Page 32 of Never the Roses

“Do you have sugar?” he asked.

Finishing with the toast for herself also, she put the honey pot next to the plate she set before him. “Honey,” she said with a smile, reminding him.

“Sweetheart,” he said with an answering smile, reminding her of all she found charming in him.

She added last autumn’s dried berries to the stewing grains so they would soften and add their sweet redolence to the porridge, then took a bite of her honeyed toast, closing her eyes in pleasure. Perfect. Followed by a sip of the flavorful tea, she relished this simple joy.

“You look so sensual right now,” Tristan said softly, reminding her that she had an audience.

Opening her eyes, she gave him a smile, noticing he’d already wolfed down his own toast. Young men. “Would you like another?”

“You know what I would like?” He stood and came around the counter and took the cup of tea she’d been cradling in her hands, setting it aside. Leaning back against the counter, he gently drew her into his embrace, bending his head to kiss her. The caress of lips sent a flutter of sweet desire through her. More familiar to her this time, she savored the soft sensuality of his lips, the expert stoking of passion. “Mmm,” he murmured against her mouth. “You taste like honey.”

With a mischievous quirk of that clever mouth, he reached for the pot of honey, dipped in the tip of his finger, and drew it across her bottom lip. The sticky honey contrasted with his smooth finger, sending sensations all through her, her body warming further, her sex blooming and aching to be also touched. Tristan put his honeyed finger in his mouth, pursing his full lips around it as he sucked, and she’d never seen anything so innocent and blatantly sexual at the same time.

He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her lightly, then licking the honey from her lower lip, before drawing her lip into his mouth, sucking on it with growing intensity. Moaning, she let herself melt against him. Never had she experienced this sort of slow seduction—and the attendant arousal. No one had taken the time to savor her mouth as if she were delicious.

Tristan nipped her lower lip, catching it in his teeth teasingly, so that she shuddered with need, then released it. Skimming a hand up her waist, he cupped her breast, grazing her taut nipple with his thumb, his mouth feeding on hers with warm, lingering kisses. “Delicious Lira,” he purred, “would you come to my bed?”

Her mind bleary, she considered the question. A hot surge of moisture between her thighs reminded her. It could be herarousal, but it might also be her menses. Some men minded that. “My menses began in the night,” she told him, watching him carefully. “I’m a heavy bleeder. I don’t mind, but if you do?”

And there it was: a flicker of disgust, quickly hidden. “Bad timing,” he replied ruefully. “But perhaps this means I can stay a few days longer? In the meanwhile, we can indulge in other ways.”

He kissed her more, teasing her tongue with his, then slid his thigh between hers. Holding her by the hips, he lifted his thigh until she was riding it, the pressure such an intense sensation that she gasped, clinging to his shoulders, digging her nails into his bare skin. He still wore the robe with nothing beneath, and it had parted considerably during their play, falling off one shoulder entirely. Kissing her deeply, Tristan rocked her on his thigh, the climax building in her with astonishing rapidity.

She came with a cry that sounded agonized, the orgasm wrenching and wringing her, a purging wave unlike anything she’d experienced before. As if a lifetime of tension, stress, and the dregs of violence had built to a pressure point within her and burst forth. Oneira laughed then, throwing her head back and releasing that, too, a cascading riff of release. With effort, she trawled back the magic wanting to burst from her before it could sparkle in the air, making itself visible even to Tristan’s mundane eyes.

Gathering herself, she pulled her gaze to Tristan’s face, ready with some explanation. But at that moment, something hit her wards.

Hard and fast.

19

As Oneira staggered from the force of it, Tristan steadied her, nuzzling her neck, taking her hand and drawing it inside his robe. “That was a lovely start, now how about—”

“Shh!” She cut him off with abrupt impatience, struggling out of his oblivious, clinging embrace. She was a fool to have lost her head so completely, to have been so complacent. Her wards had held, but they wouldn’t continue to do so without her full attention. Even then, judging by the force of the blow, they might soon crumple.

Tristan still held on to her wrist, trying to tug her back, laughing playfully.

“Stop,” she told him, twisting out of his grip. “Something is testing my—the house wards.”

He looked around at the sunny kitchen, birdsong and distant surf flowing in. “How can you tell—is there an alarm?”

“Yes,” she answered, figuring she could concoct one later. “Be quiet, in case they knock again. I need to pay attention.”

He shrugged, then helped himself to the rest of her uneaten toast. “Let them in. I don’t mind.”

She cast him an incredulous glance. “The wards are there for a reason.”

“You let me in.”

“Because you were harmless.” She said it without thinking, her thoughts far away, traveling from ward to ward, seeking thesource of the attack. It had come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Harmless, huh?” he muttered, sounding sulky, and slinking over to the porridge. “This looks done.”

“Eat it,” she told him, and left him there, stepping outside to the quiet of the garden so she could concentrate.

Adsila landed on the branch of a flowering apricot tree as Bunny galloped up from the steps to the sea, dripping saltwater. Moriah sifted out of the shadows of the grape arbor, winding around Oneira’s legs. They’d all sensed the hit.

---