A Kiss of Fire: A Kiss of Magic Book 2 (19 page)

“I know what you mean.” She smiled sleepily at him and rested her head back against his shoulder. “Perhaps you should hold the baby now. I am very tired.”

Dendri took his daughter from his wife’s arms and let Yasra snuggle down onto her pillow.

“What will we name her?” he asked abruptly. “We never decided on a name.”

“What do you think of Elizabeth? After Bess.”

“I think I like that very much. But we cannot call her Bess.”

“We can call her Beth. Elizabeth Adiron. Beth Adiron.”

“Elizabeth Yasra Adiron,” he corrected her. “She deserves your name.”

Yasra sighed. It was her only agreement. She soon fell asleep.

Left alone with his daughter, and feeling exhausted himself, Dendri settled the baby on the bed between its mother and father and laid his head on his pillow.

Together, they all slept.

The next two days he spent every waking moment discovering his daughter. He drank in everything about her. From her tiny fingers to her tiny toes. The fact that she wasn't a screamer to the fact that she was a noisy suckler at Yasra’s breast. It was common for women of station to hire a wet nurse for their children, but Yasra was having none of it. She would feed her own child and that was the end of it. Dendri worried it would needlessly exhaust her, but she wouldn’t hear another word about it. Of course he let her do whatever she wanted.

Two days after Beth’s birth, Dendri presented himself to the triumvirate.

Within hours he was on horseback, riding quickly for the country of Kilt.

Chapter Nineteen

Sin awoke with a sudden intake of breath. He knew he was in a strange bed instantly, but he remembered where he was just as quickly. He remembered because he could feel the weight of a light arm across his chest and a heavier body against his side. She was flush against him, half on and half off his body. In the three days they had been lovers he had barely left her room. They had made love endlessly, slept and eaten when the mood struck them, then repeated the process. He found his hunger for her was insatiable. Nothing, he realized, would rub the bloom off his regard for her. His passion for her. Oh, he was aware she was holding a large part of herself in reserve, a part he very desperately wanted to win over, but he kept reassuring himself that would come with time. She was a strong and independent woman who was not used to giving in to her emotions. It meant enough that she had come this far, that she had admitted some feelings for him. Her feelings of fear that he would simply grow tired of her only proved to him that she wanted more than just a sexual relationship from him. Now all he had to do was get her to see that life here could be just as fulfilling as life in Saren.

To that end he had plans to get them out of her room today. He had been neglecting his kingdom in order to be with her, and while in winter there wasn't as much to do and oversee and tabulate, it was still a busy time. His brother helped very little, although he enjoyed the days of complaint because he could sit and pass judgment on those beneath him, making himself feel his own power and making others feel it as well. It was one of the reasons why he allowed his brother to substitute for him very rarely. His brother’s ideas of justice also left something to be desired. They were not of one mind on many things.

Sin stirred. He reached to brush her hair back from her face, exposing one pale cheek flushed with sleep. Her thick auburn lashes glinted in the morning sunlight. Her face was beautiful and peaceful in sleep. But as she had every morning, as soon as he awoke, she was not far behind. She must sense his awakening, he realized, and it gave him pleasure. He knew it was possible he was just disturbing her and she was a light sleeper, but he preferred to think she was attuned to him.

Her lashes fluttered open and she looked up into his eyes. She smiled and stretched.

“Have you been awake long?” she asked predictably.

“No. Only just.”

“Good. I’d hate to think you were sitting there staring at me as I slept.”

He would have if given the opportunity.

“No. Not at all. Did you sleep well?”

She tilted her head and took stock. “Yes. Yes, I did. I seem to be exhausted of late and am sleeping accordingly.”

He grinned as she cocked an impudent brow at him.

“Am I wearing you out?”

“Ha! I am not the one who falls asleep first.”

He had to work at keeping from blushing in chagrin. She was right. She took everything out of him and being with her gave him more comfort than he had known in years. The combination had made it easy for him to fall asleep with her after making love. Between that and the fact that their lovemaking was like a hard-running sport, there wasn't much to induce him to keep his eyes open…save more lovemaking.

“Come on, get up. We have a busy day today.”

He sat up to get up, but she threw her weight against his torso until he lay back down.

“Not even a good morning kiss?” she asked petulantly.

When she pouted at him, that full bottom lip protruding so fetchingly, he was putty in her hands.

“But good morning kisses tend to become good morning touches,” he noted. “And then it expounds from there.”

“And is that so bad?” she asked as his mouth settled on hers. He kissed her gently, tenderly.

“It is when I have much to do today. I have been neglect—“

He was cut off when she sealed her mouth over his and kissed him with no little amount of fever. He took over the kiss, rolling her beneath himself, settling his bigger body over the full length of hers. It was like coming home, the feeling he got when he settled over her like this. There was no place he’d rather be. No place in the world.

His hand drifted down the length of her flank, her skin warm and naked. Her bare flesh pressed against his was like heaven. He shaped her and caressed her, all the while kissing her hotly. He felt her hands skim around his ribs under his arms and then her nails clung to his back and shoulders. She kept her nails long and used them to grip him in the throes of passion, so his back bore the marks of them already. He couldn’t care less.

Her thighs parted to either side of his hips and he found himself pressed to the hot center of her body. His hand trailed back up her supple body and up to embrace the soft globe of her breast. He continued to kiss her soul deep, the taste of her like a wild fever in his blood. He couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t bear the idea of leaving her.

He broke from her mouth and took in a gasp of air.

“Ariana please,” he said breathlessly. “We have to—“

She cut him off with another kiss, this one even hotter than the ones before it. For good measure she canted her hips, making sure his erection was sliding through the warm wet flesh of the body.

He needed no further convincing. He slid against her with a groan, then with just a shift of his hips he was entering her body. He thrust into her once, hard, seating himself firmly inside of her. She gasped at his intrusion, and then kissed him all the more passionately. She wrapped her legs around his hips and thighs, holding him to her. They remained like that, joined and not moving save to kiss and caress each other. She felt incredible wrapped around him as she was. Being gloved in the wet heat of her body was heavenly and erotic. The urge to thrust rode him hard, but he resisted it. He wanted to stay with her like this for a while. He wanted to love her a little first.                                                                  

He broke from her mouth after a long minute and dropped his lips and tongue to the graceful length of her throat. He started by kissing the underside of her chin and working in a straight line down to the hollow at the base of her throat. Then he rained kisses along her collarbone and down her chest. He then lifted her breast to his lips and with a lick drew her nipple into his mouth. She sighed in contentment and he sucked at her, her sweet flavor on his tongue. It made him think of the other flavors of her body and his temperature rose accordingly. She took his head between her hands and pulled him from her breast to kiss his mouth.

“Move,” she whispered against his lips.

He couldn’t deny her. He made a shallow thrust and groaned at the friction of her wet body surrounding him. He thrust deeper this time and then continued, withdrawing and surging forward until she moaned a sensual sound of pleasure. Her legs tightened around his buttocks with every forward lunge and it wasn’t long before he was groaning and coming close to a crest. But he delayed his own pleasure, stroking his hand down her body and into the place where they were connected. He pushed his thumb to the spot just above that point of connection and began to caress her in short, tight circles that matched the cadence of his surging body.

She began to cry out, sounds that went straight to his spine and the pleasure centers of his brain. She was his. She was
his
. He would never let her go. He could never survive without her. He kissed her savagely as she crested, her body tightening around him with spasms of pleasure. He felt throttled and hot, and he gasped in a violent breath as orgasm blindsided him. He had wanted to make it last longer…he always wanted to make it last longer. But she was too much for him to bear. He came hard and fast, his breath and body seizing for a long minute before he gusted out a loud groan of pleasure.

Her hands were running up and down the damp perspiration on his back. That was the first thing he became aware of once the waves of release had subsided. Then he was aware of the way he twitched inside of her, as if he would continue to empty himself into her, had he been able to. He was panting hard against her ear, and she was kissing him along the crest of his shoulder.

He pulled back and looked down onto her precious face, saw the satiated expression there. He kissed her lips hungrily then, as if he hadn’t just had her, and she returned the force of his passion right back to him.

He wanted to tell her he loved her. Wanted to declare himself to the rooftops. But he knew she wasn’t comfortable with hearing such declarations. Not yet. He didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep himself from letting her know how deeply he felt for her. Saying the words was one thing, making a commitment to them and to him was something very different. He would get neither from her if he pushed too hard or too often.

Ariana, I love you
, he said with his eyes as he looked down upon her. She smiled up at him as if she had read them and their message perfectly.

“Now that is how I prefer to wake up in the morning,” she told him.

“I prefer it as well,” he said, his voice hoarse with unspent emotion. “I…”
I would not wish to wake up any other way for the rest of my life. I love to be in your arms. I love you.
“I think we should get up now.” He separated himself from her, extricating himself from her clinging arms. He saw the puzzlement in her expression. She knew something was bothering him. He also knew that she would not ask him what it was. She didn’t want him to say anything that might make her uncomfortable, so she wouldn’t pursue it.

“I’ll order us a bath,” he said, getting to his feet and pulling on the robe he’d had brought to him a few days earlier.

He banged on the door and the lock turned. He asked for a bath and for breakfast to be brought to them.

They were sitting in the bath a short while later, the tub barely big enough to hold them both. He had a large plumbed and tiled bath right off of his private quarters and he longed to bring her there. In fact, he longed to have her in his bed, rather than he be in hers. But it was an unspoken line of intimacy she wasn't ready to cross yet.

He washed her body thoroughly, his sponge missing nothing. He washed all signs of himself from her body and it pained him to do so. So much so that, no sooner had they risen from the bath then he had tossed her down onto the carpet and made love to her again, marking her as his once more.

When they were dressed they ate a hearty breakfast, their appetites reflective of their activity and other hungers. But they had been cooped up for three days and he was determined they make it out of the room and into the world…as lovers. They had not been out together since making love. He had made sure they were left undisturbed after the first time and had taken all their meals in her room. He wanted to have her on his arm with his people, to feel her beside him knowing she was his. Then he wanted them to take dinner at a table full of others, to have her truly claim that place by his side.

The first thing they did was go for a ride out of doors. Sin put her in the saddle and mounted behind her. The temperature had dropped to bitter degrees and it was beginning to snow, but they easily kept each other warm. Their travel was slow and meandering. Aimless. The entire time his attention was more focused on kissing her ear, her cheek her neck and, of course, her lips. Luckily his horse didn’t mind choosing the direction in which to go.

Arianna was quiet, drinking in the scenery and his attentions. They rode out farther than he had intended when they encountered three men riding abreast on their horses.

“Hello friend,” the first man drawled to Sin. They were dressed as Kiltians, but Sin had never met them before. And clearly they had never met him or they would have referred to him as Raja or “my prince”.

“Hello to you,” Sin said. But almost immediately he began to sense something was off about them. Perhaps it was the way they separated until they were completely surrounding Sin’s horse. Or perhaps it was the fact that they looked bedraggled and road weary. These men were drifters. They lived off the land. A hard thing to do in the dead cold of winter.

“Is there a town ahead?” the leader who had already addressed them asked amicably enough.

“Yes. It is the new town where the temple is built. I am—“

“Then you must be from there. That explains the wealth of your clothing and saddle…the fineness of your horse.” There was definitely something covetous in his eyes. That covetousness only intensified as the leader looked over Ariana and her glorious red hair. “Ain’t never seen a Saren woman with hair like that before,” he said. Then he reached for his waistband and quickly withdrew a single shot pistol, aiming it dead at Sin’s chest. “How about you hand over whatever gold you’ve got and we’ll take that horse of yours too.”

Sin didn’t budge. Ariana was sitting directly in front of him, so by aiming at his chest the man was aiming at Ariana’s chest. Sin was a powerhouse, just as Ariana was, but there was little he could do to countermand the speed of a bullet. Not while on the back of a living animal.

The man on his right dismounted and held out a hand to Ariana. “I’ll help your woman down,” he said with an obvious leer.

“You’ll not touch her,” Sin said, his voice low and dangerous.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to argue,” the man said. Then suddenly there was a crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning hit the ground right in front of Sin’s horse. The horse balked. Reared. Sin struggled to keep his seat as the other horses danced around nervously. Clearly they were more used to the display than Sin’s horse was.