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He blanked his expression. “Right.” Raising his chin, he loosened his hold on her. Stepped back.
Neeka pasted on a bright smile. “I know you’re extra eager to find the missing bones. And guess what? Multiple locations are calling to me. If they’re not in one, they’re in another. So? Are you ready to embark upon another adventure, Ruddy Duddy?”
For the next three days, Rathbone flashed Neeka from world to world to world. A routine developed. The oracle spent her downtime dogging Daisy’s every step, and Rathbone spent his researching shadow monsters with golden rings in their eyes, learning nothing. Any time he spent outside the library, he doggedNeeka’severy step.
Bright and early each morning, the oracle barged into his bedroom—the chamber neighboring hers—announced the location that called to her the loudest, and he provided transport. They never kissed and rarely touched. Barely even spoke.
Like a pimply-faced teenager spurned by his first crush, Rathbone stewed. A humiliating development, but a development all the same. He craved more of the oracle. So much more. Their kiss was never far from his mind. How she’d clutched him, as if she couldn’t pull him close enough. How she’d moved on him, rocking with more and more force, eager to get what she wanted—needed. How he’d clambered for harder and rougher, desperate to stake a claim he had no business making, all to slake a lust he couldn’t shake. How he’d come so close to thrusting his fingers inside her honey.
Why had she pumped the brakes so suddenly? Why cultivate distance now? Her desire for him hadn’t dulled.
Rathbone realized he was stroking the orb that hung from his neck. With a scowl, he returned his focus to his task: rowing the canoe Neeka insisted he build from scratch. Her instinct hadknownhe needed to wield a hammer and nails to come out of this alive. But it hadn’t been her instinct secretly leering at him while he chopped wood. No, that had been Neeka herself.
Would Neeka be receptive to becoming the sole member of his stable? Forever? It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it had merit.
“What?” she demanded. “Why are you looking at me all...” She shivered, her eyelids hooding the way they’d done just before he’d kissed her. “Swoony.”
Swoony? Rather than start a conversation he wasn’t yet ready to finish, he said, “If we discover a bone today, I’ll grant you an additional boon.” The offer had nothing to do with hoping she’d seek another kiss. If they weren’t navigating a mythical swamp, being swarmed and bitten by mutant bugs, they were crossing a desert as multiple suns melted the flesh from their bodies, or deep diving in putrid sludge. Enough was enough. If she happened to request more kisses, however, that was his burden to bear.
Today, they traversed a beautiful water world. Lavender waves stretched endlessly, light from a silver moon glinting off the surface. No fish swam about. No birds flew overhead. Actually, he sensed no life at all.
“And if we don’t find a bone?” she asked, one brow arched.
“You’ll grantmea boon.” Hmm. He liked the sound of this.
“No fair,” she said with a pout. “I wanted to risk nothing and gain everything.”
He snorted. “I’m sure you did.” As silence stretched between them, he continued rowing, trying not to glance her way. But one by one his mátia returned to her.
He would give anything to draw another ragged moan from those cherry lips.
“Very well,” she huffed. “I agree to your terms. But know this. I’m open to anything but sex. Meaning penetration by your battering ram, just so we’re clear.”
A paddle snapped in his hand, half of it sinking below the surface before he registered what happened. A curse exploded from him.
“Such a silly butterfingers.” Neeka tsked. “If you break the second one, we’ll have to swim the remaining eight hundred and sixty-three miles.”
Deep breath in, out. He placed the second paddle in his lap for safekeeping, uncaring about the water soaking his leathers. He cleared his throat, then asked, “Do you fear my...battering ram? I promise I’ll be gentle—in the beginning.”
She shifted in her seat, a flush spreading over her cheeks. Then she noticed the placement of his hand and frowned. At some point, he’d reached up to trace his fingers over the orb’s smooth shell again.
Though she maintained her nonchalance, the sparkle in her lovely amber irises dulled. “Save your drilling for your goddess. My oracle senses tell me she’s fine, by the way. If she isn’t visiting you, it’s because she’s choosing not to. Think she’s mad that you kissed me?”
“I don’t know.”HadLore witnessed the kiss?
He expected a resurgence of guilt, but no. There was none to be found. “If she’s upset, she’ll learn to deal.” Lore had advocated for a stable. If he opted to comply, she wasn’t allowed to complain about the one he selected to occupy it.
He liked this idea. Neeka’s need to be a male’s one and only would be satisfied. She would belong to Rathbone alone—until she found her consort.
The second paddle snapped in half, but thankfully, both pieces remained in the boat. He swallowed another curse. If Neeka found her consort, she’d leave Rathbone in her dust, taking her delightful teasing and sexy greediness with her. This other male would receive her attention. Her kisses.
“That’s very alpha of you.” The beautiful oracle drew her legs closer to her chest and rested her elbows on her knees. “Tell me again how you’ll defy your beloved wife to sleep with me but this time flex your biceps while you’re talking.”
She meant to shame him, he knew, but he did as suggested and flexed, assuming different power poses. Better to tease her than sulk about the future. “Go ahead. Eye-feast. You can’t even help yourself.”
A magical laugh left her, and she pressed her fingers over her mouth. His chest clenched. A familiar sensation now, and something only she elicited. A benefit he refused to part with.
Must earn another.“For my next trick, watch as I—” He went quiet when she moaned, her features contorting with pain.
