“Please. I don’t want to take it slow anymore.” We’d been bordering it all week. Each night we spent together talking, our bodies were slowly drifting closer and closer. Last night, we spent our time curled together on the sofa, our knees brushing under the blanket as we talked well into the morning.
He had to be exhausted. Neither one of us slept, and while I could rest when he was off doing whatever drakin duty he had to during the day, I knew he couldn’t.
He didn’t say anything right away, just kept staring at me.
“Do you not want to?” I asked, holding my breath because maybe he didn’t, maybe he was only being nice, maybe everything was in my head, and I’d been reading the entire weekwrong?—
“I want nothing more on this fucking Suns-cursed planet than to kiss you,” he said, cutting off my thoughts. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about. I can’t get you out of my head.” His hand rose to my face, brushing away stray strands of hair plastered to my cheek.
“But I also know that this is new for you. I know you have some bad history with this, and I don’t want to rush anything. No one will find you here. You can stay until it’s safe to go into Ryaranthia.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
His hand wrapped around my neck, his thumb grazing my chin, tilting my head up. “You can stay as long as you want. You can stay in this cabin forever if it’d make you happy. I want nothing more than to keep you.”
I nodded, his thumb pressing harder into my jaw from the movement. My bare breasts brushed against his chest as I took the last remaining step toward him, fully closing the distance between us.
“Then keep me,” I whispered, my fingers slipping as the bottle dropped into the ocean. I should probably go get it, make sure it doesn’t shatter against a shell and ruin the perfect beach, but my mind was too far gone, too focused on exactly what I wanted.
My fingers pressed into his chest, my heart sounding like the rattle Aura makes before taking off. He was wrong. I wasn’t shivering from the cold. I was trembling, burning up from the inside out, feeling like my body was going to catch on fire again if he didn’t touch me, only this time, it had nothing to do with being drugged. “I want you,” I murmured, feeling his hesitation.
“Gods, Nollie, I’m so fucking terrified of scaring you away.”
“You won’t.” I rose on my tiptoes, the waves at my back now, pressing me further into Hael’s chest. His scent engulfed me, leather and vetiver, mixing with the mead on both of our lips.
His hand trailed down my back, cupping my hips.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he said, pulling back to stare at me.
I nodded, desperate for more, willing to say anything if it meant his lips would be on mine again. I wanted to do everything again but without the Ahthimil running through our veins. I wanted to remember this.
To savor it.
He stared at me for one more heartbeat before he leaned forward, giving me exactly what I wanted. I unraveled, moaning into him the second his lips met mine.
His tongue slid into my mouth on the next heartbeat, taking advantage of my parted lips, but it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to melt into him until we became one. I wanted to lose myself in his essence until it was all I could think about.
Surroundme.Engulfme.Consumeme.
He deepened the kiss, groaning into my mouth, as I bucked my hips, pressing into him. His erection brushed against my stomach as he roamed his hands down my body, cupping my waist, and lifting me up by my hips. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, like I was designed to fit perfectly in his embrace.
I was only half aware of the chill running through me as he walked us out of the water and onto the sand, never breaking our kiss. My back pressed into the wood of the cabin, just long enough for him to open the door, holding me upright with one hand, before kicking it closed with his foot.
I frowned as he stepped toward the sofa, avoiding the bed. We’d been avoiding it all week—even when he left during the day, I opted to sleep on the sofa or drag a blanket out onto the sand.
But now I wanted it. I pulled away long enough to tell him that, but he shook his head.
“Not tonight. Not when we’ve both had too much mead to think straight.” He sank onto the sofa, still holding me to his lap.
My lips pouted, frustration coursing through me just as much as my need for him. He wasn’t getting it. I wanted this. No—Ineededthis.
“Please,” I begged, not caring how desperate I sounded. I frowned, pulling my lip between my teeth when he shook his head again. “You don’t want to?”
“Gods, Nollie,yes, I want you. I’m losing my mind wanting you.” I could feel he wasn’t lying. His erection was pulsating against me. “But I don’t want to rush you, rush this.”
“Why?”
His hands moved from my back to my face as he cupped my cheeks. “Nollie, I don’t even know what terrifies you. What if I do the same thing?—”
