Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,34

did the biggest con I’d ever pulled yet, this time on myself?

I didn’t want to look all that closely at that question. And showing Sorsha a good time of the intimate variety was the one thing I absolutely could do beyond a doubt. So if she wanted that from me, I’d damn well deliver it.

“I hope you know I’d intend to make this last for more than a moment,” I teased as she shut the bedroom door behind us. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

She poked me in the chest. “I didn’t bring you in here for a ravishing, although I won’t necessarily say no to that once we’re done talking. What’s up with you? You’ve seemed a little out of sorts since we started this trip.”

My lover was far too perceptive. I gave a quick laugh and attempted to turn the conversation around. “Have I not been attentive enough, Miss Blaze?”

Sorsha poked me again with an expression that brooked no arguments or foolishness. “You’ve been perfectly adoring, as I think you know. But we’ve spent enough time together that I can tell when you’re not your usual carefree self, Mr. Charm. I’ve opened every part of me up to you. Don’t you know by now that I’m not going to judge whatever it is that’s bothering you?”

A particularly unfamiliar pang of guilt struck me with that question. Our mortal had opened herself up—had given me permission to read her mental state even though she’d had a terrible experience with another shadowkind manipulating her mind as a child. She’d said she loved me, and she didn’t have any supernatural hunger to give her an ulterior motive.

She’d believed in me, and I’d better get into the habit of believing in her, or I’d lose her regardless of my own motivations.

I tugged her into my arms and ducked my head next to hers. She smelled only like herself now, fiercely sweet. Whatever else might be going on inside me, there was no denying that the feel of her against me released some of the tension in my chest.

“Ruse,” she prodded, but her tone had gentled. I could bring that out in her too—the tenderness that complemented her fire so well.

“Omen dragged you off,” I said. “He might have thrown you to the Highest to be killed. And there was nothing at all I could do to stop him or to help you. Thorn and Snap got right on the case—hell, even the imp might have contributed something, whether it worked out or not.”

“You’ve helped with plenty of other things. Not everyone’s talents are going to fit every problem.”

“You’re the most important thing I’ve had in my life since… since ever.” As I found the words, the truth of that statement cut through me, sharply poignant. Maybe I should have been reassured to put one doubt to rest, but the certainty that my feelings were real only brought my failure into harsher relief. “If I can’t do a thing to protect you when your entire existence is on the line, how in the realms could I possibly deserve you?”

Sorsha made a strangled sound and turned in my arms to meet my gaze. She touched my face, her thumb stroking over my cheek, and thanks to this miraculous love I’d found myself capable of, that touch sparked more warmth than I’d ever found in clinching genitals with those untold numbers of other women.

“You know I don’t blame you for not throwing yourself in front of the hellhound’s jaws, right?” she said. “There wasn’t a single moment when Omen had me locked up that I thought to myself, ‘Gosh, where is that incubus? He should have rescued me by now.’”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have been thinking it,” I muttered.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be looking at it that way. I don’t think love is supposed to be some kind of transaction where you earn enough points to ‘deserve’ someone. If it was… how the hell would I deserve any of you? For all we know, I’m going to explode in a ball of flame at any moment and take you all down with me.”

She spoke flippantly, but I caught enough strain in her voice to know that wasn’t a totally imaginary fear. Tempest had stirred up doubts in her too. She was worried she might hurt us.

I kissed her temple. “I know that’s not going to happen. So does everyone else, including Omen, despite his momentary lapse in judgment. If a tiny bit