she doesn’t approve?” My brain hurts, trying to figure out the motivations of a goddess. Especially now, distracted by all the impossibly carnal things I want to do to Kaelen.
The things I want him to do to me.
“Maybe she’s decided to step aside and mind her own business,” Kaelen murmurs. “Should I close the window?”
“I—What?”
He throws back his head and laughs, but quietly, with an eye tothe open window. “Should I close it? In case anyone is near enough to hear us …”
Glowing or not, I move the locket to rest on my back, the chain a light weight on my throat. This makes me feel even more bare to Kaelen’s fiery gaze. Suddenly shy, I cross my arms over my breasts. We’re on the third floor of the inn, so nobody could see in even if they wanted to, but if they hear us … What if I can’t help but cry out when …
Before I can answer, he crosses to the window and closes it. “We can open it later.”
“Later,” I agree, watching him walk toward me and fiercely wanting to strip the rest of his clothes from him. Wanting to see all of his skin. Wanting to touch him as I asked him to touch me.
Just then, what he said before dashes into my mind, and I can’t help but laugh.
“What’s funny?” He stops less than a hand’s span away from me and reaches for the buttons on his pants.
“Yourswordsmanshipwas improving. Just who exactly was telling you this?”
Kaelen’s eyes light up. “Did you just make a dirty joke?”
I bite my lip, suddenly worried. “I think I did. Is that okay?”
“Is thatokay?” He leans forward and kisses me like I’m his new beginning and his journey and his destination, all wrapped up into one. “Everything about you is a delight to me. I’m so happy to see you becoming the brave, funny, powerful, amazing woman you were always meant to be.”
I kiss him back, and then he straightens, looking down at me with a wry smile. “Not that you weren’t always a lot bolder than anybody knew.”
Part of the joy overflowing inside me is that finally,finally, I feel that somebody recognizes me now.
And recognized me before.
Even as a servant, even disguised by the dirt and rags of my captors.
Even with Gray Mind.
“You see me. You see the real me, and that means more to me thanI can ever express,” I tell him softly, and he drops to one knee next to the bed, takes my hand in his, and kisses it.
“Thank you.” But then his smile turns wicked. “And now I mean to see much more of you. If the answer is still yes.”
I reach out and unfasten another of his buttons. “The answer is still yes.”
With a whoop, he stands, rips through the remaining buttons, and shoves his pants down his legs. Confronted with the starkly enormous evidence of exactly how much he wants me, I can’t form words, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t need words.
He slides my pants off, taking my undergarments with them, and then he’s on the bed next to me, pulling me close, our bodies flush against each other from head to toe. I can’t breathe, don’t need to breathe, don’t want to breathe, only want to climb inside him, inside this moment, and live here forever.
He rocks against me, his thick erection pressing exactly where I want it—need it. I cry out, or maybe he does, and we’re kissing each other like we invented the art of kissing and are determined to perfect it before we unleash such a desperately dangerous act upon the world. His kisses are heat and skill and fierce desire, capturing, coaxing, plundering, and I match him kiss for kiss, frantically touching every inch of his skin that I can reach.
