Page 114 of The Eye of the Fifth
Any reservations she had about him melted then, with the way he was looking at her. Not like the men she’d let have her in Avaldale. Like she was a conquest they were proud to have conquered.
But like… like there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be.
‘You’re a pain in the ass too, you know,’ she retorted in a near-whisper. ‘But… I didn’t expect this either.’
Self-made walls came crashing down, allowing her to be vulnerable, to be open to a magic that could only be felt and not seen. A magic that no one else had ever evoked within her.
Closing the gap between their bodies, Kyra moved toward him, relishing the way his eyes were boring into hers. His hand found a home in the small of her back, and he tenderly pulled her even closer.
It was the simplest of touches, and yet it somehow upset her breathing.
His breath mingled with hers as Kyra looked up at him, watched his lips part as his gaze tracked down her face to her mouth.
The warm fingers at her back contracted, feeling her, and her pulse quickened again with anticipation in the pause, the pause that felt like a lifetime as his face drew closer, closer, closer, closer…
Kyra’s eyelids fluttered shut.
As Kawai gently, ever so gently, pressed his lips to hers.
Chapter Thirty Two
Unbounded Knowing
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The Thilene, Loros.
Kyra.
Kawai tasted like summer, like sea salt, like joy in human form. She never wanted his soft mouth to move from hers, nor his roaming hands to ever break contact from her skin, for when she was pressed against him, nothing else seemed to matter.
He was both sobering her and sending her entire body into a dizzying spin. Alive and buzzing in a way that was wholly new.
The kiss deepened, his lips against hers moving now with sudden urgency. She matched that burning energy, her own hands rising to feel all of him, the softness of his floppy hair, the rough facial stubble, his warm neck, the firmness of his chest, his arms, his-
Low in her body, an unfamiliar wanting began, an ache, aneed.
Ah.
Thatwas what it was supposed to feel like. Every experience that came before paled into non-existence. Before, she’d merely moved through the motions of what she’d thought she was supposed to feel.
Now…
She was the motion. Driven by a passion, a desire for the man whose arms she was held in, the man who had inadvertently become quite important to her.
With a steadying breath, she broke away from his lips. His arms remained tight around her, his fingers losing themselves in the fabric of her clothes.
He rested his forehead on hers. Through her eyelashes, she looked up at him. A smile grew on his lovely mouth. She couldn’t help thebreathless laugh that escaped her then as giddiness spread through her, tingling every surface of her skin.
And perhaps it was the ale talking onherbehalf now, but she knew what she wanted. Knew that standing on the deck, that the one kiss, however wonderful it had been, would not be enough. ‘Come with me,’ she whispered.
He lifted his lips to her forehead, placed a delicate kiss at her brow, then interlinked his fingers through hers.
Letting her lead the way.
She barely noticed if other raiders were watching on, barely cared for that matter, as she led him below deck to his cabin.
Save the thundering of her own heart, it was so quiet. With surprisingly still hands, Kyra lit the gaslamp at the bedside. The low, flickering light spilled across the room.
