Page 63 of I Dream of Dragons
“We haven’t bathed yet,” I protest, loathe to have this peaceful, pleasurable moment end. I’m not ready to return to reality yet.
“Better you bathe alone,” Jai says quietly, some of the dazedness leaving his gaze. “I told you. If I climb into a bathtub with you, we’re never going to that banquet.”
“Fuck the banquet,” I whisper, lost in the bliss of being with him.
The grin he gives me is blinding, the dimple in his cheek deep and adorable. Adorable isn’t an adjective I’d normally apply to a powerful man like Jai, but that boyish delight in his eyes cannot be described any other way.
My heart stutters in my chest.
Daria clears her throat, breaking this moment, too.
Damn.Will people stop breaking these golden moments, the best moments I’ve had since I lost Mars?
Mars… the king. My mission… this mess.
I’m sobering up quickly, and when Jai gives me a hand, I take it and let him haul me off the bed and to my feet.
“I’ll go,” he says.
I nod down at his cock. Even in its half-hard state, it’s thick and mouthwatering, and I want it inside me. “Better put the big fellow away.”
“Big fellow? Oh.” His grin turns teasing. “Are you and him best friends now?”
“No, but I’d like to be.”
He laughs, a low sound of pure joy, and I bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh, too. It’s so easy to fall into him, to fall for him. To fall into this easy banter. This isn’t like me. None of this is like me—making out with the enemy, sucking him off, teasing him.
I’m not that girl. Easygoing, relaxed, unafraid. Haven’t been in forever, and even then… I’d been but a child.
And now I’m not human.
He cups my face as if sensing the change in my mood. “You don’t love the king. It’s me you want, isn’t it?”
“You should go.” I look away, to avoid meeting his gaze. I have a feeling he will see right through me, right up to the thoughts I don’t even want to acknowledge for myself. “Daria is right. We should get ready. We can’t keep the king waiting.”
“What’s wrong?”
Is he even asking me this?“Fate can’t be undone.”He said that. Made his choice.
I see the moment the joy winks out of his dark eyes, replaced by weariness. “Rae…”
I step away from him. “What?”
I think I see wings of shadow spread at his back as he clenches his jaw, clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “Just… be careful.”
That’s it. That’s all he says. It’s sound advice, always applicable when it comes to the fae and life in general, but although I’m pushing him away, I had expected more, for him to insist, to clarify his cryptic remarks about mates and miracles. Or at least to ask what it is with us, if there is an us now that we’ve made out and were intimate again. If I feel anything for him.
If there is any future.
It may be better he doesn’t ask any such questions, though, because the answer is no.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
RAE
The future is hidden from me as much as the present and I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do. It’s all shrouded in darkness. Nothing has changed.
I’m torn between these two men.
