The feeling I had when I entered an ancient vault for the first time and the dust flooded over me, undisturbed, new and old all at once. He was so close to me, and my heart raced when he reached up and traced the edge of my jaw.
My tongue darted out to lick my lips and he followed its progression with his eyes.
Then he placed his hand under my chin and tipped my face up.
“I can’t seem to stop myself,” he murmured, his breath on my lips. “Tell me to stop. Tell me this is a terrible idea.”
I closed my eyes at the sensation of him—his low voice, the smell of spring and the forest and remarkably likehome.
“I can’t,” I whispered back.
As soon as I said those words, that seemed to spur him into action. He crashed his mouth to mine with a groan, and we collided, like a storm of lips and teeth and hands and aching. My spectacles were knocked off-kilter, and he pulled back with a frown. With his other hand, he tugged my gold spectacles off and put them on the small table beside my bed.
Then he cupped the back of my head and returned his lips to mine. My eyes fluttered closed. I kissed him back, instinct taking over as we tangled together.
He was whole and I had made him so, but now we both were breaking each other apart again.
His hands slid down to the small of my back and pressed me to him. I felt the heat of his bare skin against my loose sleep dress, his torso hard and unyielding. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he let out a low sound that sent a spark through me.
This,thiswas worth searching for.
But no magic I had would have led me to him.
He wasn’t a hidden treasure or ancient relic—but as his fingertips trailed down my neck, my skin caught fire with more power than any magical object.
I moved closer to him, curling my legs around his waist as I straddled him on the bed. My entire body was alive with the feeling, smell, sensation, awareness ofhim.It was almost overwhelming how much I wanted this.
He delved into my mouth with his, and I clung to him, the scholarly side of my brain reveling in each new sensation he wrought.
I wanted to catalog each new feeling, each type of touch and sound. When he trailed down my neck with his lips I murmured, “soft.”
At my words he pulled back from my lips, his gaze traveling down my body, taking in the fact that I was sitting astride his lap.
“I canhearyou taking notes about this.”
“I can’t help it,” I said breathlessly. I knew my eyes were doing that wild thing when I was excited about something, as I could see it in his bemused face, even without my spectacles. “Everything feels so wonderful.”
He laughed and fell back against the bed, and I tumbled down with him.
We lay side by side, and he lifted a curl of my hair, watching it in fascination in the light.
“There are so many colors,” he said, looking at each strand.
“My mother used to say I had too much hair, so there weren’t enough shades of brown to paint it all” I said with a small smile, thinking of when she had brushed and braided it every night.
The shadow of a smile passed his lips, and that seemed to release something between us, something fraught and tenuous. He tucked the curl behind my ear and then traced the curved top of it in fascination.
His eyes grew heavy, and he seemed almost unable to stay awake.
Perhaps it was the healing magic I’d used on him. I had no idea how it reacted to the body, and the only other time I seemed to have used it when my body had healed itself inside the burning beast, I’d passed out for days.
“Sleep,” I said softly, stroking from his forehead to temple. He didn’t seem to need any further permission than that.
But before he slipped into slumber, something niggled at me, something I had wanted to ask him but never had the opportunity after all that had happened.
“Kiyan?”
“Hmm?” His voice was slurred with exhaustion and I almost felt guilty asking him this when he was so close to sleep.
