Chapter 17 #2
Ravi brushed his cheek against her hair.
She held him tighter and squeezed her eyes closed when they burned with unshed tears.
A moment later, his arm went around her.
She rubbed her hands up and down his back as he continued to shiver.
She tried not to notice the hard lines of his body, the firm muscle everywhere they touched.
There had been moments after she fled Shaldorn when she had been just as cold.
A few times, she thought she might die. Yet the gods had thought differently.
She wondered who Ravi would’ve brought with him if she had died all those years ago.
Would he have attempted to get inside Shaldorn on his own?
He seemed the type who would try. Was that because he enjoyed being the hero?
Or did he do it because he loved the profession? Maybe it was a little of both.
Yasmin inwardly snorted. Since when did her thoughts turn to such contemplations about an elf? Ravi wasn’t her friend. But what did you call someone who had saved your life—twice? The only reason he had was because he needed her. But would it be so bad to have an elf for a friend?
She pushed such thoughts aside. They were musings brought on by trepidation and nothing more.
Each time the gods had tried to crush her, she found a way through.
These…thoughts about Ravi were there because she had been thoughtless and put him in this situation.
She was nothing more than a means to an end for him, and she would do well not to forget that.
He was an elf. She was human. And much more than her lack of pointed ears and magic separated them.
Slowly, her body began to relax. Sleep crept over her, and she gave in to it.
She tumbled into dreams where she was the one who fell into the river, and Ravi laughed as she begged him to help her.
Then she was in Rannora, clinging to all six children as Ravi led an army of armed elves into their home to return the kids to their families.
No matter how hard she tried to hold on to them, they slipped from her grasp.
The next thing she knew, she stood in the middle of a kitchen with bright yellow cupboards she knew well.
She heard voices and turned to find Ravi standing next to Laboni, both of them pointing and laughing at her.
“You’re back where you belong.”
Yasmin came awake with a start in the semi-darkness.
She lay still as her heart thudded in her chest. She heard a heartbeat in her ear and realized it was someone else’s.
She lay sprawled across Ravi’s chest, her leg thrown over his.
He had one of his arms wrapped around her while the other lay over her arm draped across his stomach.
By the steady beat of his heart and his even breathing, he was on the mend.
She extracted herself from him and covered him with the blanket.
She dressed quickly, shivering as the now-cold material settled against her skin.
She opened the tent flap and stepped out into the twilight with his wet clothes, shutting the entrance behind her to keep the warmth inside.
Yasmin wrung out his clothes before looking for a place to put them. She had no choice but to spread them across some low-lying branches. She was shivering by the time she returned to Ravi, eager to climb beneath the cover and find warmth again.
When she removed her clothes again, she put them under the blanket to keep them warm, then slipped between the blankets and sidled up next to Ravi until their shoulders and legs touched.
She closed her eyes and tried not to recall the hard ridges and firm muscle of his body.
His heat enveloped her, and she briefly wondered if she should wake him. She decided to let him rest.
Yasmin woke on her side with Ravi curled around her back.
She used his arm as a pillow, while his other hand lay possessively on her hip.
It was like being cocooned in warmth and safety, and oddly, she enjoyed it.
Soon, she was drifting back into slumber while contemplating her enjoyment of his touch.
Heat pulled her from sleep. She pulled her arms from beneath the blanket and opened her eyes to find herself on Ravi’s chest again.
He made a very comfortable pillow. She didn’t even mind that he held her securely against him.
There was something comforting—reassuring, even—about listening to his heartbeat.
But it was the feel of his cock growing thicker against her thigh that made her stomach flutter.
Her traitorous body instinctively wanted to rock against his.
She forced herself to remain still even as her sex throbbed with a deep, carnal hunger.
The reaction was shocking…and thrilling.
Desire pooled low in her belly as she felt herself grow damp.
Her hips undulated, the contact with him sending pleasure shooting through her. She stilled, horrified at what she had just done. Yasmin squeezed her eyes shut and begged for sleep while attempting to ignore her body’s cravings.
She tried to roll away from him to keep her dignity and cool off, but his arms tightened, refusing to let her go. Of all the people she could have responded to, why did it have to be him?