Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,62

an easy dilemma.” I stopped in a clearing between the scattered trees and glanced up at Thorn. In the faint light that traveled this far from distant street lamps, his white-blond hair looked closer to silver, his tan skin duskier, his dark eyes utterly black. A furrow had creased his forehead. An ache squeezed my heart, watching him struggle.

He gazed down at me. “I have other reasons for wishing to stay, of course. Reasons that are much more selfish.”

When he took on that low, impassioned tone, my pulse fluttered with giddiness despite my concern for him. “And I have plenty of selfishness too. But I wouldn’t want you to stay because I put the screws to you and then have you feeling guilty about it.”

“So you aren’t going to make an argument on your own behalf?”

I inhaled sharply. “I want you with us. I want you with me. But I’ll muddle through this either way. What I’d really like is for you to figure out what you think is the right course of action for you. Not what will make anyone else happy. What you’ll be able to look back on that will let you know right in here that you made the best decision you could.” I gave him a gentle poke to the middle of his chest.

Thorn caught my hand and curled his fingers around it. His touch and the intentness of his gaze sent heat coursing over my skin. “I suppose I haven’t considered that factor often in the past. What I think is best. What orders I would give myself, if it were up to me.”

“It is up to you, you know. You’re always the boss of yourself in the end, as much as I’m sure Omen—or those other wingéd—would like you to think otherwise.”

“But how does one untangle one’s sense of responsibility to others from one’s own judgment?”

“Now you’re getting into the hard questions,” I teased, and lifted my other hand to caress his square jaw. “I can think of a few ways you seem to be different from the average wingéd. Maybe getting in touch with the more selfish side of yourself will help you figure things out?”

Thorn hummed as if in agreement and leaned in to kiss me. The passion of his lips claiming mine reverberated through my body. I gripped the collar of his tunic, pushing myself up on my toes to meet him with all the enthusiasm I could offer in return.

He drew back just an inch, his breath washing over me with his musky scent. “If you asked me to stay for you, I would, you know. You have proven yourself the most loyal comrade I could ask for, and so much more than that as well… I don’t think I could bring myself to deny you, no matter what else was at stake.”

I swallowed hard, the vehemence in his words ringing through me and waking up an answering devotion. “And if you told me you had to leave to believe you’ve fulfilled your purpose, I wouldn’t ask you, as much as I might want to. I’d rather have you at peace somewhere else than torn up by guilt right next to me. Obviously if I can have both the peace and the proximity…”

He chuckled and kissed me again. Then he murmured, “I want to show you something, m’lady.”

Before I could ask what, his body shifted against mine. His chest expanded, his body enlarging to even greater heights of brawn. A ruddy glow like embers still smoldering in a fireplace lit in his eyes. His great black wings unfurled from his back, their feathers warbling in the breeze.

He captured my mouth again with a smoky edge beneath his musky flavor, and at the same time he caught me in his arms, one solid mass of corded muscle across my shoulder blades and the other around my ass, lifting me against him. With a majestic flap of his wings, his feet left the ground too.

Between the kiss and the sensation of soaring upward, dizziness washed through me, but I was more than happy to embrace it. As the wind licked sharper over us, I kissed Thorn hard through the stutter of my heartbeat.

He hefted me higher against him, and my legs came up instinctively to wrap around his waist. A firm bulge there was no mistaking came to rest against my sex. I dragged in a breath shaky with desire, gripped the thick strands of his hair, and let my tongue