Dorus outdid herself with these.
“Oliver, you?—”
I opened my eyes to him picking something off the ground.
“What is it?”
He held up a familiar necklace. A note wrapped around its dainty chain in Ronen’s familiar scrawl.
This is all you have left of her, and it’s wasted in that forest.
“My mom got it for me.”
I smiled through a heart-wrenching ache.
Before, the necklace had been nothing but a ball and chain, keeping me in a life I never wanted. I gave it to Aspen, a stranger at the time, because I hated the thing.
Now, without her, and after dream-walking to the moment she’d received it, the necklace held a new meaning.
I’d forever remember her rubbing her stomach, talking to me about mundane things like chocolate and soup, voice filled with love for me before she’d ever laid eyes on me.
Turning and blinking away my tears, I lifted my wavy mane.
“Put it on me.”
“So what do you think he has planned tonight that involves chocolate?” Oliver asked, a suggestive note slipping into his tone as he clasped the necklace at my nape.
Facing him, I shook my head.
“Nothing you’re thinking of.”
Oliver’s green eyes glinted with laughter.
“How would you know what I’m thinking? I know you’re not very experienced in the love-making department, Luce. Do I need to explain everything that can be done with chocolate? He could drizzle it on your?—”
“Shut up!” I shoved him back as my cheeks flamed.
He laughed. “What? Someone has to explain how it works!”
“I know how it works,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my silk camisole.
Oliver lifted a brow. “Do you?”
I turned away.
It wasn’t what he thought, but we’d sure come close to the real thing.
“Do you?” he repeated, louder this time with surprise. “Who? How? Have you been holding out on me?”
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
“With me. Lilith made me seduce her in her dream-walks,” Aspen supplied as he walked through the open door and headed toward the bedroom in nothing but rumpled sweatpants and boots.
Heat spread from my face, down my neck, and all the way to my toes.
My body could practically heat our room with how much embarrassment and shame radiated from me.
Fortunately, Aspen’s tone lacked emotion, along with our bond.
