Page 133 of Flame and Sparrow

Such a simple phrase, yet it completely undidme to the point that my hands started to shake.

I couldn’t remember the last time someone had told me I didn’t have to do something unless I wanted to do it.

“Karys? Are you all right?”

Karys.Not Sparrow. I wasme,not my sister, not a rebel with a mission, not just a piece of something, but awholesomething that he was willing to fight for—to protect—for some reason.

“I’m fine. And I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said softly. “I’d rather stay with…I mean…I want to be in here. With you.”

He sat up, studying me closer, the weariness in his eyes giving way to brightness as he repeated my words on a breath. “With me.”

I nodded.

He reached out a hand.

For once, I didn’t hesitate. I took it and let him pull me into his lap. He placed his wine glass on the table beside him, and I did the same with mine. His newly freed hand reached to cup my face. His fingertips moved over my scars, caressing them as though the skin was unremarkable, unblemished. They were usually the first thing anybody noticed about me unless I kept them hidden.

He’d never asked about them at all.

He clearly saw them, felt them, traced every inch of them now. I kept waiting for the questions. For the disgust. But these things never came.

“Stay the night with me?” was all he asked. “Just in case we have more uninvited company.”

Just in case I need to protect you.

I nodded, another clench of desire tightening my stomach as his fingers swept from my cheek down to the hollow of my throat. “Though I still don’t need you to burn the world down for me,” I said, “just so we’re clear. The divine world or otherwise. Nothing has changed regarding that.”

He smiled, his other hand finding its way to my lower back, pulling me more fully into his lap. “You can do it yourself, as I recall.”

“Yes.”

“So perhaps I’ll just stand among the ashes with you,” he said, “and admire your work.”

“I could allow that.”

His nose brushed mine. His warm breath fanned over my skin, making my lips tingle. The hand against my back moved, trailing up my spine, while the other closed lightly around my throat.

“I find myself suddenly curious,” he said.

“Curious?”

“About what else you would allow.”

His lips hovered over mine. Waiting. Wanting. A god powerful enough to forge suns and level entire towns…was asking my permission.

I couldn’t deny I wanted him, even though I now realized—more than ever—what I was getting myself into. What he’d done. What he was capable of. He was so beautiful, but sodangerous, so wrong, and everything I had ever believed felt like it was in danger of catching fire, disintegrating from the heat of his touch.

But gods how I wanted to burn with him.

I draped my arms around his neck, balancing myself more fully against him.

Slowly, I brought my mouth to his, parting my lips, giving him permission, inviting him in.

As his tongue pushed its way into my mouth, I felt his arousal stirring underneath me. The throbbing hardness made me inhale sharply, and he responded by deepening the kiss, devouring me so completely I could barely breathe.

One hand stayed against my back, holding me in place, while the one at my throat fell, slipping between my legs.

I’d had nothing to put underneath the clothing I’d borrowed from him, so it was bare skin that his fingertips found when they slid under the hem of his shirt and rubbed their way up my thighs to the aching center of me.

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