A huff of an exhale left her.
“Maybe I will,” she managed.
He stared at her a moment, and she stood her ground in front of him, fighting the pull towards him that her core begged for.
“So go,” he said with a nod towards the stairs.
“I will,” she managed.
His arms crossed over his chest. “You’re still here.”
“Oh, I’m going,” she warned.
“Okay,” he said nonchalantly with another shrug.
She pushed past him then, knocking into his shoulder. “Goodbye, Draven.”
“Have a safe trip back,” he called after her.
She paused at the steps and looked back at him. He wasn’t watching her any longer. Instead he’d turned to face the moons. She stared at him, expecting him to turn and tell her not to leave.
But he never did.
“That’s it?” she called out.
He turned and leaned his hips against the banister, arms crossing over his chest, but he didn’t speak.
She balked at his quiet figure. “Have a safe trip back?” she repeated. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
He shrugged again. “You said you didn’t come here for anything else except the ships. I shouldn’t like to make assumptions about the Sun Queen’s intentions for traveling.”
“Assumptions…” she almost laughed at the word. “This is a game to you, isn’t it?”
“No games,” he replied.
She felt herself stepping towards him, annoyed to her bones with his frustrating antics. “You think you’re so irresistible. So powerful. You, with your perfect hair, your strong arms, your stupidly handsome face—”
His brows raised. “Handsome?” he repeated, hands shoved in his pockets as he slowly, yet deliberately, began crossing the space between them.
“Oh, shut up,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
A quirk of a smile rose on his lips at her frustrated figure, long hair falling over his eyes. He paused in front of her and pushed his hair back and over to one side before looking her over once more.
“I thought you were leaving,” he said softly.
Her heart throbbed in her ears at the feeling of his warm body so close to hers. “Why don’t you shut up and kiss me instead.”
His brows raised. She could feel her breaths shortening as he paused a moment, apparent that he was working out whether she was serious or not. But a moment later, when his hands gently wrapped behind her throat, thumb stroking her jawline, her knees liquified. The tickle of his fingertips made her eyes flutter, the heat of his skin against her own cause her a deliberate tingle from his touch down her neck and over her shoulders. She could feel the sweet of his breath on her open mouth as he leaned down. And then, he pressed his lips to hers.
Curses of Duarb, she’d missed him.
Every pore of her being surrendered to his embrace. She grasped his shirt in her hands to steady her balance, relishing the warming feeling of his lips once more on hers. Nothing had compared to the fluttering of her heart in her chest, the heat radiating from her chest to her stomach, and between her legs just from his kiss.
He pulled back but a few seconds later, and she felt herself waiver on the spot in his absence. His callused fingertips tickled the back of her neck, and she looked up to meet his gaze.
“Like that?” he whispered.
The amused glint had left his eyes, leaving behind a dark smolder that made the hair on her arms raise.
“Like that,” she breathed. “But everywhere.”
She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to her, her lips capturing his so quickly that he grabbed her waist to stay on balance. Kissing him made her mind blank of everything. She felt as though she were in a hidden shadow dimension. As if the realm around them didn’t exist. She groaned into his mouth as she felt his hands grasp her hips, his already hardening length pressing into her lower abdomen. His mouth moved to her throat, and she heard herself curse at the nip of his teeth on her, the ferocity in which he clinched her waist and backside in his fingers.
She tugged at the bottom of his shirt, and he allowed her lift it over his head. It fell to the ground, and he paused a moment, entwining her fingers with his as gloves that fit he and only he at their sides as the swell of a genuine smile rose on his lips. Not snarky. Not arrogant. Not mocking.
But a real smile that made her heart flutter.
She felt her own smile rise on her mouth, and with it she pressed her lips against his, softly this time, savoring his strength around her, memorizing the callus of his fingers as they trailed her sides. He fumbled with the strings on the back of her dress, and then she pushed her arms out of it, allowing it to fall to the ground at her feet.
He paused again and swallowed hard as he stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
He stepped forward and cupped her neck gently in his hand again. “I didn’t get to see you last time,” he whispered. “Even your face… the darkness of the Berdijay…” His voice trailed, and she realized the Berdijay’s fog had not lifted completely in the forest.
He’d been as blind as her.
The tips of his fingers trickled down her throat, over her shoulders, and against her sides, causing a shiver to rise on her skin when his thumb flicked her nipple and then caressed her ribs. Her breath caught, and she found herself doing the same, allowing her own hands the liberty to finger the hair on his pectorals and down his taut abdomen to the V at his hips. She could see his length hardened beneath the fabric. But just as she reached for him, he grasped her hips in his hands, squeezing the jiggle of her flesh in his long fingers. His head bent low into the crook of her neck as he
