That seemed to satisfy her. “We’re dancing around things, Aeric. I don’t like that. So I’m just going to ask you, do I have the right to know?”
Stopping her once again, he twirled her, pulling her into his chest so that she had no choice but to stare deep into his eyes. And that’s when he did what he’d been wanting to do since the first moment they’d met. He kissed her, for real this time.
She gasped in surprise, but in moments her arms were locked around his neck and she was melting into his touch. Her lips were like softest velvet, and where last time it’d been hard and punishing, this time she allowed him to lead.
He teased and tasted, nipped and suckled. She moaned. He moaned. Her body trembled in his arms, and the press of her breasts against his chest (the hardened nubs of her nipples scraping his shirt), the temptation to take her began to consume him.
His groin tightened, his blood sang. And if they weren’t on a quest, if they had more time, he would have laid her down on a bed of moss, he would have worshipped her body, would have whispered words he hadn’t said, maybe ever to another woman. It didn’t matter that maybe they hadn’t known one another long, Danika had told him in Kingdom the soul knew and his knew.
But he wasn’t ready to show her his heart. Not yet.
With great reluctance he stopped kissing, and instead pulled her head to his chest. Her fingers clung to the back of his shirt.
“Your heart is racing,” she whispered.
Taking a moment to gather his chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order, all he could do was nod and gulp in air. She’d tasted of the spring dew she smelled of. Fresh and intoxicating and all he wanted was to steal more.
Her touch had been so innocent and it’d inflamed him more than any of Claudia’s seductions ever had.
“You have the right to know,” his voice was a scratchy burr full of unsaid words.
And this time when she turned her beautiful eyes toward his they weren’t as black as he remembered, nor her hair quite so blue. For just a moment he could have sworn it was her eyes that appeared that vivid, electric blue and her hair the color of a raven’s wing in sunlight.
But then he blinked and she looked as she always had.
“We need to keep walking,” she mumbled almost apologetically. “This journey will take us a day, maybe two.”
“You know where it’s at then?”
Threading her fingers through his, she walked on. “I have a…hunch. A feeling.”
It was nice walking with her hand in his. And for a second he allowed himself the luxury of memorizing the satiny feel of her skin. He started his tale into the comfortable silence that’d settled between them.
“Claudia was my wife.”
She gasped and twirled toward him. “You’re married?”
“I was.”
Her eyes immediately went to his empty neck. Marrying in Kingdom took on different connotations than in other worlds. There was marriage. And then there was marriage. The everlasting type. The type that couldn’t be broken, not even in death. Because to exchange the vows of Veritas meant your soul and your intended’s were inexorably linked. So that should one die, the other would too.
He touched his throat. “We didn’t exchange the vows. I wanted to. She never did. Always insisting that someday I might want to fall in love again, remarry.” He snorted. “Rumpel was absolutely right, I was always a damn fool. Especially when it came to the fairer sex.”
Her eyes were no longer sparkling. “What happened?”
“What happened is now I’m happy we never exchanged those vows. That she didn’t want to, because she was never faithful to me.”
His lips twisted recalling her countless affairs. All within his realm knew it, and eventually, he’d had no choice but to accept the woman he’d fallen in love with, the vivacious beauty who’d always seemed too good to be true, didn’t feel for him a tenth of what he’d felt for her.
“I’m sorry.” She patted his hand. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
He sighed. “It wasn’t so cut and dry either. I left her. A lot. I was always doing the Queen’s bidding, always on one hunt or another. She was lonely. I didn’t like it, but I was willing to understand it so long as she didn’t fall in love with another.”
Her lips twisted, as if she didn’t understand his reasoning, but it wasn’t something he could explain either. He’d been absent, it was only realistic to expect she’d stray.
“Did she fall for another?”
He smirked. “Like a stone. A djinn in a neighboring village. His name was Rafa.”
“You knew all along?”
“No.” He jerked his chin, rubbing his thumb along her knuckle harder. “No. I didn’t know. She made sure to keep it hidden from me. The affair lasted two years.”
Her lips tugged downward. “How’d you find out?”
Coming to a dry bed, he helped her to cross the smooth stone bridge before continuing on.