Page 43 of Into The Rift

“No, you can’t.

“Yes, I can.’

“No,”

“Yes!”

‘Why am I arguing with a child?”

I tried to turn my chair back around and he had the temerity to jerk it back.

“Don’t ignore me.”

Beyond exasperated, I stared up at him and then pulled him down into my lap, bending him back over my arm. It was either spank him or kiss him. Anything to make him shut up. He stared up at me and caught his breath. His eyes got wide and immediately I regretted scaring him. I was just about to put him back on his feet when he lifted his lips the barest bit and closed his eyes.

Those long, thick navy-blue eyelashes fanned his cheeks and his lush lips parted. I think a few of my brain cells fainted dead away. It would have taken a stronger man than I was to resist his invitation.

I kissed him and felt the soft lips press against mine, once, and then again, as if asking for more.

“I’m not a child,” he said. “I do know what I want.”

“And what is that, princeling? What do you want?”

His kisses had been closed-mouth and sweet, like one close relative might give to another. I realized that was probably the only kind he knew.

“I want you.”

I stared down at him, knowing I should let him go. But when he made no effort to move away, I put my hand on the back of his head.

“Why do you have to look like this?” I asked and gently, slowly, kissed him again.

“I don’t want you to think I’ve forgiven you,” he said, unexpectedly, as I began nuzzling his throat. “Because I haven’t.”

“Duly noted.”

“But I want to kiss you anyway.” He turned in my lap to straddle me and link both arms around my neck. And I was lost.

I looked down, and those lovely amber eyes stared back at me curiously, but with no sign of fear or any kind of reluctance. He lifted his lips for me to kiss him again, and I couldn’t resist him, this time slipping in my tongue and relishing the feel of his soft mouth and that sweet, warm tongue touching mine.

Things were moving fast, but still not fast enough. I was desperate for him, and he pressed himself against me, making soft sounds in his throat, trusting me to know what to do next. I knew exactly what to do and yet I didn’t think I’d ever been with someone so innocent before, not even when I was younger. I put both my hands on his ass and pulled him tightly to my groin to let him feel how much I wanted him, and brushed my lips across his again as I looked down into his eyes.

“I want to make love to you,” I told him.

He stared back at me for a moment and then nodded. “Then what are you waiting for?”

What indeed? Though there was no reason for us to rush anything. We were utterly alone here in this outpost, and we literally had all the time in the world at our disposal. Before I could rise and take him somewhere to stretch out beside him, he began to pepper my face with so many sweet kisses I started laughing at first and then slowly began feeling almost drugged by them. He kissed me over and over again, long soulful kisses interspersed with short, sweet ones too, until my mouth felt thoroughly plundered.

He stroked his hand over my horns, which were incredibly sensitive to touch. I shuddered and grabbed his hands.

“Enough,” I said, laughing a little breathlessly. “Who taught you to kiss this way?”

“No one. I guess I’m a natural.”

He smiled and I had to smile back at him. Gods, he was so sweet.

“I’m starting to want something more, but I don’t exactly know what it is,” he said and looked at me shyly from beneath his long eyelashes again. “Well, I do know. Or at least I’ve been told some things. I think my friends were just teasing me, though, and trying to fool me about some of the things they said would happen. Some of it couldn’t be true.”

I stood up with him then, and he gasped and twined his legs around my waist, holding on. I carried him out of the main room and into the bunk room before setting him back on his feet and holding him until he stopped swaying. I pulled one of the rolled-up mattresses to the floor and stripped off its protective wrapping, and then did the same thing with a blanket, stretching it out over the mattress. The beds were stacked on top of each other, and I didn’t want to be so restricted. In truth, I was a little claustrophobic and had been since I was a child. I stood back up and looked at him.

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