Page 169 of A Touch of Stars and Stones
He told me he could shield me. I felt it when he kissed me.
“I don’t want to wait, Ten.”
He pauses as if he’s deciding, and, unfair as it might be, I picture what I want in my mind, let every desire I have infuse and wash away any of the bad from today. Drawing on that still lake at my centre, I focus my thoughts, but just like in the cells, I’m met with a foggy barrier before I reach Ten.
And I smile.
I pull all my power back and force it under the surface, instructing it to stay there and behave. If Ten’s going to shield, then so am I.
Because I want him, and I need this to work.
He turns and barrels towards me.
His lips meet mine, punishing and consuming, and I want to sag against him in relief—in joy.
He hooks his hands under my thighs and lifts me with a way-too-sexy ease, before taking me to his bed and dropping me down.
Our contact isn’t constant. He takes little breathers, but then he’s back, leaning over me, running kisses over my face as his fingers run through my hair.
Mine mimics his, running up his chest and around his neck, but as I do, his body tenses, and I doubt my actions.
Instead of the images of what I want to happen between us, stuttering visions start to interrupt. Scenes, flicking between each other, memories or futures… but as his lips continue to move against mine, and his hand wraps around my hair, pulling my head back so he can kiss my throat, the vision doesn’t solidify into one particular vista. They keep flipping like they can’t quite settle.
“Ten, tell me… this is okay.” My words are laced with hope.
“Yes,” he pants. “Concentrate on me. Not the images.”
“You see them?” I ask, my breathing laboured as his lips kiss over the hollow of my neck before he comes back and leans over me, locking our eyes together.
The movement of his head is his only confirmation.
“Tell me to stop.”
“No,” he growls.
“Ten…”
“I don’t want to stop, Ever. I never want to stop when it comes to you. I crave you, yearn for you, and I’ll be damned if I’ll only touch you, hold you, and kiss you on the new moon. That’s not enough. No fucking way. I said I’d be strong enough, and this is me getting stronger. I’ll find a way.”
“And the visions?” I don’t want to be back on the ground by that snow-covered mountain bleeding out when we’re like this.
He smiles as if he knows exactly what I’m afraid of.
“We focus on us, what your touch does to me, and what mine does to you. We keep the shields in the best shape possible, but if the visions come, know I will endure every possible future as long as you’re still there with me.”
“Ten…” I squeeze my eyes closed and send up a silent prayer to Aslendrix to give me this—give me Ten. Because after that, what I feel for him can’t be contained inside my heart—it’s bigger than that. More. Filling every part of my body, quietening that power in my chest.
“I’ve got you.” He pulls back, and I open my eyes, needing to look at him. He places his knife on the bedside table and then starts unlacing his boots, and then his belt. I twist and do the same, now racing to be undressed, but his hands still my movements, stopping me from ridding myself of clothes.
“Slow. I’m not rushing this part, Little Siren.” His fingers replace mine, brushing over the top of my shirt and ghosting against my skin. It sends shudders of anticipation through me.
His fingers run up the slope of my stomach, and the curve of my breast, to my neck, crossing the divide from material to skin, and I flush, hot and wanting at the slight graze.
The pull and push of my shirt from my shoulders is still torturous. He’s careful, limiting any direct touch, building the pressure between us, but making every inch sexier like the weight is laden with promises.
My shirt finally drops to the floor, and he sets to work on my cami top, and all the while, my eyes are riveted. Transfixed. Pleading with him to go faster, to slow down. Stars, my stomach is revelling and driving me breathless.
His eyes blaze back at me. Molten. Smouldering.
