“You do?”
“Mm-hmm.” His chest rumbles with the sound, and I peel back, snagged by his mischievous grin.
My heart does a flip-flop.
He tucks a ribbon of hair behind my ear, leaving his hand resting around the side of my neck, and I notice a touch of red pinching his cheeks. “It’s a gift ... of sorts.”
The skin beneath his touch tingles, sending sparks across my shoulder and around my ear. “I do like your gifts ...”
“I know you do.” He smiles, eyes glinting with a roguish sparkle as his thumb sweeps along the sharp of my jaw. “And I likegivingyou gifts.”
I nod, though I’m not sure why.
Perhaps it’s the bubbling nerves in my stomach—the ones that have me sitting a little straighter, conscious of my breath, thankful I had the foresight to brush my teeth before I ventured down Stony Stem.
Perhaps it’s his body—a pillar of refined brawn shored between my legs, as if he’s staking his own sort of claim.
Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s my safe space. And right now, pitted with a vulnerable heart, bound with skin that doesn’t feel right, brimming with a fiery soul yet somehow feeling utterly empty, I don’t want to be anywhere else but here. With him.
These are my thoughts as I stare up into sea-green eyes. “Well, come on,” I whisper, feeling my pulse quicken. “Hit me with it.”
A deep rumbling sound shudders out of him, and I swear his eyes flash fluorescent green. It’s the only warning I get before his lips clash with mine—roving and moving in a hungry dance that’s far from delicate.
I’m thankful for that. If he were gentle, my inexperience would be entirely exposed.
His hand slips around the back of my head, tongue spearing, and there is no room for self-conscious thought as he feeds me a hungry growl that turns me liquid.
I quake in his arms, yielding.
Exploring.
With the taste of salt on my lips, I let him fold me to his will. Let his hand burrow into my hair and teach me how to move. How tolet go.
When he finally breaks the kiss, he hovers an inch from my face, breathing hard, spilling ocean essence all over me. “Now,” he pushes out, his tiding breath matching the beat of my own. “That’s how you kiss someone youlove,Orlaith. Anything less and they aren’t worthy of your heart or the power to break it. Understood?”
I nod, tipping forward until our foreheads meet. “Understood.”
* * *
Climbing the jagged stairway etched into the cliff, I drag my thumb back and forth across my lower lip that’s puffy and tender and tastes like the ocean.
The taste reminds me of Kai—of playful, happy things; moments that are light and wholesome. That taste is a reprieve from the strange emotions that have taken my body hostage over the past few days.
I want to go back to being invisible. Back when I could pretend I was still just a kid in desperate need of a roof and a bed and a warm meal every night. Someone who couldn’t possibly be old enough to survive on her own outside the castle grounds.
But I’m no longer that same passive child who couldn’t defend herself. I’m a sexually maturewoman,old enough to receive a cupla and leave the safety of my nest.
The thought makes me shudder.
Unfortunately, my crop of excuses to stay are growing thin.
I step through the door at the top of the stairs and nudge it shut with a backward kick, the dull thud chasing my steps down the dimly lit hall. Rounding a corner, I tuck my thumb between my lips and again I taste the sea, drawing from its calming reassurance.
Something plows into me with such reckless force that the wind is knocked from my lungs. A powerful, unforgiving mountain of muscle drives me back and slams me against the door, my head saved from the impact by a hand wrapped around the back of it.
I gulp for air, eyes wild and darting, looking up into Rhordyn’s cyclonic stare.
Pure, unrestrained fury is lashing off him like the virulent beat of a storm. I can taste its sharp, sour tang in the air. Can feel it collecting at the back of my throat.
