Until I wish otherwise? Oh…oh no. I’ve bound him to me. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to, but I’ve done exactly what I promised I wouldn’t.
“Kaami,” I whisper. “That’s not…”
He turns back to Japher and raises his hand up beside his head, fingers poised. “Now…fuck off. Before I make you.”
Japher runs from my living room, through my open door and out into the stairwell.
A stunned laugh bursts from me, and I slap my hand to my mouth.
Expression unreadable, Kaami regards me with glowing eyes. “Do you want me to deal with him, master?”
The ice in my throat sinks into my heart. Master. Not Al, not my Aliana. Master. Because he thinks I’m just as selfish as every other master he’s had before me.
“Kaami…” I take a tentative step towards him. Unsure. “I didn’t…” God, how do I say this?
He grows still and then slowly turns… His eyes burn bright white, and then with a blink, he looks at me with his storm-cloud-grey human eyes. “Did I fuck up again?” he asks, the words barely a breath.
My heart twists, and I shake my head, closing the distance between us in two hurried steps. “No, Kaami.Idid. I didn’t mean to…totrapyou to me.”
A frown creases his forehead. “Trap me? How did you trap me?”
“My second wish.” Gently placing my palm on his chest, I shake my head again and bite my bottom lip. “I didn’t know it was a wish. I was trying to flirt with you. I was trying to be playful and sexy, and I didn’t know. But now I’m going to fix it.”
He frowns. “I don’t under?—”
“I wish for you to be free, Kaami,” I say. Not a whisper, not a murmur. A declaration. I can’t keep him forever, even if my heart is going to be broken when he’s gone. “It’s not right for you to be a slave to anyone, even someone who doesn’t want to abuse your phenomenal cosmic power. It’s not fair.” I let out a choppy sigh and take a step back, my smile soft. “And it’s not me. I wish for you to never be bound to a master again.”
He stares at me motionless.
My chest tightens. It’s ridiculous to feel like this, to love someone like this when they’ve only been in my life for a heartbeat. Ridiculous, but the way it is.
His eyes shimmer, growing brighter until they are glowing completely white. He closes those glowing eyes and pulls in a deep, slow breath. And clicks.
My heart breaks even as it soars. I may have lost him, but I’ve freed him as well, and that’s the most amazing…
He opens his eyes, hishumaneyes, and begins to chuckle.
Now it’s my turn to frown. “Wait, why are you laughing?” I take a step backwards and narrow my eyes at him. “What’s so funny?”
“A djinn is never meant to fall for their master, my Aliana.” Dimples creasing his cheeks, he reaches for my fingers, tugs me back to him, and cups my cheek with his other hand. “But you make it impossible.”
“I do?” I whisper.My Aliana? Does this mean?—
“You do,” he murmurs.
I want to smile, but… “But aren’t you… Weren’t you… What about the power of my second wish?”
“I cannot grant love, remember?” He traces the line of my bottom lip with his thumb. “Even with rule bending, a human cannot wish a djinn to love them. You wished for me not to belong to anyone else, but you didn’t wish for me to love you. Your wish protected me from Japher’s control, but that was all. It’s not your wish that makes me feel the way I do for you, Al. It’s my heart. And my heart and my love I give to you, my Aliana. Irrevocably and completely.”
I gaze up at him, searching his eyes, not daring to dream, to hope, to wish. “Really? Really really?”
His dimple creases his cheek. “Really really. Want to pick out curtains with me?”
I laugh. I actually throw my head back and laugh. “I love you, Kaami. It’s ridiculous and impossible, but I do.”
His eyes glow, and his chest seems to swell as he dips his head and nudges his forehead to mine. “Ask me to make love to you, my Aliana. Say you want me to make love to you.”
“Make love to me,” I say, although the words are little more than a scratchy breath as I stare at him. “I want you to make love to me.”
His lips curl. “Thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs. “Your bed or mine?”
Burying my hands in his hair, I pull his head down to mine. “I am going to bake you the best baklava ever.”
He grins. “And I am going to give you the best life ever. As well as the best orgasms. Starting—” he lifts his hand up beside his face, eyes glowing “—now.”
And he clicks.
