Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (39 page)

She took a breath and pushed herself to continue. “Young fool that I was, I thought he’d marry me. Little did I know he already had a wife tucked away.” Bitterness abraded the edges of her voice. “Oh, he claimed he wanted me, loved me. When I found out, he insisted she meant nothing to him, and he’d soon leave her to be with me. That we’d raise our child together.”

She glanced once more at her ring and moved that finger, watching the light glint off the dull metal. “He gave me this as a token. When I found it too small to fit my marriage finger, he laughed, said he’d buy another as soon as we were together. But all the while, he told his wife nothing. As it turned out, he hadn’t inherited his nobility, but married into it. And wasn’t about to give up his rich, blue-blooded wife. But when she found out about
me
…” Her shoulders hunched as a chill rippled through her.

“What happened?” he asked in a low voice.

Her vision grew hollow. “Men came to my father’s house in the dark of night. They slaughtered everyone inside and set fire to it. An ailing friend had needed my aid that evening, or they would have caught me, too. When I returned, I found my family there amidst the smoldering beams and rubble. My father,” she whispered, “my mother, my two young sisters… And that night my child joined them. I miscarried.” Anguish stirred in the marrow of her bones. She slid her hand from his and drew her knees up to wrap her arms around them.

“By the god and goddess.” His free hand flexed as if holding a scimitar and fury roiled in the hush of his words. “The retribution I would wreak on those who harmed you… I’d give all the rays of the sun to have been there by your side. But I wasn’t. You endured it alone.”

Alone.
Moisture gathered in her eyes and she nodded, shuddering. She wanted to reach for him again, to feel his solid warmth on her chilled skin, but couldn’t release her knees. “A distant cousin was a musician for the royal court of Teganne, so I journeyed across the border, and there found a home. Soon I found myself called to be a Healer.” Her voice shook. “I’ve always wondered what might have happened to my child, had I the skill then that I do now. She never felt the breath of life or knew the warmth of the sun.” Her lashes lowered, but a tear escaped and hung heavy on her cheek.

His voice grew hoarse. “You lost your family, your child. I, too, know that grief.” Two vertical lines of pain incised the space between his brows. “No matter how many years have furrowed the earth since, the pain of it lingers in the spaces between your thoughts, ready to rise up and bury you anew.” His eyes darkened with bleak loss and an empathy so deep it nestled into her soul.

With her heart quaking, she lowered her knees sideways to the floor where they came to rest against his. A thousand silent, gossamer words lingered in the air between them as they watched each other.

When he tipped his chin, nodding at her to continue, her heart ached for his past, and then for his pride.

“I never set foot in Fallorm again,” she said quietly. “Even after Alvarr and Jilian defeated its usurper and brought it out of darkness. I didn’t return even when Qiara and Rokad were crowned to rule it. I couldn’t go back. My shelter and salvation was Teganne. My light, my sanctuary, all these long years. And almost, almost, did I stay there and not come here to Kad.” She brought her gaze to his, and the smile that brushed her lips was bittersweet.

“After all that,” he whispered into the silence, “you still wore Tharkin’s ring?”

“I thought it wise to remember my folly so I’d never repeat it.” She bit her lip. “Last night in the bath, I tried to take off the ring. It wouldn’t move. And then… Well, I thought that might be best.”

“It’s worst.” He locked his gaze to hers and slowly leaned forward. “I want that
thing
off your finger, that remembrance of death and folly. We share grief, you and I, and will always bear that pain through the pleasures of life. But that ring shackles you to misery.”

Ever so gently, he lifted her hand to his knee. For the first time, she saw that the silver encircled her finger like a thin noose. “And yet, Varene, your ring has also magnified my admiration for you a hundredfold. When I think of the courage it must have taken for you to survive, and then to choose to keep such a reminder… You have a will as strong as the bedrock that upholds the world.”

His words widened her eyes and she stared at him. Courage was one of the things she loved most about him, yet here he was admiring hers?

Perhaps, despite the world around them and all that stood between them, they weren’t so different. She squeezed his hand.

Lifting her palm, he held the circle between his thumb and forefinger and studied the decades of wear scratched into its dull surface. She moved her fingers to give him a better look…and her pinky slid free of the ring.

“Oh!” She stared at her bare hand in shock. “How—did you use your magic?”

“Nothing more than a wish.” He rolled the silver into his palm and held it out to her.

Solemnly, she retrieved it.

“Do you need the ring anymore?” he asked softly.

“Yes… No. It’s complicated.” Her fingers closed over it, then laid it on the floor beside her.

“Varene,” he whispered, “if you had known what was coming, here in Kad—if you had known about
us
—would you have stayed in Teganne?”

A hush grew until she heard the tinkling notes of the fountain behind them. In the silence, his head tipped down, lips tightening.

“No, Kuramos,” she said quietly, her decision made. “I would have come to you. Even with my past, even knowing all that would happen. I journeyed here to heal your family, but I would have come anyway. For you.”

And I will go home with memories of you and I making love.

He was right, she had courage. Enough to see the vast differences between Kuramos and Tharkin. Enough to love this honorable man before her whose voice, whose touch, felt like home. Tomorrow she’d return to Teganne and a life she would sew back together with sutures and her tears. But first, she and Kuramos would create memories to be savored when they were long gone from each other’s worlds. Her love for him would survive in the sweetness of remembrance.

She rose to her feet. He stood as well, and gazed down upon her with love filling his eyes… and then more. The space between them shifted, heating like smoke.

She stepped forward, slid her hands into his hair and tugged him down for a hot, ravenous kiss.

He yanked her against him, hands roaming over her curves until her body thrummed,
sang
for him. His mouth nipped and teased her, a luscious torment. Her desire had been flush for days, and now every nerve sparked with need. This man owned her heart and always would. She surrendered it to him gladly, filling every fiery touch with love.

His palms rose to her breasts and warmed them. He slid his hands over her nipples, peaked against the linen, and caught them gently in the vees of his fingers. He tightened them, pulsing his hands, until a sensual wave washed any regrets from her limbs. Lines of pleasure blazed from her breasts to the top of her thighs, and she cried out at the tension.

Her own hands pressed against his waist, the top of his muscular, firm buttocks, pulling him closer. If all she could have was this time in his arms, she would take it.
I love him and need him. For these few moments we have left, he is mine.
She would take all the pleasure he offered and store it in her heart. That would have to be enough.

He dipped his head to her shoulder, licked the sensitive skin in the hollow above her collarbone, brought up a hand to dive into the hair at her nape and bare her neck. Into her ear he whispered, a driving, primal groan. “I want you, Varene. Let me make love to you, now and forever.”

Her eyelids closed in sorrow, even as her body shivered at the caress of his breath. Forever was not an option. But she would accept the now. She would
take
the now.

She tugged him toward his bedchamber.

E
xultation pulsed up Kuramos’s spine. At long last, Varene was surrendering to his love for her.He would take her sorrow into himself and give her joy. She would be his, irrevocably, completely, for always.

Just as he was to be hers in every way.

His gaze caressed the sway of her gown-clad hips as she led him. When she paused by the green canopy, he twirled her toward him like a dancer. She grinned, new light sparkling from her eyes, then her smile transformed into a sigh as she brushed up against his chest.

She yanked off the damned string that confined her hair. Free at last, her golden mane tumbled down her back and over her breasts. He ran his hands through it, stroking the shimmering gold, inhaling the scent of jasmine and herbs. He trailed kisses along her jaw and brushed his fingers down her back. “You,” he said, reaching for the laces at the sides of her waist, “are wearing entirely too many clothes.” He loosened them, skimming his fingers through the side-slit and along the layer underneath.

“That’s my chemise,” she whispered. “The dress must come off, first.” Her coy glance slanted up through her lashes.

“So be it.” He knelt and let his hands glide down to her hips and pause there, his head level with the juncture of her thighs.

Watching him, Varene’s fingers twitched at her hips. For a few breaths he merely looked at her, as if he could see through the gown to her feminine core. She imagined what was soon to happen and need flushed her skin. He leaned in, his breath warming her through the fabric, until her blood throbbed in her veins. Just as the tension rose to a toe-curling pinnacle, he pressed his nose and lips into her, nuzzling…

Volleys of bliss rocked her, each expanding like a new-born star. His hands clasped her thighs and she curled her fingers into his hair, crying out.

He looked up at her, and the expression on his face was nothing short of naughty pride.

She half-choked on her pleasured laugh. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Sorry? For taking delight in this? I get pleasure giving this to you. You’re so…responsive.” The last word was a sensual growl, and he leaned forward so that the rumble vibrated her anew.

He glided his powerful fingers over her silk-covered toes. The night she’d dropped her glass on the floor, he’d done the same—but this time, she knew his touch wouldn’t stop below her ankles. He took the hem of her gown in his hands and lifted it up her body. The close-fitting chemise beneath was sewn from the finest linen, and she shivered, knowing he could see her more clearly now than any man had in years. Underneath the chemise were only her silk panties, and she realized with an indrawn breath that they were ones he’d given her himself. He folded her gown and laid it on the nightstand.

Newly exposed and thoroughly aroused, she kissed him, reveling in the tease of tongues and glide of lips. He moved to tuck her against him, but she pulled back to gaze at the tanned, smooth planes of his stomach, then loosened the drawstring at his waist. His churidar dropped away and pooled on the floor. He bent to unleash the golden clasps at his ankles, then kicked the garment to the side and stood before her, gloriously male. And stunningly, breathtakingly naked.

She slid her hands up his chest and stroked his nipples with her thumbs. He inhaled, pressing against her, then caught her wrists. “I like the way you think, my love. But I want to feel your skin against mine.”

He knelt again and skimmed her chemise upward, pausing to exhale tauntingly through her panties onto her core, then rose and tugged the garment over her head. It landed on the nightstand as well.

His eyes glinted and he drew her against him, hands splaying over her hips. “When you walked into my chambers today, I thought you’d once again rejected my presents—but now I find you in the most intimate of my gifts.” His lips nibbled and nipped her own, then he touched his forehead to hers. “You wear your plain Tegannese working garb for others’ eyes, as part of your Healer’s mask. You want them to see only your dedication and practicality, and that is what I saw, at first. But beneath the outer clothing is a deeper you: beautiful, sensual and passionate.” His fingers drew a lazy circle over her hips, then hooked under the side of her panties. “Right now, though, these only gild the lily. I’m feeling impatient. You wouldn’t mind,” he whispered, raising one roguish brow, “if I have a new pair of these made for you?”

She gave a slow, knowing smile.

He ripped the panties from her body.

Soft flesh brushed hard muscle at last. He lowered his mouth toward hers until their breath mingled, hot and fierce. His skin smelled of exotic spices and lust, a mixture that spun her thoughts into insensibility.