Page 19 of The Phoenix Inheritance

The rough pads of his fingers trail over my calves and slip under my nightgown up to my upper legs. “All the more reason to stop talking.”

All of a sudden his long index grazes the tender folds I’ve only touched in the secrecy of my bed. “Dane!” I cry out of shock, but also because of the sudden burning he awakens down there. “What are you doing?!”

His husky voice ricochets over my skin as Dane pushes up my nightgown and presses a kiss to my thigh. “Figuring things out.”

Before I can argue that according to my observations of nature, his fingers aren’t what’s supposed to go there but the shaft below his belt, Dane reiterates the offense with a body part all the more outrageous: his lips.

“Dane!” I shriek when his tongue flicks my parts of me even I’m not well acquainted with. “Why are you down there?”

His muffled voice tickles my most intimate places. “Just satisfying my curiosity.”

The way he talks as if he were leisurely strolling through a garden makes me want to slap him silly. Instead I grab handfuls of his chestnut hair and pull him closer.

“Did you get your fill yet?”

“Almost,” he rasps, before laying one last searing lick that has me bucking.

My legs wind around his torso as my whole being is sent flying into sensations unknown. Strange shivers zip in chaos everywhere within me, and all of the sudden the stars above have lost their spot in the sky. They swirl so much they make me dizzy – or maybe it’s Dane’s touches and kisses that are turning my world upside down.

Now Dane travels higher, baring my body to the midnight breeze. Yet I couldn’t feel hotter inside, as my core swelters and every inch of me burns for him. My breasts peak impatiently, yearning to get a taste of his lips as well.

He stops. I scowl through the haze he’s incited. Why won’t he hurry up?

“Isobel… What the… by Gods, what’s this?”

Dane’s voice holds none of the gentle warmth that has permeated it since he climbed up my roof. His words pierce through the night, sharp and infinitely more chilling than the brisk wind.

“What happened to you? Are you… sick?”

Sick. I know very well the ugly scar that marrs my abdomen makes me look that and worse. Because of the gravelly and grey skin surrounding the gash, I seem like I’m crumbling to dust – which is roughly the case.

“Did I touch you in any way that hurt you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He said I impressed him without even wielding a sword, but from the debilitating way he speaks to me now, I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore. I grab my nightgown and tug it frantically over the slash across my skin that brought the magic to an end.

How come I didn’t think of this outcome even once? It’s not like my scar would disappear just because the handsomest man in Sowilo wanted to make love to me.

“It’s nothing,” I choke as I scoot away, looking everywhere but at his eyes. Whatever lurks there, pity or disgust, I don’t want to see it. The problem is Dane’s hold on me is unyielding no matter how much I push and claw at his hands. “Just go.”

“Isobel,” he calls, and for the first time since we met there’s a hint of command in his tone. “Stop. Look at me.”

Something about his natural authority slices through my frenzy, and I find myself searching his gaze. What I find there is raw hurt, as if he were the one who’d been lacerated by a monster in the dead of night.

“You’re not allowed to run away from me. Not when I need you like this. And even more importantly… Not when you’re craving to feel me too.”

I’m about to ask him how on Earth he can be so certain of that, when I realize Dane just had a very intimate face-to-face with my traitorous body.

“Don’t treat me like I already have a foot in the grave then,” I accuse in a thick voice. “I’m very much alive right now. Just as much as you are.”

Of course it’s not true. Even in the dark I can see how Dane’s skin is bronzed by the sun, while mine looks like it slowly lost its color over the years. He’s hearty and robust everywhere I’m withering away.

But to my surprise, the glimmer in Dane’s eyes – that same one he had when he said he admired me – is back.

“You’re right,” he breathes as he keeps me captive underneath those titillating beams of grey. “Is this what you meant, when you told me strength comes from healing?”

I’m too transfixed by his searing gaze to come up with anymore wisdoms. “I guess.”

A slight smile flickers at the corner of his mouth, until he pushes away the fabric of my chemise once more and lowers his head tantalizingly close.

---