Jak stroked his hands down her arms, looking terribly pleased and interested. Of course, the man loved a good bet. “I’ll have to thank Lena for the vote of confidence in my seductive skills. What was the starting date?”
“The night you, Astar, and Rhy went to the tavern,” she admitted, face heating.
A wide smile cracked his face. “That was before I discussed anything with Astar.”
“Yes, but after the incident in the carriage,” she pointed out, almost primly.
“The incident,” he purred, drawing her closer. “You mean when I showed you what could be yours.”
She looked up at him uncertainly. “Mine?”
“Remember what I told you before. My body is yours.” He plucked a pin from her hair, discarding it and coaxing the long strand to uncoil. “All right if I take your hair down?”
“Yes.” Feeling the shiver of his gaze on her sensitive skin, she turned. Instead of plucking more pins, however, he feathered a caress down her spine, then pressed a hot kiss to the naked small of her back. She gasped at the sensation, melting with it.
“Have I mentioned how much I love this dress?” he asked against her skin. “Gotta admire Zeph for working hard to win the bet. Serious competitive spirit here.”
Stella giggled, a sound she was sure had never escaped her before. “She set the lure for you, yes, but I have a mind of my own.”
“No one could be unclear on that.” Jak’s lips traveled up her spine, leaving a blazing trail behind, his skillful hands anchoring her by the hips as she sagged. His mouth brushed over the nape of her neck, shivering need through her. Sliding his arms around her waist, he snugged her back against him, his velvet-clad erection hard against her bottom, his lips finding another spot beneath her ear that made her weaken further. “How is the touching feeling?”
“Amazing,” she breathed.
“You’ll tell me if it hurts?”
“I would, yes.” She turned in his arms and looped her hands behind his neck. “Remember when the tentacle monster was dragging me away and I sent you to retrieve the Star?”
His eyes hardened, expression going remote. “Till my dying day.”
“And I had you do Danu’s Dance so you’d enter a trance state, allowing me to enter your mind.”
His expression thawed with curiosity. “I didn’t realize that’s what happened.”
She nodded, hoping he wouldn’t mind what she was about to tell him. “You let me into you so completely that it’s as if the barriers between us softened. Your thoughts and emotions are no more painful to me than my own. Even if they are sometimes… brasher than mine.”
“That’s one word for it.” Lowering his head, he kissed her softly, with devastating thoroughness, tracing his tongue along her lower lip before he pulled back, studying her face. “So… that’s good?”
“It is if you aren’t bothered.”
A line formed between his brows. “Why would I be bothered?”
“You are pretty much an open book to me now. I can read your thoughts and feelings from any distance.”
“Is that how you knew I wasn’t dead? And how you found me in the black-stone alter-realm?”
She nodded. Of course it wouldn’t take Jak’s canny mind any time to put it all together. He pursed his lips, considering, then smiled. “You could just rummage around in my head and extract the information about what happened with the Kooncelund ships.”
Her mouth fell open. “I wouldn’t,” she said on a gasp. “That would be—”
He stopped her words with a swift kiss, his tongue slipping within to plunder her mouth, sending her mind swimming until her thoughts were pinprick stars in a midnight sea. “That would be fine,” he said against her lips. “All yours, remember?”
~ 19 ~
Stella gazed up at him, her eyes dreamy and softly gray—and for once he didn’t have to wonder what deep thoughts preoccupied her, because she was focused entirely on him, pliant and warm in his arms.
And she loved him. It still seemed so tentative and fragile, that new reality, and yet he’d begun to believe in it. Here she was, alone in his bedchamber, wearing that dress that made her shine like a star, and that had been driving him out of his mind with the need to strip it off her gorgeous body from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Because she hadn’t said anything more, he resumed plucking the pins from her hair, savoring the satin spill of her dark locks as they unfurled against her creamy skin. The candlelight gleamed on them, bringing out the red that lay banked beneath, like the glimmer of crimson fire in otherwise black coals. That was Stella through and through—quiet, unobtrusive, until the breath of flame awakened and she billowed like an inferno.
She trembled under his hands, so sensitive and receptive to the least caress. He’d reined himself in with fierce determination, keeping his raging need tightly leashed. He’d do nothing that might frighten her, or even give her a moment’s discomfort. For her, he would be all gentleness and patience.
Of course, he reflected grimly, he might have to step away for a moment and relieve the unrelenting erection that had become truly painful in the hours since he first saw her in that dress. The upside was that it wouldn’t take long. He was opening his mouth to offer some excuse when she looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes glowing with sensual understanding.
“Don’t step away to do it,” she murmured, gaze traveling down his body as she laid her delicate hands on his chest. “Let me do this for you.”
He breathed a laugh, not exactly embarrassed, but… “I thought you wouldn’t invade my thoughts,” he teased.
“Some things I can’t help hearing,” she replied in a wry tone. “Particularly if you’re thinking about saying something, the thoughts form loudly and clearly in your head in the moment before.” Her lips curved in a smile. “So you have to stop telling me so many pretty lies, because I’ll know.”
He feigned shock. “You made a joke!”
“I didn’t.” She seemed astonished at the suggestion. “I wasn’t joking at all. That’s perfectly true.”
“Uh-huh.” He put his hands over hers, lightly curling his fingers around her wrists, vividly imagining what might come next. “What am I thinking now?”
She blushed furiously, but didn’t tense up. “That’s what you want from me?”
Oh, Danu, I so owe you for giving me this. And Moranu, and Glorianna. I owe all of you generous sister goddesses. “If you’d like to.” He tried to keep his feelings open about it, to not pressure her by showing how very desperately he needed her touch.
“This is all mine, isn’t it that what you said? So I can do as I like with you.” She was definitely teasing him now, this gamine side of her a delightful discovery. Her nimble fingers worked the buttons of his waistcoat, pushing it off over his shoulders along with the jacket. Working intently, she undid the laces of his shirt, gaze caressing him as she undressed him. She pressed her lips to his bared chest, then glanced up when he jerked under the kiss. “Is this all right?”