I puffed out a breath. “I’m a handful. Too much.”
“Well,” he said. “As one handful to another, I think you’re just enough.”
My pulse misfired, robbing me of words, even though his claims were ridiculous. I knew I wasn’t in danger of winning any personality contests anytime soon.
Still...a dark thrill flickered against the backdrop of my quickened breathing.
“You’re welcome to keep going.” His eyes flashed a challenge. “I could do this all night.”
“You’re impossible,” I said.
He laughed. “Well. That much might actually be true. Now, if you’re fresh out of self-deprecations, why don’t you tell me what you dreamed?”
The thread unraveling from my nightgown became newly fascinating. But I had no reason to hold back. He already knew my secrets. “It was...one I’ve had before. Lots of times. About my parents leaving me.”
“Ah.” He slid his arms down over my knees, hooking my thighs, pulling me closer. His torso was like a slab of hot stone pressed against my shins.
The contact woke something inside me, heat uncurling from some haven deep within my bones. Each nerve sparked like a shooting star.
Briefly, I closed my eyes, overcome by the rivers of sensation coasting through me. Goddess, I was fucked. Royally so.
Pun definitely intended.
“Your parents were idiots,” Kyven said.
“That’s the thing, though,” I said breathlessly. Better to lose myself in protests than in him. “They weren’t. They were just normal people whose kid made them miserable. It’s no surprise they got rid of me.”
“No. If they were miserable, it was because they’d decided to be. It had nothing to do with you.”
I paused. “Is that really what you think? That life is just...what you make it?”
“It’s what I know.”
“That sounds too simple.”
“The truth often does.” His head tilted, his cheek heating my kneecap. “And once you realize that, your parents won’t be able to touch you. Neither will the nightmares. Neither will I, for that matter. You’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted. Anything you desire.”
Anything. For some reason, my focus dropped to his mouth.
A mouth that now lifted under my gaze. “You’re a force of nature, lioness. Once you embrace that, nothing will stand in your way.”
My lungs contracted. Gods, how I longed to curve toward his certainty, like I would a fire on a frigid night. What could I become, with his assurances? Who could I be, with him to bolster me?
Except...there was no us. No future. Just a thousand reasons to keep my distance. A hundred uncertainties hovering between us.
Yet when I met his gaze, all those fell away, because right now, his eyes looked infinite. Like a summer sky above an open plain. Or an endless candle, burning against the dark.
Something must have shown on my face, because his breathing changed. His heart thudded against my shins, its steadiness giving way to something urgent.
His hold on me tightened. “Harlowe...” His voice had gone thick. Soaked in smoke.
A sizzle unfurled within me, so vast and wild and terrible I wondered if I would combust. Leave Kyven hugging nothing but ashes.
Because seven hells, what was I supposed to do when he said my name that way? Except tell him to stop looking at me likethat, maybe. Make it clear that people like me didn’tgetblue skies and infinities.
Ever so slowly, he slid a hand down my thigh, his coarse palm catching at the silk of my nightgown.
My pulse sped, each heartbeat slamming against the next. When Kyven reached my hip, he seated his grip and squeezed. That pressure became the epicenter of a full-body shiver, one that somehow ended between my thighs.
