She held his forearms, raised her head, and unexpectedly pressed her lips against his. An intense emotion flooded his consciousness, and he tightened his hold on her waist. Their bodies fit together as if made for each other. A tingling awareness of pleasure flowed through him when she slid her hands up his arms and across his shoulders.
He relished the feeling of her lips parting under his. A surge of desire pierced the wall of control he normally kept on his emotions as he deepened the kiss, touching the tip of his tongue along the edge of her teeth. He was acutely aware of her hands sliding along his shoulders until they reached his nape.
A wave of emotions and thoughts crashed over him him—pleasure, desire to take what was between them to a deeper level, a subconscious detailed list of what her lips felt like underneath his, the touch of her skin, the taste of her, the scent of her, and the feel of her body pressed intimately against his.
He experienced a sense of loss when she finally pulled away. They stared into each other’s eyes, both lost in their own thoughts before he released her waist, and she stepped away from him. She cleared her throat, the soft sound echoing in the cave’s chamber.
“We go that way,” she murmured.
He bowed his head and stepped aside for her to go ahead of him. She paused for a fraction of a second—long enough for their eyes to lock—before she shook her head and disappeared into the tunnel. He released the breath he’d been holding.
This changes everything, he thought.
What happened changes nothing, Nali fiercely thought, trying to keep her focus on the task at hand and not the fiery kiss she had shared with Asahi. It was just a kiss. A nice, hot, incredible kiss.
She barely smothered her frustrated groan. Turning on her heel, she faced him and thrust out her arm, preventing him from running into her. Her hand splayed against his chest. Her fingers accidentally slid between the buttons of his shirt. She gritted her teeth at the feel of his warm flesh. She would not risk another kiss. Of course, just the thought made her glance at his lips.
“What happened back there—” Asahi began.
“Changes everything,” she finished before blinking and shaking her head. “I mean, changes nothing.”
A wicked gleam of amusement lit his eyes. “I like your first thought better,” he said.
She ruefully shook her head again. “You are a distraction, Asahi Tanaka. That can be dangerous in our current situation,” she said.
He lifted his hand and covered hers where it pressed against his chest. “Only if we let it. If we work together, we can be a formidable opponent against the alien,” he replied.
With a doubtful, searching look into his eyes, Nali murmured, “Perhaps.”
He reached out and gently cupped her chin. “This is your world, Nali, but I’m not completely ignorant of it. We will be successful,” he murmured.
For a moment, his words hung in the air, blending with the subtle sounds of the surrounding tunnel. Nali nodded, unable to hide her troubled expression any longer. She lowered her hand and stepped back.
“Thank you. I needed to hear that,” she confessed before she looked around. “We should be near the surface. If we are there before the alien, there is a chance we can stop it before it does any more harm.”
“How will we know if it’s still in the tunnel?” Asahi asked with a frown.
“I have a way,” she replied.
She hoped that what she said was true. She had the Goddess’s Mirror. Unfortunately, it tended to show her disjointed images that often didn’t make sense.
Let’s hope this time the mirror will be a little clearer than usual, she thought with a grimace.
“How do you know so much about the Seven Kingdoms?” she asked as she continued walking.
“My grandfather came here. His name was Aiko Tanaka. He passed through a portal into your world while on a fishing trip. He lived on the Isle of Magic for nearly forty Earth years. I never fully understood how he could still look so young when he returned home,” he quietly replied.
“I didn’t realize that there had been other humans here before Carly. It is possible that we age at a slower rate in this world than in yours. From the conversations that I’ve had with some of the others, we live much longer than the people in your world.”
Asahi looked thoroughly fascinated. “My grandfather said he came here to the Isle of the Monsters once. Over the years, he shared many stories about his journey and the wonders of your world. He put it all in his journal. I have it with me.”
Pausing, she turned around and looked at him. “I would like to see it one day,” she said with a smile.
Asahi nodded. “Where to now? Did we take a wrong turn?” he asked, realizing that the passage ended at an earthen wall lined with tree roots.
“No. We’re here,” she said, pointing up.
“So we are,” he said, looking up at the vertical tunnel rising a good fifteen feet above his head with a wary expression.
“Do you trust me?” she suddenly asked.
He looked back down at her with a frown. “Yes,” he automatically replied.
She grinned. “Then let’s see if your grandfather told you about this,” she teased.
Asahi wasn’t sure what to expect, but what happened next made him say a few colorful words—in his mind. Nali reached out and wrapped her arms firmly around his waist. He reciprocated the move, sliding his arms around her.
The delightful feeling of her arms wrapped around him wasn’t the part that made him nervous. He enjoyed holding her. It was what happened next that shook him.
Her body transformed from the waist down. He watched with a mixture of
