Page 18 of The Phoenix Inheritance

Isobel

Ican tell from the flicker in Dane’s eyes that if I let this go on any longer, there’ll be no going back. Deep down I know that if I tell Dane to stop, he will. Last time he certainly had the physical strength to resist me when I pushed him away, yet he toppled to the floor as easily as a cork from a bottle.

But this time, it isn’t merely Dane’s desire that will lead us to things I never dreamed of experiencing. It’s my own thirst as well. I’ve been attracted to this tall, strapping russet-haired man since the moment he fell from the skies. Yet now that he’s confessed it’s me he wants – not merely as a substitute or an experiment, but simply Isobel – something within me untied.

Who cares that making love to him will cut the wound too deep when Dane finally disappears from my life?

In normal circumstances, I very much do care. That’s the exact reason I crawled on top of my roof at the dead of night, hoping that the great outdoors and the twinkling stars would dispel the thoughts that have been plaguing me endlessly since we kissed.

Because for the first time since I adapted to my new life by the Solenz lake, I began to yearn for more. A luxury I’d never allowed myself before, as my possibilities are more limited than most to start with.

But after discovering the thrill of Dane’s kiss, it was impossible to do otherwise. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him a second time, and then a myriad other times. I imagined that I was a maiden like any other living in whatever village he dwells, and that he chose to court me. Even marry me so I could look into that stormy grey gaze forever – or at least as long as a human can reasonably live, which in my books amounts to forever.

Those daydreams were fine and lovely, until I opened my eyes and looked around me. All of a sudden I didn’t see my life for all the things I’m grateful to have like I usually did, but for everything it lacked.

Forever isn’t something I can have, not in love nor anything else. I simply won’t last long enough.

I can’t afford to find my existence lacking – the way it is now is the only solution I found, and it took years in the making. Yet at this moment, I’m ready to blow my carefully crafted sense of happiness away for one more taste of this man’s lips.

“Isobel,” he sighs, and I’ll never forget the way he whispers my name. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt.”

My heart slams against my ribcage. Of course he’s my single most exhilarating sensation as well, but Dane has just quadrupled that emotion with his confession.

“Isobel,” he repeats as his lips devour mine, voice growing shakier by the minute. “I’m dying to taste every little bit of you. Do you hate me for that?”

There’s no way I can lie to him, even if it saves me from heartache later. Not when I hear such raw sincerity.

“Only if you hate me for wanting the same.”

He doesn’t respond with words but with his hands, pulling me to his chest and cradling me in his arms as if he can’t get enough of me. Once more I feel that hard staff digging into my flesh, only this time I’m too far gone to behave like a proper maiden and run away. Instead I slither my hand down below and curiously prod his foreign member.

Like three days ago, Dane reacts as if I’ve stabbed him with a dagger. But judging by the way he straddles me even closer, my wayward fingers have caused quite the opposite sensation. I have no idea what normal young ladies do in my situation, if my touch is too brazen or if I’m doing the right thing. Garrison and the others have never gone in such detail.

“I’ve never done this before,” I’m compelled to pant between a profusion of kisses. “Maybe you can tell me what I’m supposed to do?”

Dane suddenly halts his onslaught and nudges away. I miss his lips only until I see the expression on his face. My heart beats so fiercely it could pop right out of my chest.

He peers down at me with the softest air in the world, which is all the more precious as he spends the rest of the time brooding. His half-smile is small but impossibly sweet. I love it so much when he smiles, I think to myself wistfully.

“Neither have I,” he murmurs as he brushes a strand of hair away from my vision. “So I guess we’ll have to figure this out together.”

The moonlight casts a soft glow on his high cheekbones, on his sensual mouth and proud nose. Though I haven’t mingled with society in years, deep down I’ve always known that Dane isn’t like me. The way he carries himself tall and valiant like a knight, that loftiness that underlies his every word are all signs of a person of higher birth. Which is why I can’t help asking:

“But why me?”

That makes him pause a few moments. His slate eyes brew with something as dark as the lake’s deepest waters. I’ve never seen a look quite like the one that mulls in his gaze right now – somewhere between melancholy and elation, between burning impatience and an infinite tenderness.

“Because I admire you,” he finally whispers. “And you’re the first person who didn’t have to wield a sword or win a battle to earn my admiration.”

My heart skips a beat. It’s by far the most wonderful compliment I’ve ever been given, and I don’t know how to receive it. Before I can come up with an answer, the strange reverence on his face falls, only to be replaced with an air that’s more easily recognizable – lust.

“Also because you’re pretty,” Dane grunts in a lower timbre, “and because you do all kinds of things to me…” He catches my hand and presses it where it had been minutes ago, on his bulging hardness. “This right here being the most inconvenient.”

“Is it painful?”

He pushes me down until I’m lying flat on the straw of my roof. “Enough to cut this conversation short.”

I swallow with difficulty when I’m covered from head to toe with Dane’s spine-tingling presence. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much.”

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