Page 104 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
“All right. What’s one thing you miss about Florin?”
“The sea,” he said, just as quickly.
“I’ve never seen the sea.”
“No? Perhaps I should take you, after all this is over.” He smiled. “Maybe that’s my next question.”
“What is?”
“Would you like me to take you to the sea one day?”
Eirwen looked down. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I think I would. Is that the answer you wanted?”
“Of course it was. Was that your question?”
“Sure.”
“All right. Next one. Do you… do you genuinely find me irritating? Because if you do… I can probably stop teasing you. I certainlyshould,if you really don’t like it. But I rather hope that it’s all just… playful, you know? That you don’t really mind me being here with you.”
Eirwen paused.
His face swam close to her. She could make out each tiny bead of liquid against his skin, each droplet on his lashes. His dark eyes widened, like pools of molten liquid. The light picked out each fleck of amber in them, making them glisten. Her gaze drifted down to his mouth, parted slightly in the heat. They reminded her of peaches, although it had been years since she’d tasted fruit so succulent.
What was she doing? Why was she looking at him this way?
“I… I don’treallymind,” she said, already wishing she’d just passed this question.
“Did I make you uncomfortable earlier stepping into the water?”
“That’s two questions.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Ask yours, then.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The teasing.”
“I guess I just want to see your reaction. Maybe I’m desperate for your attention.”
“You said yourself that many a woman has swooned for you. Why not do it to them?”
She expected him to saythey’re not here.She didn’t want him to, but she was sure that would be his excuse.
“Because they’re not you,” he said. “And that’s two you’ve asked.”
Eirwen blushed. “You don’t make me uncomfortable,” she said, “not… not exactly. I just… I don’t know what to do.”
“With what?”
“Um… feeling… feeling things…”
“Feeling things?” Cole stopped swimming, drawing up to her. She could feel his hands hovering beside her in the water, not daring to touch, but the water rippled between his fingers and the bare skin of her waist, surging against her. “What sort of things?”
“I… I can’t answer that one.”I don’t know.
Cole’s glimmering face, bathed in golden light, crept ever closer. She wished for words, but what ones, she couldn’t fathom. She wished for time, to strike it still, to paint it to a close and capture forever the unstained intimacy of the moment unfurling between them.
