I turned my attention to the window-like wall of stone, contemplating the night sky as I considered my answer. I supposed I could lie. Tell him that I’d been cold or something, so that he’d give me some more blankets and be on his way.
But suddenly, the prospect just felt so fucking exhausting.
I didn’t want to lie to him. At least not here, not tonight, with the stars and asteroids bathing us in light nearly as liquid as water.
“Because I was thinking of you,” I said, not looking at him. “I was wondering where you were. And if you were alright.”
A pulsing silence, vulnerable as the tissue of an exposed heart between us. Then, my breath catching in my throat as arough-yet-gentle pressure skimmed across my cheekbone. His knuckles.
He let out a soft breath then, and I could have sworn there was a word inside it. A word that sounded a hell of a lot likekhoshgelam,but was too low for my human ears to pick up, and I was probably only imagining it anyway.
“You were worried.”
A statement, not a clarifying question. He saw straight through to the core of my admission. There was no point in denying it.
“Yes.”
His knuckles traced a slow line down my cheek. I didn’t stop him.
I didn’t want to.
His fingers came to my jaw, cupping it like it was made of something about as substantial as paper folded into the shape of a face. Like I was something preciously formed that he was so afraid of crushing.
“You need never worry, Nazreen,” he rasped. “A Gahn is meant to take on the cares and the hurts of his people. You can lay all of yours down upon me. I promise you that I am strong enough to carry them.”
And just as last night had granted me the ability to imagine Gahn Thaleo as a young child, so too was I suddenly able to picture him at all sorts of points of his life. Scenes of him assailed me like bullets, as vivid as if I’d seen him in his youth myself and these were my own memories. An older child, a teenager, a young man, a newly crowned Gahn. Always scarred, always stoic. Always asking for nothing. Nothing besides the burdens of everyone else.
“But,” I said, hearing the warble in my voice and knowing tears were coming, “who will carry yours?”
“Nazreen.”
I wasn’t the answer to the question. Instead, my name was a soft admonishment, as if the question were so foolish that I shouldn’t have wasted my breath to bother asking it in the first place.
“I’m serious!”
Gahn Thaleo’s hand shifted, his claws dipping back into my hair, his fingertips coaxing exquisite pleasure from the sensitive nape of my neck. Desire poured through me like rosewater syrup, pooling between my thighs.
“I am serious as well,” he said heavily. “You need never worry.”
I rose up onto my knees, as if preparing to challenge him.
Instead, I leaned forward, placed my hands lightly on his chest, and kissed him.
This wasn’t like last night, where our faces had been so close, and our lips had touched almost inadvertently, igniting an explosion of lust. This was entirely deliberate on my part. There was no way to pretend it was some kind of horny accident.
And even now, as Gahn Thaleo’s arms locked around me and his tongues plunged forward to taste me, I knew I wasn’t acting out of a desire for something physical. But because I sensed something in him, a sort of call I was compelled to answer. Because it was in me, too.
My mouth never leaving his, my hands never moving from him, I slid forward on my knees, fidgeting and adjusting until I was straddling his lap. A moan tore itself from me when I felt him already iron-hard beneath me. When I relaxed my weight onto that swollen, needy part of him, he went rigid and gave a low hiss into my mouth.
I needed to be closer to him. As close as possible.
I knew he’d never undress me, even if he wanted to, because he tried so hardnot to want.
So I drew back from the kiss in order to whisk my tank top up and over my head. Since I’d been in bed attempting to sleep before this, I wasn’t wearing a bra. I panted, flushed, my top half entirely bared to him.
I hadn’t ever seen his sight stars react this violently before. Whatever control he normally used to leash them was fraying,fast.They pulsed and whirled, devouring the sight of me.
“You can touch me,” I whispered, hoped, begged. Perhaps a silly thing to say, since his hands were already on me. But I wanted him to touch my breasts.
