Page 142 of A Promise of Peridot
Arwen nodded, but she didn’t seem concerned either way. Perhaps she had taken our conversation in Mariner’s Pub to heart and was comparing herself less to others.
“I’m not ashamed of my lack of experience,” she said, her eyes bright on mine. “Or your surplus of it. I just want to be enough for you.”
A laugh rumbled out of me, and Arwen laughed, too, even as her brows knit together in confusion. “You really have no idea what you do to me.”
Arwen rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious. Here, I’ll show you. Make the pinched face you do when you’re mad.”
Her eyes filled with mock insult. “What pinched face?”
“When you’re angry with me, your brow furrows and you get a little pinch between them, right here.” I touched the spot in the center of her forehead. “And down your nose. It means you’re about to lay into me, which for some masochistic reason I find wildly attractive. So much so, it gets me hard.”
The look on her face told me how little she believed me.
“A bit like a bull,” I said, placing a hand behind my head in disinterest.
“Hey,” she snapped, brow furrowing and nose scrunching up.
My cock twitched and I grabbed for her hand, placing it under the sheets so she could feel the proof for herself. “See?”
Arwen let out a surprised laugh. “You’re sick.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Completely lovesick for you. I have been for months.”
Her eyes fell to my lips and she leaned in to kiss me, long and slow and soft.
“My beautiful bird.”
“My king,” she purred in response.
I groaned, laying my head back into the pillows. “Talk about things that really do it for me.”
“You love when I call youmy king?” She scoffed. “So drunk on power.”
“I love when you call me your anything.”
It was still night, but now that my eyes had adjusted, I could just barely make out a silver outline on the trees that surrounded the keep. The sun would be rising soon.
I traced my hand lightly across Arwen’s shoulder, closing my eyes to the gentle sounds of her breathing. She grasped my hand in both of hers. “This ring is my favorite of yours,” she said, touching the onyx signet I wore on my pinky.
“It was my mother’s.”
“She had great taste,” Arwen said softly.
“She did. She would have loved you.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. You would have gotten along like old friends. She wasn’t necessarily funny, but she had a great sense of humor. She laughed hard and often, like you.”
“I wish I could have known her.”
“I would have been instantly excluded.”
A laugh breezed out of her. “Like you and my mother at that dinner in Siren’s Cove. She adored you.” Arwen tucked her chin into my chest. “I wish she could have seen us figure it out. Could have known that I was happy.”
“She knew you. Perhaps better than anyone else. She knew you would be happy, Arwen.”
