He tongued my collarbone, plucking another involuntary cry from my throat. He glanced up, his look devilish. “Hmm. I do believe you like that.”
“I hate that,” I said, wanton now. Pleading. “I hate everything about it.”
“Mmm. What about this?”
He sucked hard enough to make my spine arc. “Even worse,” I croaked.
The suction only increased, driving a lightning-tipped spear into the base of my stomach. I writhed beneath him. How bizarreand wonderful that I could feel his attentions in a place he hadn’t even touched.
He lifted his mouth and circled my neck with his hand again. He didn’t squeeze, just rested his fingers there, the suggestion of force held in check. “Tell me.” He hovered, staring into my eyes. “How badly do you want to put a dagger to my throatthistime? Scale of one to ten?”
“Eleven,” I managed. “Definitely an eleven.”
His mouth twitched. “Well, at least I get a reaction.”
Goddess, did he ever. It was all I could do not to tilt my chin up and nip at his bottom lip—it waited like a juicy berry, just begging to be bitten into. But that would have opened a whole new door onto a whole new set of problems, ones that didn’t need visiting tonight any more than whatever confession he’d tried to offer in the swamp.
Ones that hopefully didn’t need visitingever, though I was starting to worry I wouldn’t last four more days. Sometimes, I didn’t think I’d last four more minutes.
My arms flexed, my wrists yanking against their chains as my body slipped from my control. The nightmare battered at me, demanding to be let in.
Kyven angled his forehead against mine. “Not yet. Stay with me.”
I nodded. “I’m trying. Talk to me?”
“About?”
“Anything,” I said. “Tell me something I don’t know. About you.”
“Something you don’t know. Hmm. How about...I think about you all the time. Did you know that?”
“I meant somethingtrue.”
“That is true.” His lashes fanned across his cheeks as his attention dropped to my mouth. “There I’ll be, chopping wood, or milking the cows, or sifting through some terminally boringbook at your behest, and some part of my mind never lets you fade into the background. You’re always there, on some level. Like a candle that never burns down.”
“Really?”
“Truly.”
My throat thickened. “And what do you think about? When you think about me?”
His gaze lifted, colliding with mine again. “Your years in the swamp. How alone you must have been, how afraid. Then I think about how, in the end, that experience made you what you are. And that makes me lose my breath, sometimes. Knowing you didn’t fall apart under pressure. That instead, you crystallized. I think that’s half of why you’re so beautiful to me—because you looked desertion in the face and answered it with loyalty. And sometimes, I wonder what it would take to earn that devotion for myself. What it would feel like to belong to someone who’s capable of believing in me that much.”
I searched for my voice and finally found it wedged somewhere between my lungs and my stomach. “But you don’t need me to believe in you. Not when you already believe in yourself.”
“Oh, but I want both.” He grinned. “That’s something youdoknow. I’m unforgivably selfish, and I want everything. All of it. Every last thing I can get my hands on.”
I chuckled, but when his smile faded, so did my laugh.
“The truth is,” he said, “I’ve spent so much time rebuilding myself that I’ve never taken the time to build something with someone else. I’ve never even stayed in one place long enough to try. But being married to you, it’s... I don’t know. Made me wonder if being a husband might be something I have a talent for.”
The sentiment strummed an aching chord within me. “Among your many other talents, of course.”
That earned me a smirk. “Yes, well. I’m glad you’ve finally come to terms with how impressive I am.”
“I didn’t saythat.”
“You implied it. Which is nearly the same thing.”
