Page 42 of Fated Flames: Volume Two
“I…” I try again.
“You what, Princess?” he says, his breath warm and ghosting over my chilled skin like steam, muddling my mind.
Again, desire must be it, and that must be all. You cannot fall in love when you barely know one another.
Can you?
Yet I can’t deny the way my heart leaps when he says my name, or the way it burned with jealousy at the sight of Princess Rosa touching him.
Desire was unexpected enough. To bring love into the mix seems foolhardy when I’ve been taught that neither is meant to be mine.
“I don’t know,” I say in a tone of defeat. I don’t know what I feel.
Or maybe I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.
Soren draws back. Have I hurt him? The thought that I have brings immense pain, and I’m scrambling to find a way to correct this when his hand comes up to turn my face toward him.
“Then I will wait until you do,” he says.
His eyes hold me there, spellbound.
“Why?” I whisper.
Why wait for me when he can have any woman he wants? Why not be like the king my mother and sisters warned me of, the one who marries for advantage and gives his love to a mistress?
“Because,” this king says, hungry gaze falling to my mouth, “you’re mine.”
He brings my lips to his then, his wings winding around me, pulling me closer. I don’t even think to resist; I don’t think at all. One hand still in his hair, my other reaches out to brush the wing folded around me. To my shock, it’s soft and silky as well-worn leather, and as my fingers trace the surface of it, Soren gasps against my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I say, shrinking away. “I shouldn’thave—”
He grasps my hand and forces it back to his wing.
“Do it again.”
I comply, though with hesitation this time, not because I don’t want to touch him, but because there’s some strange thought that he’s only teasing me, that he’ll burst out laughing at my clumsy attempt to please him. That fear is put to rest as his eyes fall shut and a deep, thrumming sound I need a moment to recognize rises from his chest.
He’spurring.
Soren cracks an eye open and catches me smiling. “What amuses you, Princess?”
“Only that I just realized why there are so many cats in Tirenth.”
The eye closes again. “Dragons and cats have always shared an affinity with one another.”
I watch his face soften further as my fingers roam along the raised ridge of his wing. “I am a bit relieved they don’t fly,” I say.
“As am I. Tirenth would know no peace.”
His lips return to my neck, making my hand stutter along his wing.
“Your concentration seems to be slipping,” he says, and though his voice is teasing this time, it isn’t unkind.
“You’re distracting me,” I murmur as his mouth grazes the lobe of my ear.
Why does such a simple thing feel so exquisite?
As close as we are, I suddenly wish to be closer, to face him, to kiss him myself. I ease myself up off the sand to twist around, and there, I pause.
