“Yes?” His heart thudded, and it took everything in him not too hope for too much.
“Would you kiss me? For real this time.”
“The first one was real.” Though he understood her point.
She shook her head solemnly. “We were both… caught up. I want you to kiss me without the healing between us, without anyone watching. Just us.” Her gaze went to his lips. “I want to feel you.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, though his hands tightened on her hips of their own accord. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She smiled, sensuous and all woman. “Surely that’s my line.”
“A point to the lovely lady,” he agreed, then sobered. “Seriously, I can wait. I meant it when I said we can take this slow.”
“I know, but…” Moving slowly, she slid her hands behind his neck, skin to skin, no healing sparkle to it. Tasting and absorbing him. “I’m finding I like the feeling of you being in my head.”
“Probably a good thing, since you’ve been in every part of my body.”
She cocked her head, her stroking fingers on his neck driving him wild. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered that.”
“I remember everything.”
“Did you—do you—mind?” she asked hesitantly. “I know that had to be strange, having me take over your body.”
“I don’t mind.” He smiled at her, his heart feeling as if it might overflow. “My body is yours.”
She caught her breath. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
“I hope you will.” Pushing his luck, he slid his hands down over her perfectly rounded ass, enjoying the widening of her gorgeous eyes. Tipping his head slightly, he eased closer, giving her time to change her mind, but she held still, her eyes fluttering closed, until only breath whispered between them.
He brushed her lips with his, aware of the stuttering hiss of her response. Pulling back just enough to speak, he asked, “Too much?”
“No,” she breathed. “More, please.”
A smile curved his lips, and then he touched his mouth to hers again, light, butterfly-wing kisses to lure her in, to soothe and delight. She responded hesitantly, a trace of caution in it, but soon warmed, deepening the kiss of her own accord, opening to him like a fragrant flower under the moon, petals unfurling, her heated scent enveloping him and making his head swim. Making him want to drag her to the floor and strip her naked so he could kiss every fingertip of skin, to bury his mouth in her sex and taste her until she screamed his name.
Stella moaned, deep in her throat, and he knew she’d caught the fantasy in his mind. So tempting to make it real, right then and there. So not something that could happen. Yet.
So he lightened the kisses, gently pulling back, until he could gaze into her beloved face again. She gazed back, soft and dreamy—but this dreaminess was all for him, her lips rosy and full from his kisses, her eyes silvery with desire, full of the awareness of what they brewed between them.
“We should’ve done that a long time ago,” she murmured.
“I tried to tell you.” He gave her a cocky grin, certain it fell short in the face of the emotions storming his heart. “But maybe we needed to travel this path, and this is the exactly right moment.”
“It feels right,” she agreed, then searched his face with an edge of anxiety in her eyes. “You will come back?”
“Only death can stop me,” he vowed.
She flinched. “I wish you hadn’t put it that way.”
“What is death?” he asked lightly, releasing her and setting her on her feet again, then taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. “My sorceress lover is more powerful than mere death.”
“Am I your lover, then?” she asked shyly.
“Yes,” he replied firmly. “If you’ll have me?”
“I will.” She nodded, as if confirming to herself. “Though obviously we’re not lovers in truth. I must caution you again—even though this touching is fine, that might be all. It might be that we never can be lovers in truth.”
“We already are,” he told her. Lifting her hand, he kissed the back of it, delighted to feel her shiver, to see her eyes light with joy. “In every way that matters.”
“Just remember,” she said, sobering, “that if it’s not enough for you, I’ll let you go. No tears or recriminations. I’ll understand.”
She clearly did not understand, because he had no intention of letting her go. Ever.
~ 14 ~
“So,” Lena said, sidling up and looping her arm through Stella’s, “did I win the bet?”
Stella tore her gaze from anxiously watching Jak adjusting the riding harness on Zeph’s gríobhth back. The storm had finally cleared, and Zeph shone like a second sun in the midday light, fur and feathers bright as hammered gold. Her eagle’s head was turned backward, and she clacked her lethally curved beak at Jak in incomprehensible advice while he kept up a running monologue of good-natured retorts.
“What bet?” Stella asked, her mind a blank. Her mind had been a blank since that devastating kiss. And it hadn’t been devastating in a painful way either—though it had been invasive. Bits of Jak’s thoughts, his native exuberance and vitality, swirled inside her mind and blood. Her lips still tingled from the caress of his, and she lifted her fingertips to them, feeling as if the kiss must show.
Lena watched her knowingly, and Stella dropped her hand. “You have that look,” she said, then sighed wistfully. “I remember feeling like you look right now. I miss it.”
Gen came up and took Stella’s other arm. “I’ve never felt like Stella looks right now, and I miss it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Stella said, though her protest lacked force. “Nothing happened between me and Jak.”
“Nothing?” Lena raised a brow. “Nothing at all?”
“A kiss,” Stella admitted, her face heating with the blush. “A lovely, long kiss.”
All three sighed dreamily.
“Still a virgin, then.” Gen leaned around Stella to waggle her brows at Lena. “Two more nights and you’ll have lost the pool, and we know nothing will happen tonight since—” She slammed her mouth closed, then groaned and rubbed her forehead. “I’m really sorry, Nilly. That was beyond thoughtless of me.”
“We’re all on edge,” Stella soothed her, squeezing her arm. She eyed Jak, who was on Zeph’s leonine back now, arguing with her about the placement of some strap. Astar stood nearby, offering his advice, and both appeared to be ignoring him. “And we’d be foolish to assume that Zeph and Jak will simply go and come back.”
They all absorbed that in silence.
“I feel it should be me going,” Lena said quietly. “Rhyian would come for me.”
“Sometimes loving someone means standing back and sending the best people for the rescue,” Stella said. “Jak can do this.”
“Of course he can,” Gen agreed staunchly. “They’ll bring Rhy back with them, and all of the folk from the inn—and they can cook for us tonight.”