he’d missed.
When they broke apart, he still held her, his breath warm against her ear.
“How did Prince Miru-kai get your life out of the urn and back into you?” she asked. “You were gone for three whole days before they put you back in your chamber.”
“I’m not sure. I was unconscious.”
“I waited for you here as much as I could.”
He kissed Ashe again, and she completely lost verbal skills.
“Three days,” he murmured. “Three whole days. I only have another forty years or so. I don’t have time to waste.”
“Forty years is a long time.”
“I’ve been alive for nearly three hundred, and I’m not sure I’ve made good use of my time. I have some catching up to do.”
There was real regret in his words. He sat up, the sheet pooling around his hips. Swallowing hard, Ashe rested her hands on his shoulders. There was a lot of naked Reynard right there in front of her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
He suddenly laughed, his gray eyes alight with humor.
She unbuckled her holster, setting it on the chair beside the bed. Reynard’s laugh faded. One by one, she shed her knives, the stakes, the second handgun at the small of her back. She made a show of it, taking her time. By the time she got to the wrist sheaths, he looked deadly serious.
“Do you want to help me with the rest?” she asked.
He slid out of the bed and knelt at her feet, the motion graceful and fluid. And without a sheet.
Oh, Goddess. He was clearly feeling hunky-dory.
“Allow me.” He lifted her foot in his hands and drew off her right boot, then her left. The stone floor was cold through her socks, worse than an unheated basement, but all she let herself notice was him. It wasn’t difficult. His full lips curved in that bad-boy smile.
She reached down and picked up one of the stakes she’d dropped, running the tip along her thigh as she straightened. “Want to play hunter and vampire?”
Reynard quirked his eyebrow. “Madam, I came equipped with my own stake.”
“Whoa! Points to the old guy.”
He sprang up, snatching Ashe off her feet in the same motion, proving that he’d lost none of his amazing strength. “You consider me old?”
Ashe yipped with horror. “You toss me over your shoulder and I’ll stake your butt, mister!”
With a grunt, Reynard dumped her onto the bed, making the springs squeak. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion.
She grabbed his arms and pulled him down, devouring his mouth. He tasted spicy, like sin melting on her tongue.
Her clothes were off in moments. Their lips met again, starved by the few seconds it took to undress her. Ashe could feel the magic of the fey still clinging to him as they bonded skin to skin. It was far subtler than a witch’s power, as gossamer silk was to heavy wool. It hung like smoke around them, filling her senses with the impossible: rainbows that shone only at night, music that fell like a shower of daydreams.
As Reynard ran his hands over her, she saw a stately home dusted with snow. His old house, back in the day? The scene shivered to a storm of color as the needs of her body pushed away the thrall of magic. The house was gone, and he was touching her, testing her wetness as she clenched around his probing fingers. Salty skin, the musk of man surrounded her. Ashe arched into him, letting pleasure ride her to the first crest of release.
Then she was back in the vision, riding a horse at breakneck speed through a field, the sunset glittering on rain caught in the grass. “Memories. I’m seeing your memories.”
“It’s my life coming back to me, one moment at a time.”
Then they were lost in the heat, finding sweet release. Mouths met again, nurturing, nourishing. She slid down, the length of her body stroking his as they curled beneath the covers of his narrow bed. His hand found her hair, fingers weaving through it. Ashe pressed next to him, glad of his warmth in the cool room.
She turned his hand in hers, feeling the weight of it, the calluses where he held his sword. His fingers were long, but the tips were blunt and his palm square.
“What do you see in the lines of my hand, Madam Gypsy?” he asked. His voice was deep and intimate in the tiny room.
“If I’d looked at your hands first, I might have understood you better.”
He folded his other arm behind his head so that he could see her better. Amusement played around his lips. “How is that?”
“You work hard.”
“I always have.”
“Really?”
“You thought I didn’t?”
“I wouldn’t have assumed . . .”
The lines around his eyes crinkled. “I had my fun, but I was a second son, love. I had to make my way in the world. Either that, or marry an heiress.”
Ashe laughed. “Well, we still have a few of those around.”
“I never could bring myself to wed for money. Now, for that motorcycle of yours, I might make an exception.”
His hand explored beneath the covers, stroking her waist and hip in a long, possessive sweep. “I seem to be recovering my strength.”
“You’re just thinking about my bike.”
“No.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m wondering how a man courts a woman in these times. Are there still balls?”
“Nightclubs and coffee shops. A lot less formal.”
“What do you like to do?” His smile was wicked, bad boy present and accounted for. “You have such a poor opinion of my aristocratic kind that I ought to show you how a gentleman born can make a woman happy.”
Ashe felt herself smiling in response. She’d all but forgotten this back-and-forth with a man. “Skiing. Mountain climbing. Horseback riding.”
“Riding?”
“I like a good stallion,” she said. “A good, frisky one.”
“Really?”
She moved under the bedsheet. He drew his breath in suddenly, touching her face, sliding his hand down over her breast. Angling over her, he left a long, lingering kiss on her lips. “You’re so beautiful. If a trifle impatient.”
She felt the softness of his hair, the harsh brush of his stubble. The contrast of textures was exciting. Then his mouth was on her breasts, her stomach, then nipping the soft flesh of her thighs. He was just this side of masterful. That was what she needed. She didn’t feel like proving herself tonight. For once, she wanted someone to simply want her—nothing complicated, no thinking required.
His mouth was on her, tasting her, sending a sweet-and-sour need through her belly. She felt her heels dig into the sheets as the tension grew, desire sharp as the finest steel. Cursing under her breath, she felt the waves of sensation pounding through her as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, then backed away, then brought her there again, only to steal her finish once more. She flung her head back, arching her neck, eyes squeezed shut in delicious frustration.
“Goddess, I’m not immortal; let me go before I break!”
“Are you asking nicely?” he teased, closing his lips around the peak of her breast at the same time his fingers slipped inside her.
And that did it. With a wild gasp, she opened her eyes, the pool of lamplight by the bedside dissolving into a golden aura as tears of release spilled down her cheeks. She came under his hand long and hard.
She was still burning with pleasure when he slipped his hard length inside, easing in with a few leisurely strokes. His chest muscles did an interesting dance as he shifted his weight onto his arms, doing a slow, slow
