Page 35 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

“Are you okay?” Katherine asked, breaking the silence between them.

Urian took her hand in his. “May I?”

She drew a sharp breath, closed her eyes, and then whispered, “Yes.”

Of course, Urian felt the same spark of longing she was wrestling with—more than with any person he’d ever touched before—but he was prepared for it. Katherine was an innocent.

“Would you like me to put my gloves on?” he offered. “No direct skin contact . . .?”

“No. I want this. I just . . .” She shivered. “I need a minute.”

They stood there, hand-in-hand, birds overhead, soft forest floor under their feet. And it was everything he could want in this instant.

Carefully he teased, “Perhaps, we are seducing each other . . .”

“Yes,” she answered, not bothering to dissemble as most faeries did. It was a peculiar thing: she either lied or was honest. There was nothing in the middle with Katherine. Most fey lied by clever twists of words, misdirection, and evasion. Hecouldlie, but it was a sort of pain that made him wonder if death might be kinder.

Katherine was an anomaly in so very many ways.

Mine,his heart insisted.

However, it was not only his heart that was invested here. Urian’s skin felt flush with desire at the mere touch of her bare skin in his hand.

Then, as if his wants were in her mind too, or perhaps they had the same need, Katherine stepped so she was facing him.

“One minute,” she said. “I need one minute.”

He stared down at her. “I am not rushing you . . .”

His words faded as she reached up with her free hand and stroked his cheek. Just a thumb over the skin on his cheek as he had done with her hand on the trip here, but that one touch made him hold his breath.

“One minute?” he asked. “To gain self-control?”

Her hand slid back so she was cupping the side of his head, tilting him toward her, directing her, and Urian’s lips parted in surprise.

“To seduce you the way you are seducing me.

“Oh . . .”

“Let me seduce you, Urian,” she whispered. “Don’t move.”

Then her lips ghosted over his: fleeting, not even a full kiss. Her breath passed over his throat, under the line of his jaw and toward his ear. And after a soft exhale that was more sigh than word, she caught his earlobe between her teeth for the flicker of a moment.

Katherine whispered, “Thank you.”

Urian was shaken—not only from not moving as she’d asked of him, but from the thrill of someone wanting to seducehim, not simply wanting to be seduced by him.

“That helps,” she said mildly as she started to walk, pulling him in her wake as their hands were still entwined. “Knowing you’ll give me control.”

“Yes, please,” he murmured--because what else could he possibly say?

She laughed, sounding free and joyous, and he found he liked that as much as her touches.

“Part of learning is practice, right?” she quipped.

“Happy to be of service.” Urian’s smile was wider than he’d felt in all of his adult life, and he thought briefly that perhaps toppling thrones wasn’t really as much of a priority as he’d believed.

Maybe being here--with this woman, in this place—was enough.

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