Smolder (Crown of Fae #3) - Sharon Ashwood Page 0,60

a handful of water and trickled it over the scratches, sluicing the injury. She kept still, doing her best to ignore his magnificent frame barely an inch away.

Until she felt his lips on her shoulder, trailing light kisses over the wound. Her pulse began to pound, first in alarm, then in frank desire. She turned into his arms, shaping her body to his. The move was so natural, so confident, he might have been a dance partner.

When his eyes met hers, firelight reflected in his darkened pupils, as if signaling his mood. She lifted her face and their lips met, hot, soft, and hungry. It was a foolish move, giving him that opening. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, drawing a moan from deep inside her core.

Leena should back away now. She was all too aware of her body’s urgent response, the need to press her aching nipples against the hard wall of his chest. Every muscle yearned to twine herself around him, to ignite and burn in ecstatic delirium. It would be the end of reason.

“You don’t want this,” she whispered.

“I don’t?” His expression was hazed, almost drugged, but it slowly cleared and grew puzzled as the moment slipped away.

“You said you can’t trust. That you’re too broken.” She placed her palms against his chest, feeling the quick, sure beat of his heart. “I’m not a toy. If you do not care for me, if you cannot build an affection that lasts beyond these walls, please let me be.”

Her words shocked him. She saw it in the slight movement of his eyes, quickly concealed by all the rigorous training of a prince. “I swear by the Flame itself, I am not toying with you.”

It was a solemn oath, especially here. “Then what are you doing?”

He cupped her cheek, drawing close enough that his breath warmed her face. “My admiration and desire for you are pure and true.”

They weren’t exactly words of love, but they mattered. He had been injured in ways she could barely fathom, had barely stitched himself into a coherent whole, but he was giving her what he had. Truth. Friendship. She could walk away because he wouldn’t take anything she did not give. She knew him that much.

This wasn’t idle amusement on his part. The fire between them was real.

She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the rough shadow of his beard. She’d always been afraid to risk herself, but fear had no place before the Flame. She couldn’t ask for something she wasn’t willing to give.

Leena pulled Morran’s mouth to hers.

20

Now that she had made her choice, Leena hungered for Morran’s touch. He was gifted and eager to oblige. With him, a kiss was a word spoken over and over in a thousand languages, each with its own nuance of meaning.

Desire surged through Leena, robbing the strength from her limbs even as it drove her on. He scooped her from the water, letting it sluice down their bodies, and carried her closer to the fire. The heat was like a second caress, a blessing that healed and erased all pain. Her body had been battered during their flight through the desert, but that was almost forgotten now.

“Shall we retire upstairs?” he murmured, placing feather-light kisses along her throat. He was melting her slowly with each touch of his lips, undoing the knots of tension running down her spine.

Leena had a sneaking fear that tension kept her upright, and she was about to collapse into a boneless heap. “What is upstairs?”

“A meditation chamber.”

“You intend to meditate?” she asked archly. “I would have hoped for something more gymnastic.”

He frowned at the mockery. “It is far more comfortable.”

She was about to protest that they were dripping wet, but the Flame had already dried them. He led her to a stone stairway that twisted to levels high above the grand hall. They ran up it as eagerly as a pair of errant children, hand in hand.

Morran took her to a room that must have been near the top of the pyramid, for the wall and ceiling were sharply slanted. Her first impression was of an explosion of brilliant, luxurious color. Every surface was hung with billowing silk of countless hues. Small onyx statues stood in niches hollowed from the stone walls, each a personification of elemental fae magic. Morran lit an oil lamp that hung on golden chains, releasing a faint scent of spice and amber. The warm glow caught the jewels and silver threads embroidered in