Page 46 of How To Please A Princely Fae

“Anything you want.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, then drop my hands to the waist of my pants.

Kieran’s hands slide against my skin as he helps me redress. It’s intimate and unexpectedly sweet, and the simple gesture makes my throat tighten.

What I want from him is so much more than pleasure.

“Tell me,” he urges, his hands gripping the tops of my thighs, so large they easily span their width. “I would give you the world.”

“I don’t know what mating means to you.” It’s not what I meant to say.

It’s a whole lot less loaded than sayingI want to be loved and cherished. It will hurt a lot less if, somehow, he got his memories back and decided this was all a horrible idea.

I swallow against the guilt and raw emotions.

His palms rub against the wool fabric of my trousers, the light purple of his skin standing out in stark relief against the taupe.

“It means forever,” he says, and his own throat bobs as he stares at me. As if he’s overwhelmed by emotion, too.

Dare to dream.

“Forever,” I repeat faintly.

He reaches out, pausing before touching me, then his palm makes contact with my cheek, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “It means our lives are bound together, our very souls entwined. It means what makes you happy brings me joy, what brings you pleasure makes mine, and what ails you becomes my problem to find a solution to. It means I cannot bear to think of living without you, that the very thought of it brings me a pain so sharp it feels like heartbreak.”

“Oh.” The syllable whuffs out of me in surprise.

“Oh, indeed,” he agrees, a sly smile on his face as he traces a thumb over my lips.

“Where will we live?”

“Wherever you want.”

“What if you are invited back to the Underhill?”

“There is nothing for me there,” he says, not even pausing long enough to consider it, not even breaking eye contact. “My life is with you. You are my home. Where you go, I follow.”

I clear my throat, overwhelmed, and lean back against the chair. It creaks, and I make a mental note to check the bolts. Like everything else in this house, I’m sure the kitchen table and chairs could use some work.

I could use some, too, because what Kieran is offering sounds too good to be true.

“What if you remember you hate me?”

The determination in his eyes softens, turning molten and hot. Heavy.

“Then I’ll also remember this moment, when you looked like you might cry at the thought, and despise myself for ever letting you believe such a blatant untruth.”

I sniffle, because he’s right. I feel like I might cry, straddling the ledge between wanting him and fear, between hope for the future and uncertainty at what it holds.

“What if you do?—”

“Enough,” he says, the word crisply but gently delivered. “You are my mate. What passed between us before has no bearing on how I feel for you now, and nothing can change that.”

“But—”

“Nothing.”

We both startle as the sound of claws on wood interrupts us. Something’s scratching at the door, and whatever it is, it sounds large.

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