“Elsedora.” Now my name sounded like a plea. It was tantalizing. I could imagine him begging for other things.
“What?” I answered plainly.
“You have been my light. Through so much fucking darkness. Your friendship—it saved me from giving in. Those conversations, however frivolous they seemed to you, kept me breathing.”
My heart pounded.
I could handle dalliance, want, need. Could I handle being someone’slight?
“It is okay to desire a friendship that is more physical,” I tried to reason. “I wouldn’t think of you differently.”
Those were words I’d used before on a Moon warlock who had been my fiercest friend for centuries—they were wrong then. I felt the bitter taste of how wrong they sounded again.
He shook his head. “I’ve had that once before. It isn’t of interest to me to repeat. Listen to me,” he said as he gently pulled my wrist away from his cheek. “I owe you my life—more than that. I can’t make promises to stick around if we go down that path and things end poorly. If a tryst is what you want as thanks, I’ll gladly give that to you.”
He’d bed me in return for fighting to save him?
No.
This wasn’t a negotiation or a payment.
I shook my head. My tongue felt heavy and too big for my mouth.
He waited there, and the air stilled between us.
“I can’t lose you. If that’s the risk, then I’ll put all other ideas out of my mind,” I said with resolve. “You can’t blame a woman for trying when you show up to rescue her half dressed. Clothe yourself before bursting in next time.”
He huffed a silent chuckle, then leaned down and placed the most chaste kiss on my left temple, but I didn’t miss the way his throat bobbed before he said, “Good, then.”
He rubbed his palms up and down my arms twice, as though warring with how to part from the touch. “You smell nice,” he blurted. He’d noticed it once earlier that afternoon.
I smiled weakly. “I use the plum blossoms in my soap.”
“I really like it,” he admitted. “Goodnight, Elsedora.”
Damn his self-control.
He braced to step away.
“Why goodnight? Stay for a nightcap,” I encouraged.
One of his hands traveled up to embed itself in the wet hair at the base of my skull, and he tilted my head up. I parted my lips, waiting for him to lower his to mine.
Instead, he leaned in toward my ear and said, “Anything other than ‘goodnight’ tonight means I may lose you tomorrow. It isn’t a risk I’m willing to take either.”
I melted beneath the heat of his breath on my earlobe, nearly crumbling to my knees and telling him I’d give him anything he wanted. But he’d made a valid point.
I cared for him deeply. It wasn’t the fleeting sort of passion I’d experienced before.
“While I feel you’re thinking too much into physical intimacy, I understand,” I breathed out, closing my eyes and fighting the impulse to hold onto him.
“Good.” His stubble brushed my cheek before he released me and backed away.
Opening my eyes, I watched him step out of my bedchamber. He inhaled deeply, as though relieved or simply hanging onto the smell of plum blossom for later.
“Goodnight,” I said to the door before collapsing back onto my bed.
It took several minutes to convince myself not to run down the stairs after him. Only when I could no longer hear him moving about the lower level of my home did I let my hand slip beneath the silk of my nightdress.
