Chapter 26 #3
“It’s more than that,” he replied on a sensual purr, darting out his tongue to lick that spot. She swayed, suddenly dizzy, and reached up to clutch his strong wrists, lest she crumple from the intense desire. “It’s you. Full of life and sweet as a pastry.”
“Will you gobble me up?” she asked, meaning that to be teasing, but instead nearly panting the question.
She’d never felt like this before, had never imagined she could feel like this, simultaneously melting like butter over flame and voraciously energized.
She yearned to take him into her, to feel that mouth and those clever fingers everywhere.
Sebastien lifted his head, green eyes dark with intent. “I do want to consume you, Lilythorn. I want to taste every fingertip of your skin from your toes to your scalp. I want to make you mine in every way. I know it’s too soon, but—”
“It’s not too soon,” she interrupted. “I’ve wanted this since I first glimpsed you through your belt buckle. I’ve fantasized about—” She broke off, feeling the fierce blush fire in her cheeks.
“Oh yes?” Sebastien purred, combing his fingers through her hair and rubbing against her so that her peaked and sensitive nipples shot lightning to her groin, a soft groan escaping her lips. “Someday I want to hear every one of those fantasies.”
It didn’t seem possible, but she blushed even harder. “I didn’t mean those kinds of fantasies,” she whispered, averting her gaze.
He tipped a finger under her chin, gently urging her to meet his gaze. “I love all of you, Lilythorn. There is nothing you can say or do to change that. We may not have known each other for long, but I believe your intuition that we are connected. Always have been, always will be.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, wanting it to be true.
“The belt buckle, the chicken, the fact that you emerged from the Dream right at the moment I was riding by? That all means something.”
True, except … “I think perhaps Moriah interfered with that last coincidence,” she told him hesitantly.
He cocked his head in that listening way of his.
“Bunny says that sounds like something Moriah would do. And she helped me get through the wards to be with you.” He slid his hands over her in demonstration of their togetherness, which indeed felt miraculous.
“And Bunny found me, offering to be my friend.”
“And Adsila went to Rose.”
“All of the great Oneira’s companions,” Sebastien added, thoughtfully.
“They are? How do you know that?”
He tipped his head in Bunny’s direction. “Bunny told me.”
“Why aren’t they with Oneira?”
Sebastien frowned. “He says Oneira went into the Dream and didn’t return. How terrible.”
“Oneira is the greatest oneiromancer in the world,” Thorn said staunchly.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” But Thorn remembered what Rose had said about Oneira going into the Dream, that perhaps she’d become a ghost now, haunting the waking world.
“She had her reasons, no doubt,” she offered, less certainly.
“No doubt,” he echoed, but a line formed between his brows. “Though the Dream is no place for people of the waking world. Rose is always cautioning me about that.”
As Rose had cautioned her, also.
He bent to kiss her again, sweetly, dreamily. The passion rose between them, like twining canes of roses, the desire pricking her sharp as thorns, her body blossoming with need like the honey-gold roses bursting into bloom from their once-tight buds.
Pulling away a little, she took him by the hand and tugged, feeling a little shy. Mystified, he smiled at her. “Do you need to stop?”
“No, I want you to come inside.” She tugged again, blushing hot. “To my bed.”
Sebastien’s face cleared and he glanced at the interior of the cottage as if it might be a cave sheltering a bear. “Are you sure? There’s no rush. I can wait.”
“I can’t wait,” she told him with impatience. “All I’ve done, all my life, is wait and wait and wait. I’m done with waiting!”
He laughed a little, cupping her cheek. “See why I adore you?”
“Do you, really?” she asked, almost wistfully.
“Of course.” He tapped her nose. “I already said I love you.”
She rather thought it was possible to love someone—especially a someone apparently tied to you by fate and manipulated into marriage by magical animals—and not adore them. “Then do you mind me rushing this? I just want this, want you, so very much.”
“I do not mind,” Sebastien said, spacing out the words and giving her a slow smile. “But I should tend to Kismet first.”
“Oh, yes. How thoughtless of me.”
Sebastien looked to the gate and Kismet came ambling through, ducking his head to pass under the arch of briars.
Thorn closed the gate behind him, though she supposed the physical barrier didn’t matter that much, and Sebastien removed the horse’s tack.
Then Sebastien turned to her and held out a hand.
“Lead me to your bed, seductress, and have your way with me.”
She giggled at the absurdity of that. Leading him through the kitchen door, she paused at the array of food, having forgotten all about her frenzied preparation. Sebastien whistled, low and slow. “Are you expecting an army?”
She shouldn’t be able to blush any more, but—as seemed to be the way with weeping—she had an apparently endless supply. “In case you were able to get through the wards, I wanted to have food ready. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” he said, catching her close and kissing her thoroughly. “But for you. Will you be sad if we wait to eat later?”
“After?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind waiting. I know how you feel about waiting,” he teased.
She looped her arms around his neck. “So, don’t make me wait.”
“As you command, Your Highness Princess Lilythorn.” He swooped her up with an arm under her knees, making her shriek in surprise and delight. “Point the way.”
She pointed to the stairs to her attic room, abruptly aware of how narrow and unstable they looked. Sebastien took the steps three at a time, as vigorous as if she weighed nothing, though the wood creaked alarmingly. Only her room sat at the top of the stairs and he strode in, then paused.
She felt that pause, his sheer astonishment, all through his body and hers, seeing it all through his eyes.
The tiny room with its single window under the eaves.
The threadbare quilt faded to colorlessness and showing the filling through the various threadbare spots.
The floorboards worn to white and the utter lack of anything else.
“Where are your things?” he asked quietly.
She wanted to hide her face against his chest, the shame cut so keenly. “Can that be my one story, after?”
“Oh, love, of course. I apologize.” Unfolding her knees and lowering her feet carefully to the floor, he cuddled her against him, cupping the back of her head with his big hand. “This isn’t about you, sweetheart. It’s about what’s been done to you.”
She nodded, blinking back the tears. He kissed the top of her head, then coaxed her with more kisses on her temples and cheeks to lift her face until she looked at him.
Framing her face, he solemnly brushed the tears from under her eyes with his thumbs.
“It’s a lovely bedroom,” he told her, very seriously.
“I like this bedroom better than any I’ve ever seen in all my life. ”
A watery laugh burst out of her. “You shouldn’t tell lies like that.”
“Not even little white ones that pass as charm with everyone else?” His green eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Well, maybe one per day,” she allowed, “and never about anything important.”
“Deal. Now.” He sat on the bed, rather gingerly, as if he feared it might collapse under his weight, which—come to think of it—wasn’t unreasonable. Splaying his hands to span the curve of her hips, he drew her near until she stood between his spread knees. “Where were we?”
Chewing her lip, she surveyed the size of him compared to her little bed. She’d had it since childhood and had long since learned to sleep curled up on her side, so her feet didn’t hang off the end. “I don’t think we’ll both fit.”
“Is there another bed?”
“Just Jada’s.” She wrinkled her nose without meaning to as she said it, making him laugh.
“How about not in a bed?” he suggested with raised brows.
“Like where?” She hadn’t really known people could make love not in a bed. But then, all the things she didn’t know could fill a castle.
“The garden—back under that lovely weeping willow?”
She loved that idea, but glanced out the window. “It’s started to rain.”
He flopped dramatically back on her little bed, wriggling around as if to make himself comfortable, peering thoughtfully at the sloped ceiling angling down to one side of it, most of his legs hanging off the end. “We can make this work,” he declared, and she burst out laughing.
“The library,” she decided, “if a rug before the fireplace is all right?”
He turned on his side, crooking his elbow and propping his head on his hand. “I love a rug before the fireplace.”
For no good reason, she blushed. But then, she seemed to be in a constant state of fervent desire and heightened awareness of him that made her feel unbearably shy. “It’s downstairs,” she offered, foolishly.
“I didn’t think it could fit up here.” He stood, immediately banging his head on the sloped ceiling because he wasn’t in the direct center.
“Oh, Sebastien,” she cried. “Are you all right?”
He rubbed his head ruefully. “I seem to suffer a great many injuries in your service, my lady.”
“I’m so sorry!”
“Teasing, Lilythorn. I’m fine. But I think I’ll let you walk down the stairs, lest I encounter an accident so debilitating I am unable to perform further service.”
She clapped her hands to her cheeks to cover the burning blush and nearly ran from the room.
He followed behind, chuckling. In the library, she lit the fire she’d laid as one of her habitual chores.
The change in weather had brought a chill, the fresh breeze flowing rain-wet through the partly opened windows.
Sebastien watched with interest. “You can make fire,” he observed.
“Just little ones.”