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His hand scooted down from my hair. Settled against the side of my face just like he rearranged his body at my side, with firm determination. Caressed my temple, just beyond the corner of my eye, with knowing swirls of his thumb.
“I manage operations and finances for an entire kingdom, tupulai. I think I can handle ‘complicated’.”
I opened my eyes. Grabbed his hand, that magical thumb included, and pushed it away. “And what if I just don’t want to be ‘handled’?”
He stilled. I mean, to the point of it getting weird. My heart pounded the crap out of my ribs. A roaring panther was a reason for anxiety but a silent panther was a reason for terror.
“What was his name?”
Pounce. Fuck.
“His name, Lucina.” His tone was quiet but sharp. Not pissed-off, but definitely not okay with my be-still-and-hope-the-panther-walks-by thing.
“His name who?”
“The one who made you afraid of what you are.” Pounce number two, this time the real kind. Inside two seconds, he had both my wrists locked beneath his hand. “Of what you need.”
I huffed. Shook my head. Like I said about him and backing off…
“I’m not afraid of anything, okay? Wait. Maybe bad sitcom reboots and certain kinds of sushi, but—”
My breath caught—and my pussy trembled—as his hold screwed tighter and his face loomed closer. “You are afraid,” he uttered. “It scares you, how much you like this. Of how your senses want to take off again, even as I do just this to you. But you hold back. You stop yourself, Lucy. Why?”
How the hell was he getting all that just by looking at me? Then again, I wasn’t the one looking at me, with the thrumming pulse in my throat, the shallow cadence of my breath, and pupils likely dilated to super marble status with arousal…
Holy shit, such arousal.
I slammed my eyes shut. At least that cut off one of his supply lines—and my own. Thinking straight with the man in the same room was damn near impossible, let alone when he hovered just inches away. And now he pulled the dark and dangerous panther thing…
Think.
Think!
“Dammit, Shiraz.” It was a start. “It’s not that easy to explain.” It was also the truth.
“Of course it is,” he retorted. “I just want to know his name, so I do not have to keep replacing it in my head with things like soldask and kimfuk.”
The Arcadian profanities—I’d be shocked if they weren’t—made me laugh. “God forbid you have to do that.” I dared another glance into his piercing blues. “Besides, you’d need a lot more than two substitutes.” I didn’t give him too long to dig into that one. “But before you skewer half the state of California, let’s get one thing clear. I’m pretty good friends with most of my exes, and there’s a reason for that.”
“This is supposed to assure me?”
“Would you let me finish?”
“If it gets us past the subject of your exes.”
“A subject you introduced?”
He glowered. I huffed. “Continue,” he finally growled, scarily calm about it. Added in an annoyed mutter, “Please.”
Deep breath. He had said please. “All right, so…you aren’t going to believe this, but you have to.” I ignored his jerk of a brow. “In the past, I’ve actually been the scary one in the relationship. I said you had to believe me!”
“Lucina.”
“Shiraz,” I countered—though damn him, yanked at more threads in my soul by lowering a soft kiss to the end of my nose. “Just…listen.” Don’t make this shit harder than it already is.
“Lucina,” he repeated. Gazed at me through the dark cinnamon hair toppled over his forehead. “You are many things.” Trailed his lips up, landing another kiss between my eyebrows. “Passionate and obstinate. Creative and addictive…”
“Dammit—”
