Page 382 of Alchemised
Moving slowly, he slipped his arm around her waist and lifted her into his arms.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Enid is a good name,” she finally managed to say, her voice hoarse. “I like it, too.”
KAINE LAY ON THE BED beside her, her head resting on his chest as she watched the hands on the clock. She was running out of time. Always. She never had enough. The Abeyance was less than a month away.
Kaine was awake, too, fingers tracing patterns along her arm.
She sat up, leaning forward, and kissed him slowly, memorising the sensation of their lips meeting, the tip of his nose tracing against her cheek.
She slid her fingers through his hair, deepening the kiss, wanting to lose herself in the familiarity of it. She had felt this before.
Kaine’s hand rose up to curve around her neck, sending a shudder of heat through her, her blood alight in her veins. She’d buried the memories of this in the deepest recesses of her mind.
She leaned closer, her hand sliding down his chest.
His hand closed instantly around her wrist, stilling it. “What are you doing?”
She sat up, drawing a deep breath. “I want to have sex with you.”
The tips of her ears burned at saying it so baldly, but she watched him as she spoke. Searching for his reaction.
There was a hard, flintlike look to his eyes, visible even in the dimming moonlight.
“No.”
She tugged at her wrist again, and he let go. She pulled her knees up against her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Her heart was pounding a hard, unsteady tempo.
“I don’t want the last time to be when you were—” She swallowed. “—when we were being forced.”
“No,” was all he said.
Her fingers spasmed, but she nodded, and sat, staring at the deepening shadows across the room.
“Why?” he finally asked.
“I just told you.”
“There’s never only one reason with you,” he said.
She didn’t answer for a long time. “I can’t remember what it was like. Before. I know it happened, but when—when I try to remember any details, I’m always here. If it never comes back—that’ll be all I’ll remember.”
She paused then, thinking of all the ways it could go wrong. There was no going back. What they’d had was gone. It wasn’t something they could just re-create. Attempting it might destroy the fragile safe haven they still had in each other.
“Never mind.” She shook her head. “You’re right, it’s a bad idea.”
He said nothing, but the next day, when he kissed her, it was different.
Hungrier.
After he was gone for several days, he came back and his touch was like fire, his teeth grazing her neck, his face buried against her skin, breathing her in. Heat rushed through her, and she gave a shivering moan, body turning liquid against him.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his mouth over her throat. “Tell me to stop.”
She pulled him closer. “Don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop.”
His teeth dragged across her skin, and she drew his hands to the buttons on her dress, helping to unfasten them. His fingers slid over her bare skin as she shuddered into his touch, aching for him.
