She frowned, unsure what he was talking about.
He pulled her a little closer and she pressed her hands to his chest, tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes. They warmed and shone at her, bewitching her.
“I want you to live here with me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”
He hiked his shoulders again. “In a roundabout fashion.”
She pretended to think it over, enjoying the way his face slowly darkened, his impatience showing on it as he waited.
When she had been silent for longer than a minute, he huffed. “Will you move in with me or not?”
She cast her gaze over the house. “It is a rather nice house. Large. Elegant. Very grand. What woman wouldn’t be happy to be mistress of it?”
He glowered at her. “Answer me.”
“I am,” she said with a sly smile. “In a roundabout fashion.”
He huffed again.
She skimmed her hands up to his throat and swept her fingers over it, and along the line of his jaw.
“Yes.”
That single word falling from her lips changed him entirely. His eyes lit up, a smile chasing the shadows from his face as he grasped her backside and lifted her, raising her mouth to his. He kissed her softly, with so much love that she was sure she would melt.
He stopped and drew back as raised voices came from behind him, grimaced when Valen shouted something obscene. Esher answered him and it felt good to hear he was awake again.
Keras’s brother Ares hollered something back at him.
“I always felt a little envious of your family,” she murmured, amused by the argument about having to live in Keras’s house while Keras looked dismayed and close to the end of his tether. “It is so different from mine.”
The light that had been filling her flickered and died as she thought about her Ares, as she recalled the things he had said to her and her heart ached all over again. She loved her brother, but Keras was right. He was a bastard. He always made her feel as if the love was one sided, as if she was nothing but a pawn to him, something he could strategically use to advance his own rise in the ranks of Olympus.
“As much as I hate him, he does love you. I saw it once.” Keras stroked her sides.
She shrugged this time. “Perhaps… but he buries it under layers of narcissism.”
A smile tugged at Keras’s lips. “It is as strange to hear you speak out against your brother as it is to be home.”
“I am done with being what others expect of me. This is my life. I get to choose how I live it.” Strength flowed through her as those words hit home, struck something deep inside her that made her feel right for the first time in a long time. She lifted her eyes to lock with Keras’s. “Or who I live it with.”
He dipped his head and kissed her again as he gathered her to him. Warm light filled her as she sank into his embrace and lost herself in his kiss, the feeling of rightness growing stronger inside her as she thought about her future.
A future she would be sharing with Keras.
Cool darkness swept around her and when it receded, she was in a large room with rich blue walls and elegant antique furniture.
And a huge four-poster bed.
Keras backed her towards it.
Chapter 24
The soft glide of Keras’s lips down her throat had Enyo tilting her head back into the black silk sheets. A groan tumbled from her as he kissed the swell of her breast, as his fingers teased the straps that held her chest piece in place. He didn’t stop kissing her skin as he worked to free the buckle, as he eased her breastplate open and cool air washed across her stomach.
She closed her eyes and melted into the bed beneath him, surrendered to him completely, letting him do as he pleased and drifting in the warmth his touch ignited in her.
A touch that seemed to take away all her tension and anger, had her mind emptying and all of her focus shifting towards this moment with him.
His cloak brushed between her thighs as he moved, as he drifted lower to tease her breasts with his mouth. She trembled as he sucked her nipple through the material of her bandeau, sank deeper into the mattress and raised her arms, toying with her hair as he worshipped her body.
Gods, it felt good.
It felt right.
She had dreamed of a moment like this for centuries, had imagined it countless times both when she had been alone and when she had been with him, trying to guess at what it would feel like to have his mouth on her, his hands on her.
The reality of it was far better than any fantasy or dream she’d had about Keras.
The previous times they had been intimate had started off like this, a slow and gentle exploration of each other, but had always ended in a fast and frantic coupling.
This time, it felt different.
She felt that all the way down to her soul.
Keras pushed the bandeau up and eased it over her head, discarded it and dropped his lips to her breasts again. She moaned and arched to meet him as his lips swept across her nipple, sending a thousand sparks skittering over her flesh.
He groaned with her and skimmed his hand down her stomach, heading for the juncture of her thighs.
The cool kiss of metal against her skin made her still.
“Wait.” She lowered her hand and pressed it to his shoulder, to the hard plate of his armour.
As much as she had fantasised about him wearing this armour, she wanted to feel his flesh against hers, ached for him to be skin-on-skin with her this time. Maybe later they could indulge the fantasy building in her mind, one that had her shivering as she thought about him skimming the talons of his gauntlets over her breasts.
He pulled back and frowned down at her, and then his hand.
That frown deepened and he eased back onto his knees, hastily removed his gauntlets and tossed them onto the floor. He followed them with his cloak and an urge blasted through her, had her rising onto her knees before him and taking the heavy material from him. She set it down on the edge of the bed and looked him over, deciding where to start.
Maybe she could indulge a little fantasy after all.
She began at his left shoulder, carefully uncoupling the pauldron, growing aware of Keras’s gaze as it followed her every move. She took her time about removing his armour, each piece she set aside cranking the heat inside her up another degree.
When his chest was bare, she feathered her fingers over it, tracing the peaks and valleys of his muscles, turning that heat up further. She bit her lip as she followed the line between his pectorals, easing her fingers downwards towards his stomach. He tensed when she reached it, his muscles flexing in a beautiful symphony of strength that had her belly quivering.
Flooded her with an urge to push him onto his back and mount him.
Rather than giving in to that need, she stroked her fingers lower and circled his navel.
“Enyo,” he husked, his voice thick with desire.
She glanced up at him as she followed the trail of crisp black hair that led downwards, a shiver wracking her as his hungry emerald gaze locked with hers. How many centuries had she ached for him to look at her like this? How many years had she silently begged him to show her that he felt something for her that matched how she felt about him?
The way he looked at her, somewhere between a man starved and a man deeply in love, etched itself on her memory.
Set fire to her body.