Page 142 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

He kissed her temple. She had no idea how much freedom she had just given him, how much weight had been lifted from his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You have gone awfully silent.”

Laughing a little, she turned so that her naked flesh pressed into his chest even more. She looked up. “I am just enjoying this.”

In the heat of their intimacy, he had asked her to be his, be only his, and she had agreed. She had said those two beautiful words, more satisfying than when she had said kiss me.

I’m yours.

The soft skin of her cheek lay against his chest. “It’s just…I have never ever felt this in my heart before, and it scares me terribly.”

He pushed her hair back from her face, brushing against her warm cheeks. “You have nothing to fear when you are with me. You know that.”

She looked up to him again, eyes wide, and Torin had trouble keeping his hands from cupping her face. “I fear what I feel for you,” she confessed.

He pulled her closer so that every part of her lay against him. “I know what you mean,” he said as he stroked a hand through her hair. “A Spirit Witch once told me that I would fall in love...and that she would be taken from me. I feared her visions were true for a while. And then I would go through phases where I used to feel that I would be forced to spend the rest of my life with someone, and I wouldn’t feel anything at all, and that scared me even more than the fortune teller’s vision.” He played with a loose strand of hair, turning it in his fingers. “Because seeing my mother try to love someone she would have never chosen for herself was unbearable at times.” He paused, the heaviness back in his chest. “There were times when I couldn’t stand it, because my mother would try so hard with Viktir”—he coughed a little—“my father, and all he could do was dismiss her. He was so focused on the clan or himself.” He stilled, dropping the strand of her hair. “And I wouldn’t wish that on the person I was going to marry. If I could choose…” He looked down at her. “I would have made sure I was marrying for something more than just an alliance, or I wouldn’t have married at all. And I sure as Thorin wouldn’t have taken that choice from you either.”

Emara Clearwater looked up at him, and her galaxy-filled eyes turned violet.

And then her lips parted, still plump from his hungry kisses. “When I see you, my heart beats so quick that it feels like it could take off like a bird and fly. And when you smile, my lungs tighten to a point where I can barely breathe at all.” Her cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of pink. He gave her a smug grin, but underneath that, underneath it all, he was scared of what she would say next. He was scared of where she was going with this or where she might conclude it. “And when you kiss me,” she said with a wobble, and Torin sat up to meet her, concern creeping into his gut. “I could have never in my wildest dreams imagined how it would make me feel.” She looked at him, her eyes ablaze once more. “Every part of my soul sings for you to kiss me again and again, like it was the first time in that damned waterfall.”

He gave a gruff laugh at her attempt at profanity.

“It is like something you hear about in the stories where the deities would fall in love with humans. Like them, it utterly and doubtlessly consumes every part of me. And if that’s not falling in love, then I don’t know what it is.”

He moved, unable to stop himself, rolling atop her. His lips were on hers in that frantic and needing way. She kissed him back, her soft lips against his, and they didn’t back down, they claimed his mouth just as much as he claimed hers. It was feverish and it was asserting. It was pure thirst, delightful, drenching thirst. Even though they had just taken everything from each other, he wanted it, her, again. He burned for her, and she for him. He could feel it as they kissed, he could see it in her eyes when she looked at him, and he could hear it in her unspoken words.

He hardened for her again.

He paused, taking a breath.

His heart stilled.

Even though he knew in his soul that the Gods had sent her to him, he had to ask her a question that shook him to his core. Even though fear nudged at his heart, threatening to burst it, he moved from the bed before they got lost in each other once more.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice sounding low and alluring. It took him every fibre of strength not to leave the ring in his pocket on the floor and jump straight back into bed.

His lungs squeezed together.

Was she ready to take this plunge with him? It was diabolical, but it was fate. And he was ready.

Retrieving his tunic from the floor, not really wanting to walk too far away from where she lay, he wrestled out his final gift of winter solstice from his neatly lined pocket.

He turned to her and kneeled before the bed, his hand gripping the box so tightly—

“Torin!” Someone banged on the door from outside, causing both of them to jump.

Bleeding hearts of the kingdom, spare him!

“Torin.” The banging on the door and the voice was assertive and imperious. “If you are there, open this door.”

“Kinda in the middle of something, Magin.” He looked over to Emara, who was entirely frozen, an expression embedded in her face that he didn’t quite understand.

“Torin! There has been a sighting. You must come at once,” Artem Stryker’s voice shouted through the door with a little less patience than Magin’s had.

Torin stood.

He was going to rip their fucking heads off for ruining every moment he had with her. Especially this one.

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