Page 69

I looked at him for a long moment. He was asking permission. This king who commanded armies and had once burned villages in his grief, asking a human woman from South Carolina to let him fuss over her because he'd been frightened of losing her. "I understand that," I said quietly.

Something in his posture settled. He held out his hand. "Come to bed with me."

The covers had been turned down. Candles burned throughout the room, casting warm shadows across the stone walls. He helped me out of the robe and looked at me the way he'd looked at Drakhone from the mountain that morning. Like he was committing a landscape to memory because it was precious and all his.

"You're so beautiful," he said. The roughness in his voice wasn't performance. "It still catches me off guard. Every time."

"Kavan—"

"I almost lost you today." His hands found my waist, and I felt the faint tremor in them, the one he was too controlled to let show on his face. "I hadn't told you. Hadn't claimed you properly. I'd spent weeks arguing with myself about whether I had the right, and I almost ran out of time."

"Then stop arguing with yourself," I said, "and take me to bed."

He kissed me with a thoroughness that left me breathless, then drew back to look at my right shoulder, the bandage still visible in the candlelight. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"The medi-unit took care of the pain," I said, before he could start being careful in ways I didn't currently need or want. I reached up with my left hand and traced the line of his jaw. "There's nothing to feel but you. I'll tell you if that changes, I promise. But right now, Kavan, the only thing actually bothering me is that you're still standing there fully clothed."

His expression shifted. Something giving way behind his eyes, the surrender to a need that had been building longer than I'd understood. He kissed me again, and this time it had teeth to it, hungry and possessive, his hands moving through my hair to angle my head back and give himself better access. I tasted wine and something darker beneath it, the particular flavor of a man who'd been holding himself in check for most of the evening.

His hands were deliberate, not frantic. Learning me rather than rushing, pausing at each response to file it away with the attentiveness of someone accustomed to gathering intelligence. One hand slid down my back and pressed at the base of my spine with enough firm intention that I arched into him, which seemed to be the specific data point he'd been looking for.

"I need you," I said against his mouth, which came out less eloquently than I'd intended.

"I know exactly what you need." He said it quietly, not a boast. More like a statement of fact, which was somehow more affecting. "I can smell how much you want this. It's been driving me to distraction all evening."

"Good," I quipped. "I like you distracted."

He laughed, low and genuine, and then walked me backward toward the bed.

He laid me down gently, his palm cupped around my right shoulder, guiding me against the pillows without any jolt to the joint. Instinctive and careful, completely unremarked upon, and somehow that mattered more than if he'd made a ceremony of it. He braced himself above me, and the candlelight made moving shadows across the hard lines of his face and the breadth of his shoulders, and I thought, not for the first time, that he was genuinely extraordinary to look at.

"Tell me if anything hurts," he said.

"The only thing that hurts right now is you being too far away."

A corner of his mouth curved. He closed the distance.

He still wore the pants he'd pulled on for the healer. I communicated my opinion of this by sliding my foot along the back of his calf and rolling my hips up against him in a way that was extremely clear. The friction was maddening and nowhere near sufficient, and the way his jaw set told me he agreed.

"You're doing that on purpose," he accused.

"I've absolutely no idea what you mean."

"Wildflower."

"Dragon king."

He kissed the argument right out of my mouth. Deep and slow and systematic, his tongue sweeping past mine until I lost track of whatever point I'd been making. One hand worked its way from my hip to my inner thigh by degrees, pausing at each new territory with a patience that was genuinely maddening. He pushed the opening of the robe apart, and the slow drag of his palm against bare skin sent heat racing up my spine.

"Tell me what you want," he said against my jaw.

"For you to stop asking and start doing."

"That's not specific enough."

I made a sound that was half-laugh, half-frustration. "Kavan—"

"Tell me." His fingers stopped, infuriatingly close. "I want to hear you say it."