“Nothing,” I choked out. “Everything. I’m…I’m happy, Rivven.”
“So happy you are crying these human tears?”
“Yes!” I sniffed, then laughed. “I was worried. You seemed…I mean, after this happened last night. You got so quiet, and I worried that maybe I messed up.”
“Messed…”
“Like, made a mistake.”
His white eyes searched my face with something between hunger and desperation. “Did it feel like a mistake to you?”
“No! It…It really didn’t.”
“Good.” The relief in him was palpable. Guttural. “If I was quiet it was only…I was thinking.”
His thumb brushed my cheek again. Tenderly.
“About what?”
“About what you said.”
My towel was precariously close to falling at my feet. Rivven was so huge, so warm, his hand distracting, delirious, on my skin.
I couldn’t remember what the hell I’d said.
“Which…Which part?” I panted. My nipples felt hard and sensitive beneath the fabric.
“The part where you did not really want a husband.”
I blinked. “Wait. What? Did I say that?”
“You said that you did not come here for marriage. That finding a husband was not your true goal.”
Oh. I had said that. And it was true, so I refused to take it back now. My main motivation in coming to this world had had nothing to do with marriage.
Nothing to do with love.
But things were already changing. He had made them change.
I had to show him. Show him that I didn’t just want a new life anymore.
I wanted him.
Shivering, aching, with new tears in my eyes, I grasped the blanket I was using as a towel and pulled it away from my body. Then, with my other hand, I took his and pulled him back through to the kitchen, dropping the towel and closing the door behind us.
He followed me in rapt silence, his boots thudding heavily on the floorboards. As if it took everything he had in him just to walk, just to exist in close proximity to me while I was naked. I grinned, nearly giddy with the knowledge that he was staring at me and finding me desirable.
Maybe even beautiful.
“Say something,” I whispered.
“I…” He spoke huskily. “I am afraid if I say something, I will wake up. Or, if I am already awake, that I will say the wrong thing. And then, you will put your clothes back on and leave.”
“You’re telling me this feels like a dream?” I touched his chest, wanting to give him some relief. Wanting so badly to show him it was real.
“You are my dream, Shiloh.”
A sob threatened to overwhelm me then. I smothered it by pressing my mouth to his.
