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Bad could be fun.
And addicting.
And wonderful.
They were the last thoughts I let myself acknowledge, before opening for his ravaging tongue. Moaning encouragement for his hurting grip. Plunging full-on into the fire of his assault. Long minutes later, when we finally had to drag apart for air, I clung to numb lust, letting my gaze fill with his dark, sculpted beauty.
Shiraz lifted a lopsided smile, teeth gleaming against his bronze skin. He drifted his hand from my hair to my shoulder and left it there, tracing circles to my skin with enough force to communicate a silent message. I was to stay put. Not that he’d get any protest now.
“Ssshh, tupulai.” He snickered when I shot back a Scooby Doo-like hhnnnh. “I can hear you thinking,” he clarified.
“News to me.” Snort. “I was doing my best not to think.”
“Probably why I heard you.”
I matched his lazy strokes on my arm by exploring the amazing contours of his chest. Damn. Even the dip in his sternum was sexy as fuck. I loved exploring the oval discs of his nipples too—but most fascinating of all were the intricate lines of his tattoos.
“These are incredible,” I finally murmured.
He released a soft hum. “I am glad they are pleasurable to you.”
I indulged a secret smile. Pleasurable was probably an understatement, but his formal phrasing made me feel as treasured as a true princess.
“Did you have them done here, on Arcadia?”
“No,” he answered. “In Helsinki. During my university years.”
When Ambyr went to visit him a lot…
Nota subject I wanted to go diving into right now. The woman was going to have the rest of her life with him. I had this tiny bubble, and I was going to hog it with questions I wanted answered.
“Did you attend college in Europe because Evrest did?”
He tossed down a what-the-hell glance. “Point for your end of the mat. I did not guess you were thinking that.”
I flattened a hand over his inked eagle then rested my chin atop that. “Just trying to figure out why you don’t feel like you measure up—to him or Samsyn.”
He hitched up on one elbow. “What the hell gave you that impression?”
I popped my stare wider. “Ummm…the full fuse you blew when we first got here? Something about not being Samsyn’s ‘lap dog’? I paged Dr. Freud from there, and figured Evrest was wrapped up in that baggage too.”
A pulse ticked in his jaw. “They are my big brothers, Lucina. Family, baggage…they go together, you see?”
“No.” I ducked my head when his stare turned probing. Note to self. Don’t go getting curious about hot princey’s cushy upbringing again. “I mean—sorry—no, I don’t see.” I picked at imaginary lint on the sheet. “I was an only child. It was basically just my mom and me.”
“Why?” He huffed and dragged a hand through his hair. “I apologize. Please do not answer if you do not want—”
“My dad was killed when I was twelve.”
I had no damn idea why I blurted it—except that it felt important for him to know. Why the hell that was, I had no idea. Even with Ezra, it had taken me a good three or four months to come clean about Dad. “He was a cop.” I went ahead and let that little jewel pop out too. “He was…a hero.”
Shiraz reached up. Brushed strands of hair off my face. “Of course he was.”
I looked up as his fingers sifted back across my scalp. For a second, my breath caught at what I saw in the depths of his gaze. He’d meant it. Every syllable. I knew it inside an instant—and gave him the most honest answer of my heart in response. “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes briefly, a regal version of a nod. His fingers kept twirling in my hair, slowly caressing down to the ends. His gaze, open again, serenely followed each new descent.
“My brothers are my heroes.”
