Page 60 of Thief of Hearts

At first I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Why had he stopped? And what was he waiting for? Oh. He’d said something that he wanted me to respond to. I forced my brain to work and recall his statement. That I could have died. “I didn’t.”

“But you could have.”

“You could have died, too,” I said.

He nodded. “We could die tomorrow.”

Where was he going with this? “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Nobody plans on it. But it could happen. Anywhere, anytime to anyone. And if we did . . . I’m not sure I could go to the world beyond this one if I didn’t know what it was like to taste your kiss.”

The air in my lungs solidified so that I couldn’t breathe.

“What do you think, my illora? Should we kiss?” Several things were happening at once. There was his question, but then he rocked his hips against mine and a soft, smothered moan escaped my lips.

Then his thumb stroked the underside of my breast and it turned me mindless. He’d barely touched me and I was ready to melt into this bed.

“What is it you want?” he asked, cutting through the haze in my head.

“You know.”

“I am not a mind reader. Tell me.”

It felt like he was playing with me, just as he had with that man in his first match. He knew what I wanted and he was keeping it from me and making me admit to my weakness for him.

His thumb moved higher. “If you don’t ask, I can’t give it to you.”

Did he want me to plead with him? I had some small shred of self-respect left. “I’m not going to beg.”

“I don’t want you to beg. I just need to know that you really want this.”

I almost laughed. But then he leaned in and started pressing small kisses to my throat, his lips warm and firm. I leaned my head back so that he could keep kissing me.

“I can’t talk while you’re doing that.” I could barely keep breathing.

“Then I’ll stop.”

“No! Don’t stop.” I felt his grin against my neck.

This was a mistake. The rational part of my brain listed out all the reasons why this was a bad idea. Why I needed to get up and pretend that none of this ever happened.

“We shouldn’t.”

He flicked his tongue over a pulse point and it took everything in me not to moan. “I often do things that I shouldn’t. Perhaps you should try being a little less irresistible.”

“Or you could have some self-control.”

“You’ve no idea the level of self-control that I have.” His voice was ragged. Pleading.

I reveled in that. As if he were barely hanging on, feeling just as mindless and desperate as I did.

“What is it you want, my illora?”

“Everything.”

With a feral sound that was between a growl and a groan, his lips descended to mine. Before I could register what was happening, he slid his tongue into my mouth, twirling it with mine, and everything in the world disappeared around me.

When his lip touched mine, his tongue stroked mine, the shock of it was like emerging from deep water and drawing in that first big cleansing breath. The sensation of him, of all that he was doing, consumed me.