Page 192 of A Vow of Embers

“You hate when people break oaths.” I couldn’t stop the small moan I made when he tugged me to him and he was all heat and hardness behind me.

“Perhaps exceptions should be allowed.” His mouth was next to my ear when he spoke, and I shuddered.

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

“No.” He nuzzled his nose against my neck, breathing in deeply. Io’s perfume. Was that the reason why he was behaving so strangely?

“You are not acting like yourself.”

“I am very much myself,” he countered. “Would you like to see just how much of myself I am?”

That was nonsensical but my stomach still fluttered in response.

He took his hand away and I tried not to whimper that he was no longer touching me.

Buried alive, buried alive, buried alive,I chanted internally.

“Are you saying ‘buried alive’?” He sounded amused. I had spoken without even realizing it. He reached up and took my hair in his right hand, twirling it around until he held it tightly. Trapping me. For some reason I didn’t understand, this was also pleasurable and exciting.

“I have to admit that I’m glad your hair is back.” He lifted it to his face and brushed it against his cheek before inhaling deeply. “Like something out of my dreams. I’ve imagined you running it across my bare skin. You on top of me, your hair hanging down and enclosing us in a world of our own. Wrapping it around my fist like this, holding you still while I ravage your mouth.”

His words made me desperately ache and I closed my eyes, as if that would somehow lessen the sensual onslaught of his words.

“Open your eyes, Lia,” he whispered to me, and it was harder to do than I would have imagined. My eyelids felt too heavy but I managed it and then gasped at the hungry expression on his face. “I want to see you. And I want you to watch what I’m going to do to you.”

I was breathing hard and fast, unable to respond. Trapped in a desire so thick that I couldn’t see a way out.

He held my hair and kissed my neck, stopping every so often to lick at my skin, and my knees almost buckled underneath me. “You taste so sweet.”

“My sisters covered me in fruit sugar.” The words were nearly impossible to get out.

Xander stilled. “You mean you will taste like this everywhere?” The wicked grin he gave me in the mirror made me feel like I was running down a steep hill.

This was why Io had done it. She had anticipated this. How? My mind was too hazy with want to think clearly.

“I have imagined taking honey and drizzling it all over your naked body and licking it off,” he said.

That felt like a hook piercing my stomach and pulling sharply. “Then I wouldn’t get to eat any. And it would make a mess.”

He let out a soft laugh. “I would make sure you’d get your share. You could lick it off me.”

That put images in my head that made me groan. How could his words alone arouse me this way?

Then he put my hair over my right shoulder. “But first, you are wearing far too many clothes.”

Now I had to put my other hand on the mirror as he began to kiss his way down my spinal column. He made appreciative noises whenever he licked at my skin, apparently finding it just as delicious. I trembled and fought to stay upright, overwhelmed by the hot and cold shivers he caused to rack my body.

“Did you ever think the dreams were meant to be commands?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Why had he stopped?

“That the goddess was showing us how things were supposed to be between you and me.”

No, I hadn’t ever thought that. I had only assumed that he was somehow tricking me. “How do you know?”

“I don’t. I’m not the one who speaks to her. This needs to come off. It’s in my way.” He tugged at my girdle and straightened up.

Then he did something that surprised me. He began to undo the knots, one by one. Gently, slowly, carefully. The way that a new husband was supposed to after getting married to show his devotion. I couldn’t help but remember how he’d used a knife to quickly cut through my laces on our wedding night. How scared and out of control I’d felt then.