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His brows knitted. “What?”
“The Fae spirit I took on when I became a meridian,” she replied. “They’re here. In my head with me. I mean, not so much right now, but I don’t know how much they can sense of what I sense, and I just….” She flushed. “I thought you should know before we…”
A slow, crooked smile crept over Alem’s face. “Before we what?”
She rolled her eyes at his teasing. “Have tea, obviously.”
“Obviously.” His smile broadened, then he turned more serious. “I understand, Verve. I know you’re not exactly alone. But I don’t care. I’m a simple man. I just want to be with you — however you want, however I can.”
Of all the things about him that made her crazy, it was the earnestness in his voice was her undoing.
Words lost their urgency. Admissions lost their weight. What mattered was the feeling of skin on skin, the heat of him pressed against her. Verve released her hesitation in a murmur that sounded like his name. Alem’s eyes lidded. He cupped her cheek in his callused hand and drew her closer, but paused when they were a breath apart. “So can I kiss you again?” he whispered, the words a feather-touch at her lips.
“You’d better,” she replied. “Else I’ll be very cross.”
He smiled against her mouth. “Well, we don’t want that.”
“We do not.”
The kiss started gently, but something broke open inside them, pouring over Verve’s parched spirit like the rain outside. She wound her arms around Alem and he embraced her in kind, sliding his hand up her spine, pressing her as close as he could. The kiss deepened. Heat swam through Verve’s veins, urging her closer, harder, more. She wanted to drown in him, wanted to taste, to feel nothing else but Alem for the rest of her days.
Somehow they’d gotten horizontal. Rain pounded beyond the open window, but the barn’s roof sheltered them from the elements. And in truth, Verve would hardly have noticed—or cared—had the roof cracked open and rain poured over them, for all of her attention was on Alem. He leaned over her, his embrace solid and strong, his lips roving from her mouth to her neck to the shell of her ears. A frisson of pleasure danced over her skin, pooling between her legs; a flare of desire unlike any she’d felt during other romantic encounters.
For the desire wasn’t just hers; it was Alem’s too, radiating off of him like sunlight. This realization made her pull back, breathless, to study him.
Breathing hard, Alem leaned on his elbows over her. “Everything all right?”
“I can feel you,” she replied.
He gave her that crooked smile and shifted his hips, where he strained against his pants. “I can feel you, too.”
She laughed in delight. “I mean… I can feel what you feel.” She skimmed a fingertip over his cheekbone, down to his lips. “Your spirit. It’s so much clearer than it was before. It’s…resonating with mine.” She flushed. “I can’t explain it, but it’s…really nice.”
He gave a low hum of consideration and bent to suck at her neck, sending more jolts of sensation across her whole self. “Just nice?” he asked between kisses.
“I said really nice,” she gasped.
“A good start.” He nibbled at her neck, and she gasped again. “But let’s see if I can do any better than really nice.”
Her head spun, her thoughts rapidly dwindled to solving the crisis of still being clothed when there was so much skin to explore between them. She wriggled out of her tunic, then her small-clothes. Alem leaned back and did the same. Thunder rumbled outside again, making the barn walls quake, then a streak of lightning illuminated the room, casting the planes of his muscular torso in brilliant white light. An answering desire swam through her chest and her belly, and the ache between her legs grew more desperate. Nothing else mattered but being with him right now. He caught her lips with his and kissed her harder than before, like he was drinking her in, and suddenly she could not bear to be alone in her body any longer.
“Alem,” she whispered into his mouth. “I need you. Now.”
He groaned and sat up, his eyes roving across her naked form before he met her gaze again. “I need you too. But we must be careful. Have you ever taken red orris root?”
“Are you seriously playing healer right now?” Verve rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Yes, I’ve had plenty recently. No surprise babes for me. You?”
“I hadn’t taken any in a while,” he admitted. “Until you started coming around.”
She grinned. “Thought you’d get lucky, did you?”
“Never thought I’d get this lucky.” He kissed her again. “Verve, I want to touch you, and taste you,” he murmured. “Is that all right?”
His words, and the lust in his gaze, sent a delighted chill over her and she smiled. “I suppose.”
He grinned, too, and bent to kiss her mouth again. But his lips soon moved to her jaw, her neck, down her chest to linger over her nipples. Verve arched her back, gasping at the combined sensation of his faint stubble over her skin, merging with her own pleasure at his knowing touch. While he worked her nipples with his tongue, his fingers—long and skillful—crept down her stomach, to the heat between her thighs. She was soaking wet already; his gentleness now was infuriating in the most delicious way, and she moaned aloud.
“Good?” he murmured into her mouth.
