Page 29 of The Huntmaster

I froze, my mouth hanging open as I stared up at him. The sound caught me completely off-guard. It was... human. Or at least, it was a bridge to something I understood. The gold markings on his face shimmered with a brightness I hadn't seen before, dancing like sunlight on water.

"Your face," he managed to say, his eyes bright with a dark, glittering mirth. "When my tail uncoiled... the way you tried to grab the air as if it were a solid branch. You looked like a skitter-pup falling into a cold stream for the first time."

"Oh, I'm glad my near-death experience provided you with such quality entertainment!" I snapped, though the bite in my voice was softened by my own confusion and the way my body was reacting to his proximity. "I was contemplating my mortality, and you were—you were—critiquing my form! I was a second away from becoming a very flat pancake!"

"I knew I would catch you," he said, his laughter dying down into a low, lingering smile that did terrifying things to my pulse. His face was so close I could see the subtle, shifting patterns of his markings as they reacted to his mood. "You are far too loud to lose, star-woman. The forest would be too quiet without your constant, frantic assessments of the 'physics' of the Alu’un."

The laughter faded, but the silence that replaced it was far more dangerous.

The net sagged deeper, the silver threads biting into my back and forcing us into a closer, more intimate tangle. My legs were woven between his, my thighs pressed against the hard, unyielding heat of his powerful lower body. In the stillness, the amusement in his eyes shifted into something darker, something heavy and molten.

He seemed to realise, all at once, exactly how we were positioned. His gaze dropped from my eyes to my mouth, then lower, to where his own chest was crushed against my breasts. His hand, which had been resting on my ribs, slid upward with agonising slowness. His thumb traced the lower curve of my breast, just at the edge of the leather bandeau.

I felt a jolt of pure electricity shoot through me, my breath hitching as my nipples peeked against the hide. His eyes tracked the movement, his pupils dilating until the gold was a mere sliver of fire. The air in the net felt like it had been sucked out, replaced by a thick, magnetic tension that made my skin prickle.

"You are so small," he whispered, his voice dropping into a lethal, velvety rasp. "So fragile. And yet, your blood sings so loudly I can hear it beneath your skin. It beats like a trapped bird."

He leaned down, his face hovering a fraction of an inch from mine. I felt the heat radiating from him, smelled the woodsmoke and the raw, masculine scent of his exertion. His forked tongue flickered out, a quick, wet stroke across the centre of my lower lip. It was a taste, a promise, and it made my toes curl into the netting as a desperate, shameful throb echoed between my legs.

He felt the shift in my body—the way I arched instinctively toward him, seeking that friction. A low, guttural vibration started in his throat, his hips pressing down against mine in a silent, possessive demand that left me dizzy. His tail, which had been limp, suddenly curled around my ankle, pulling my leg tighter against his hip.

His gaze remained locked on my mouth, watching the way my lips parted as I fought for air. Then his tongue suddenly flicked out again, slower this time, tracing the full seam of my lips before curling briefly against the inside of my mouth—not quite an invasion, more an exploration, like he was reading the shape of me. He drew back with a low huff, head tilting, nostrils flaring as he took in the sudden spike of heat between us, looking genuinely baffled by the urge that had pulled him closer in the first place

"Was that... supposed to be a kiss?" I blurted out without thinking, my voice breathless and trembling.

Kaelen went completely still. His eyes scanned my mouth with a dangerous, curious intensity, as if he were trying to translate a foreign concept.

"A kees?" He tested the word, his heavy accent dragging over the syllables. "What is this word? What is the purpose of it?" Among my people... we scent. We taste. We touch." His brow furrowed, a faint, curious copper glow tracing his jawline. "But mouths..." His gaze lingered heavily on mine. "Mouths are not for this."

"It's... how humans express desire," I whispered, barely able to find my voice as his breath swept over my skin. "Affection. Intimacy. When we want to be close to someone... we press our lips to theirs."

He listened, his obsidian eyes never leaving my mouth.

"To claim them with the mouth," he murmured, his voice dropping into an intoxicating, rough purr. "To taste the soul before taking the flesh."

"That's... a very dramatic way of putting it, but... yeah," I breathed, my face flushing under his intense stare. "Basically."

"Your people are strange," he said quietly, the barest hint of a rumble in his chest.

A soft, breathless laugh bubbled up out of me. "You're one to talk."

The brief ripple of levity dissolved in an instant, leaving the air between us thicker and far more dangerous than before. His eyes darkened, locking onto mine with an unyielding intensity.

"Then show me, star-woman."

My hand lifted before I could think better of it. My fingers settled against the hard line of his jaw, feeling the intense, radiating heat beneath his copper skin.

"Like this," I whispered.

I closed the tiny distance between us.

Our lips barely touched. It wasn't hungry. It wasn't desperate. It was soft—a gentle, trembling brush of warmth in the quiet of the swaying boughs.

He didn't move.

His entire body locked. His eyes widened by the smallest fraction, the golden pupils contracting to tiny pinpricks. The markings across his throat flickered wildly, pulsing in frantic, gold-and-copper waves as if his very blood didn't know how to process the contact.

Silence hung between us, stretched to the absolute breaking point.