Page 77 of Ember and Eclipse
“Yes,” she managed.
“No…” He lowered his mouth over hers, their lips barely touching. “I need to hear you say, ‘I want you to touch me.’”
Something like rebellion rose up in her but dissolved just as quickly. Because shedidwant him to touch her. In fact, the desire was so strong that she felt like she might combust if he didn’t.
“Devdan”—she leaned up, her mouth moving against his—“I want you to touch me.”
She expected him to kiss her, but instead, he made another gruff noise of pleasure as his lips moved along her jawline. His other hand cupped her cheek, his fingertips heading into her hairline, brushing against her scalp.
He kissed her all the way down her throat and back up the other side, and she found her hands clutching to his bare chest, his muscles rippling beneath her palms. Each press of his lips, each swipe of his tongue, seemed like calculated moves designed to make her beg him for more. But when he was through, having touched every part she had touched on him, he merely smiled roguishly.
Gods, she wanted him to kiss her. But she hadn’t touched his lips.
“I think I’ll sleep well tonight,” he murmured as he maneuvered them back over so that she was on top, straddling him. “Unless you’d like to touch me anywhere else?”
She stared down at him. He had one arm behind his head, the other out. His features were full of mischief, challenging even, but his eyes were closed as if he knew she wouldn’t act on anything.
She was momentarily dazed from the fact that he had done all of that touching and teasing and didn’t kiss her. Beneath her, with only her thin night shorts and his pants to separate them, she could feel he was certainly not as unaffected as he seemed.
Breathily, she said, “I do have somewhere I would like to touch.”
His smile faltered, and his eyes opened to look up at her. The sight was breathtaking. “Is that so?”
“Very much.” She leaned forward, her gaze shifting to his lips. Reaching out, she placed her fingers on his elbow.
Both of his brows rose.
“I have a thing,” she explained with as much seriousness and seduction as she could muster, “for elbows.”
And then he was laughing. It was a rich and deep thing that involved most of his body. His smile was broad, revealing a dimple in one cheek that she had never seen before. It took her by such shock that she froze, her fingers still on his elbow even as he shook with mirth beneath her.
Suddenly, she was laughing too. It started small, a forgotten practice in the depths of her lungs bubbling out. And then it overtook her completely until tears rolled down her cheeks, and she had to gasp for breath. When she came down from it, she found Devdan staring at her with utter adoration, his smile and dimple still evident.
A sudden vulnerability overtook her. But for what? This man had seen her sick, fatigued, full of fury. He had tended her wounds, held her while she cried all over him, and been willing to die for her not once but twice. Why, then, did it feel like she had been cracked open?
Perhaps she was a bit broken after all. She had known mostly pain and heartache for so long that anything beyond it seemed suspicious. Too good to be true. And her, unworthy of it.
But she would not let that be her truth anymore.
“I don’t share your taste for elbows, I’m afraid, but…” His fingers traced up her arm and wrapped around her forearm before he gently brought it to him to plant a kiss there.
But she wanted more. As he released her, his lips parted as if to say something else, most likely a quip, but she leaned forward and kissed him. His snagged breath against her mouth was enough to make her heated, her mind wandering to all the ways she could make him react.
He recovered quickly, and just as she was about to pull away, he held her in place with a hand on the back of her neck, deepening the kiss.
Every time was unique. In the tavern, it was harsh. In the middle of an outcrop, it had been the stolen kisses of a dying man. But here, now—this kiss was hope. It was a wish. A fragile thing held between soft lips.
“Mercy,” he eventually murmured against her lips, “you’ve got me on the gallows.”
When she pulled back just enough to take him in, the look in his eye was of pure hunger and carnal need. She wondered if he saw his craving reflected back at him in emerald.
After planting one last soft kiss on the edge of his mouth, which had him rumbling with a quiet grumble of warning, she whispered happily, “But mercy is always a weakness.”
When she fell asleep, it was in his arms with her face buried in his neck and a hand splayed against his chest.
Chapter XLIV
WhenDevdan’sheadliftedoff the pillow, his muscles tensing beneath her, she awoke too.
