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My mind spun in a billion directions, none of them appropriate for two people who firmly agreed we could never be together. “What does what feel like?”
“The horns.”
“They’re a bit sensitive, I guess. In the cold wind.”
“What happens if I touch one?”
“Nothing, I think.” But as soon as I said it, I knew it was wrong, because just the thought of it sent a hot shiver through me.
He slid an arm free and reached up. One languidstroke up the curve of my horn left a sensual trail of heat in its wake, making my eyelashes flutter. Molten desire swept through me, evaporating the thoughts from my mind. I found my hips pressing back into him, and I heard his breath catch.
My back arched, and I turned to look at him. “Are you seducing me?”
He lowered his lips closer to my ear. “My demonic friend,” he purred, “if I wanted to seduce you, you’d be moaning my name right now. But I’m not trying, am I? Because you’re a pretty little demon I could never have.”
“I’d be moaning your name right now?” I stared at him, and my gaze slid down to the sensual curve of his lips. I hated how much I wanted to taste those lips again. “I can’t tell if you think this highly of yourself or if it’s all part of your kingly performance.”
“Oh, it’s genuine and very much warranted.”
My mouth twitched. “That’s just what everyone tells you when you’re the king. Like how Henry VIII was supposed to be the greatest sportsman of the era.” I wrinkled my brow. “Do you think maybe it was just that everyone was too scared to tell him the truth, given his habit of cutting off heads? Maybe all those nice Seelie ladies at Beltane didn’t want to piss off the High King. Maybe you’re the Henry VIII of fucking.”
He propped up on one arm and gave me a slow, wicked smile, his eyes darkening. A shadowy, sultry heat radiated off him. “Nowthat,” he murmured into the crook of my neck, “sounds like a fucking challenge, changeling.”
12
AVA
“The thing is, changeling,” he whispered, his breath warming my throat, “if by some chance I don’t make it out of the Court of Sorrows, I can’t die with you thinking I’m the Henry VIII of fucking. And I will make you moan my name.” His low, silky voice caressed my skin, sending a wicked thrill through me.
Moonlight slanted in through the window, silvering his heartbreakingly beautiful face. I couldn’t let myself love him, but I ached for him. The look he was giving me was molten, with a dangerous undercurrent in his unearthly blue eyes.
He reached up again, gently caressed my right horn, going slowly from the tip all the way down. As he did, he searched my face, watching my mouth open, my eyelids lower and flutter with the forbidden pleasure of it all. Under the thin fabric of my shirt, my breasts peaked, and heat slid up my spine.
“That’s cheating,” I breathed.
“But how could I resist seeing that look on your beautiful face again?” His voice had gone husky. He leaned down and grazed his lips over my neck, then his teeth over my throat. His tongue swept over my skin, tasting me, and the rest of the world fell away. My thoughts narrowed to the worshipful strokes of his tongue.
One of his hands slid across my abdomen, then inside my shorts. From one hip bone to another, his fingers traced like he was memorizing my contours with his touch. Oh,gods,his languid strokes were igniting my body with need.
As my breaths grew shallow, my hips moved back into him. When they did, I could feel the large, hard length of him against me. His obvious arousal only made me more desperate for him. The thin cotton fabric felt excruciating on my skin, and my body heated with the torturous desperation to pull it off me. All my nerve endings felt full, aching for him.
When I moved my hips back into him again, he let out a low moan. Sucking in a deep breath, he gripped my shorts in his fist, and I had the distinct impression he was about to lose control of himself. To rip them straight off and plunge into me—
He’d never had to restrain himself this much when we’d been fighting. Then, it had always seemed so easy for him to maintain complete control, every one of his moves carefully calculated. But now I could feel the strain of his arm muscles and the steel of his chest.
His mouth moved from my throat, hand still clenching my shorts in a death grip. I felt his breathwarming my back, exactly in the place where Morgant has ripped my shoulder open. Gently, Torin’s fingertips trailed over the scar. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”
His lips replaced his fingertips, and his kiss sent warmth radiating from the point of contact where his mouth met my skin. In between kisses, he murmured, “I will eviscerate that man someday. Do you know that?”
“No thinking about the future.” Flushed, I lay on my back so I could look at the heartbreak of his beautiful face more easily.
With me, Torin wasn’t able to let himself go completely. Not when he knew it would be ending.
A ghost of sorrow crossed his perfect features. “Ava. I thought of you all the time in my cell. How much I wanted you next to me, your limbs entwined with mine.”
His words stunned me, this version of Torin with his guard dropped. Under the intensity of his gaze, my chest flushed.
When I tried to remember what I’d been thinking about in that prison cell, it was all muddied in my thoughts. Just sharp flashes of desperation and a glimpse of what I must have looked like licking rainwater off the floor. I’d felt so wildly helpless there, but with Torin? It didn’t matter if we were technically from enemy factions. I was safe with him.
