Chapter 27
KENNA
H e meant it when he said it, she could tell.
He wasn’t flirting—well, maybe some—but he wasn’t lying to get her on his side.
He just was himself.
Which was why somewhere in the middle of their talk, a switch had flipped inside her.
It wasn’t just what he said—it was how he said it. Like love wasn’t about wanting or winning, but about knowing someone, deep down, and never turning away. He wasn’t trying to play a role, to be smooth, or to make her fall for him.
He was just who he was: unflinching, raw, and devastatingly real.
And if other guys who’d tried to get with her before were players —by comparison, Tarian was the whole damn game.
She came to a decision, then got up on her hands and knees. “Okay, so—don’t get the wrong idea,” she said, crawling over to him.
His gaze flickered over her quickly, and she could see the panic—and hope—flare inside his eyes. “I will definitely try not to,” he said.
“And keep your hands to yourself,” she said, coming to kneel at his side.
“No touching, just—” she said, leaning in, to press a chaste kiss atop his lips.
Then she pulled back, to see how it affected him—and what he did was lick the place she’d just kissed, like an eager hound.
His breathing quickened just as quickly as his expression turned dark.
“Please...do not toy with me,” he pleaded. “I have been tortured enough.”
That set her back on her heels. She wasn’t committing her whole life to a stranger just yet. “If I couldn’t promise you forever—would you still want me for a night?”
His entire bearing eased, only to tense again—this time in a way that felt startlingly hungry.
“Yes,” he growled, leaning forward but still holding himself back, just like she’d asked.
So she reached out, hesitant at first, brushing her fingertips over the curve of his lips before trailing them down his neck, tracing the line of an old scar. He exhaled slowly, his eyes slipping shut like a leaning cat, as if the simple act of being touched was enough.
For a moment, she wondered who he was seeing—if he was remembering someone else’s hands on him, someone else’s fingertips—but then his eyes opened, his gaze was steady, and she knew she didn’t need to fear.
He was seeing her.
And then he hung his head to watch her hands scroll down his chest, reading all of his pain in the scars that were laced upon him. “No one has touched me like this in eight hundred years,” he whispered, as his palms resolutely stayed on the ground.
She knew it was true. And because it was, so was the inverse—he hadn't touched anyone in eight hundred years.
“Would you...like to touch me?” she asked, and his head snapped to attention. “Not any place that has clothes on,” she added quickly, because he seemed ravenous. But then she bit her lips and moved to straddle his strong thighs, a few inches short of grinding distance.
“Of course,” he whispered in answer, and reached for her hand.
She was surprised by that—even more when he brought it up and rubbed his face against her palm.
His five-o’clock shadow had become stubble, because of course it had—he was the most manly man she’d ever met—and then he twisted her hand so that his lips fell on her inner wrist, kissing her there, his increasingly wild eyes dark on her.
Using his lips to touch her was a technicality, and she knew he knew it, but as his hot breath rolled against her naked arm, she found she didn’t care.
Which was good, because he licked her next—a slow, deliberate stripe. His eyes closed. His breath shuddered. And she knew, knew —he wanted to devour her. Only...
”I’m covered in sand,” she protested, with a laugh, trying to dust off any place his lips might roam next.
He stopped her, catching her other arm, using it to pull her closer, and she went with the motion. “Do you think I would care?”
“Probably not. You do have an air of ‘just released from prison’ about you.”
“Quite right.” His hands slid up her arms, then skipped her short sleeves, to cradle the back of her neck, bringing her the final few inches in. “Let me taste what I have missed,” he whispered, and set his lips on hers.