Page 72 of Thief of Hearts

“Do you remember when you told me that you don’t need to know the answer to things?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever noticed how many questions you ask me about myself? Why do you think that is?”

I knew why. Because I was attracted to him and liked being with him and wanted to know more about him.

He leaned in to smell the side of my neck and my skin ached for him to follow through and kiss me.

“I loved how open and vulnerable you were with me this morning,” he said, and I shuddered when he pressed a kiss in the hollow under my ear.

“I’d been drugged.”

“Pain and sleep medicines don’t make you tell the truth,” he responded. That was correct. I had told him things I’d never told another soul. I had wanted to tell him. I had wanted him to know me better.

I started to reach for him when I became aware of a very distinct scent.

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

“Little bit,” he said just above my shoulder. “I needed liquid courage to face you.”

This didn’t sound at all like him. “You had no problem facing me this morning.”

“That was different. We were in a public place surrounded by healers. Now we are alone.” He lifted his head so that he was looking at me. “Just the two of us. In a room with a door that locks.”

He reached behind me and I heard him bolt it.

Every cell in my body protested at what I was about to do. As much as I wanted this to continue, it wouldn’t be right. He wanted me at full health and I wanted him to be sober. To be able to make a decision and not drunkenly fall into one.

That voice in my head grew louder and I remembered what it was that I had wanted to speak to him about.

“There is something I need to discuss with you, and I’m not going to let you bewitch me with your masculine wiles to distract me from it,” I said.

“Bewitched, are you?” His lips hovered over mine and I had to close my eyes against the onslaught. I knew how good it would feel to kiss him. “That’s a first. I don’t remember anyone ever saying I had bewitched them.”

Then he leaned into me, pressing his body against mine, and I nearly collapsed from the relief and pleasure of it.

“You were saying?” he asked, knowing full well what he had done.

I put my hands on his chest, his very firm and strong and warm chest, and pushed him gently back. If I let him kiss me, I would forget myself.

He was slightly unsteady on his feet. I’d never seen him like this. He wasn’t just a little bit drunk.

Zain was a lot drunk.

“I want to talk about the night before the race. When you disappeared.”

He seemed utterly confused. “Why?”

“Because it bothers me that you were gone for so long and I didn’t know where you were or what had happened to you. I was worried about you. I understand that I’m not owed an explanation, but I had thought at the very least that we were good enough friends that you would have told me that I wouldn’t see you for a while.”

“Friends.” He scoffed at the word like it offended him. “Do you want to know why I stayed away?”

Obviously. That was the entire reason I had brought it up.

“I stayed away because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you and you still needed to heal.”

That shouldn’t have thrilled me the way that it did. The idea that he was so overcome with want for me that he had to remove himself from the situation entirely? That did terrible things to my resolve.