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I’d been wrong.
One rock of Rosemarie’s body against me, and I see how desperately naïve I’d been. I would do anything, become anyone for her to keep torturing me. If she can own me like this now, what would it be like if she granted me leave to touch her between her thighs, to taste her, to be inside her? Her whimpered sigh against my lips answers me. I would become her eternal servant.
I kiss her as if I might devour her, and still, she stokes the burn inside me higher. In a tangle and thrust of tongues, she explores as if I’m a prize to be conquered. I would gladly offer myself up as a conquest, and I can barely keep myself restrained. Her little human tongue is tiny and talented. Mine would touch her tonsils if I mimicked her so instead I let her lead, digging my fingers into her hips with claws fully sheathed. She coaxes me to dare to want things I haven’t before, to dream of privileges I’ve been denied.
“Rosemarie,” I whisper when she breaks for a breath. “You’re killing me.”
She chuckles, and I need more of the naughty promises her laugh brings. “It’s just a kiss.”
Her easy dismissal of the kiss douses me in cold. I’d been the only one rocked by the passion between us. For her, it’d been a simple gesture. One of pity? Her scent teased me, her arousal perfuming the air.
But scents can lie, I remember. Dyphena’s scent had. She’d smelled of excitement and interest—not arousal, no, but something that had suggested a possibility of future friendship at least. But I’d been wrong, and it’d cost her everything.
“Nothing but a kiss?” I ask, working to keep my tone level. Rosemarie isn’t the reason for my emotional baggage, and I refuse to take it out on her.
Her face flushes, the pretty pinkness spreading all the way to the tops of her ears. “Well, it was the best kiss I’ve ever had, but don’t let that give you a big head.” She glances upward to the horned ridges along my forehead. “Too late for that last part, I guess.”
“Mischievous queen, I’ll show you.” I attempt to tickle her, a gesture I’ve seen but never attempted. Hmm, claws make it difficult. I retract them and try again.
Rosemarie squeals and squirms on my lap. Joy flavors the scent of her arousal, a heady combo.
“No more kisses for you,” I lie. It’s an empty threat, and I hope she knows it.
“I give.” She giggles, and I stop. She snuggles close. These touches—the hug, her sitting on me, the kisses, the tenderness and teasing—it’s marvelous. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing out on. Stroking a finger along my cheek, she says, “I thought your fangs would be sharper.”
“They would be if I decided to bite you.” I snap my teeth together near her neck, but she doesn’t jump off my lap or run away. Instead, she smiles and smacks at my arm. “It’d defeat the purpose of having them if they sliced my tongue to ribbons.”
“And your claws?” She brushes her fingertips along my knuckles.
“Retractable.”
“Like a cat’s?”
“I’m not some domesticated feline.” I try for a stern tone. And fail. I’ll leave the bossy to Atticus. Winding my arms around Rosemarie, I relax as much as I can with her against me. My gaze falls on her bag where it sits on the nightstand. “What’s so important that you would’ve fought off the man at the hospital to keep that?” I ask.
“My Lala’s tarot cards. Along with a piece of her favorite quilt.” Her voice goes soft, and I wish she would tip her face up again so I could watch her expression. “It’s all I have left of her.”
I stay quiet, letting her talk if she wishes but not demanding more.
“She made the quilt,” Rosemarie says. “She said she sewed it from all our baby clothes. Called it her quilt of a thousand colors. I covered her with it those last few days in hospice. You know medical places—” I don’t, but I don’t interrupt. “Most decorate exclusively in beige. So it felt right for her to have it. After…I couldn’t let it go. I keep a piece with me.”
“You honor her with your continued love and devotion.”
“That’s how family works.” She glances up to meet my gaze. “Isn’t it the same in your family?”
I almost lie, but she gave me truth. I should do the same. “No. Atticus and I watch out for each other, but there’s no one else. Our father…he went to his eternal stone rest with his disappointment over our failure.”
“Stone rest? Like you and Atticus do?”
“No, we turn to stone during the day, but the magic releases us every night. Father won’t wake. Ever. He chose the stone sleep over his shame.”
“Shame?” She whispers the word, doubt coloring her tone.
“When our last candidate threw herself into the River of Souls rather than live with us, when we were sentenced to remain stone for a century because of it?—”
“What?!?”
“The elders could’ve killed us.”
