it was possible to be.
“Call the fire, Shea.”
“How?”
“Feel it rise inside you. Hold your hands out in front of you and will the flames into existence.”
She swallowed hard and did as he asked, making sure that her hands weren’t pointed at him. How odd to have to treat your own hands like loaded guns.
Nodding to herself in silent encouragement, she concentrated on her hands. In her mind, she saw the fire and a rush of power pushed through her. She surrendered to it, allowing it to grow and burst free. Instantly, flames erupted at her fingertips and she jumped in response.
“Easy,” he soothed.
The flames were wild, whipping in the wind, shooting from the tips of her fingers into the dark like tiny roman candles.
“Call it back,” he said, from right beside her. “Tame each flame with your mind. Bend them to your will.”
She tipped her head to one side, studied the fire and focused as she never had before. One by one, the flames obeyed, shrinking, then growing as she wished it. They danced across her skin, flared with brilliant color, then dimmed until they were hardly more than match flames, struggling in the wind.
Smiling now, Shea stretched her arms over her head, waved her hands and looked up so she could watch the lights she had created through her abilities and the strength of her own will.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Torin said.
Her heartbeat leapt and the flames on her hands magnified in response. Quickly, she gathered herself, quieted the flames and watched as they winked out, leaving her hands unharmed. Only then did she turn to Torin and look into his eyes.
“Beautiful,” he repeated. “In lifetime after lifetime, the essence of you was unchanged. Your eyes, always this brilliant green. Your soul, always calling to mine. And always, I have loved you.”
She swayed unsteadily, hearing those words and knowing just how deeply he meant them. She wanted to give them back to him. Needed to, as if her very life depended on it. Yet they stuck in her throat and died unuttered. How could she love him when she didn’t trust herself?
“But now, in this lifetime, Shea, you are more beautiful than you have ever been.” He moved closer and cupped her face in his palms. “Your magic drives you, but your heart guides you.”
“Torin . . .”
“No more words, Shea,” he said. “For what we both want, there is no need for words.”
Torin waved one hand and her clothing disappeared. In the glow of the moonlight, her skin looked like porcelain. His unbeating heart swelled with the emotions crowding inside him. Torin had never, in all the years of his existence, felt what he did now, for this woman. This witch. His. Always and forever, his.
He dispensed with his own clothing an instant later and reached for her, pulling her body to align with his. The slide of her skin on his inflamed him. His flesh warmed, his body went to stone. Weeks now, they had been together. They had given themselves up to the mating sex and the fire they produced between them was searing. But they hadn’t shared tenderness. And tonight, that was what he wanted-for himself.
For her.
Her arms linked around his neck and she went up on her toes to kiss him, parting his lips with her tongue, sliding inside his mouth to quicken the heat building between them.
He took as well as he gave, delving deep into her warmth, tasting all she was, all she would be. His mind raced with raw emotions and sensations that he had hardly had time to appreciate. On the run, chased from one supposedly safe spot to the next, running for their lives and on a quest, they had yet to be able to stand still long enough to thoroughly enjoy what they had found together.
Until now.
Breaking the kiss, he locked his gaze with hers as he waved his hand at the deck of the verandah. Instantly, there appeared a mattress of the softest down. Covered in snowy white linen with mounds of pillows at one end, it shone like a jewel in the darkness.
“Torin . . .”
“We take tonight, Shea,” he whispered. “No training, no practicing, no worries for what will come. Tonight there is only us.”
“Yes,” she said on a sigh and allowed him to lay her down gently on the mattress beneath the stars.
Gently, lovingly, he traced the outline of her mating tattoo with the tips of his fingers.