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Torin removed his mask with a calm confidence and dropped it onto his stomach casually. His azure eyes caught her standing in the middle of the archway, and she straightened her spine. Emara lifted her chin, and a gentle wave of goosebumps spread over her skin, causing her to shiver a little. Every morsel of that calm confidence fell from his face as he took her in. What composure had been set in his eyes before was now replaced by utter shock.

He hadn’t been expecting this.

His eyes filled up with a lustful smoke, so thick that it consumed every part of them. His mouth fell open, and Emara could see the quickening in his breath with the rise and fall of his chest.

He sat forward slowly, the muscles in his stomach rippling underneath his tight tunic and his elbows found his knees, the veins in his arms straining under his weight. The blindfold fell to the ground.

A pooling of warmth gathered low in her stomach. And then lower, as she watched him take in every single inch of her body. His icy gaze lingered on all of the filigree detail on the garments that her curves bore, not leaving much to the imagination.

“Tell me,” he finally managed to say, his voice so low and raspy she had to draw her knees together, “is it just the lingerie that is my present?” The ice-blue flames of his eyes flicked to her face, turning darker. “Or do I get to keep the angel that’s wearing them too?”

Every part of her soul sang at his words, tingling all over her skin.

“You get to have all of it.” Her lashes fluttered as she spoke. “If you want it.”

Unadulterated desire flashed through his eyes, like a hunger she had never experienced. A muscle coiled in his jaw, and she could tell it was taking all of him, every part of him, not to stride over to where she stood and take her against the marble archway.

A heat balled through her, making its way from her stomach into her core.

“If I want it?” he repeated, eyebrows raised. “If I want it?” He finally powered strength into his strong legs to stand. “It goes without saying that I want it.” He hovered close to the bed. Something in his features changed. “Do you truly want this?” His gaze did not move from her face the whole time, searching for any scrap of doubt or ingenuity.

He wouldn’t find it.

“I have wanted this for longer than you are probably aware of,” Emara admitted to him.

She was finally exploring her darkest desire. And that was him.

A wicked corner of his lips turned up at the one side, revealing a small dimple in his cheek.

Her heart thrashed against her ribcage.

“I want you to know that I want all of you.” Torin’s low, scorching voice stroked her exposed flesh even as he stood across the room. “I want every. Single. Part. Of. You.”

But he didn’t move. Instead of saying something, she let the covering fall off her shoulders, the whole thing falling to the floor.

There was no hiding from his gaze now.

A pulse exposed itself in his neck and he swallowed, his eyes darting to her thigh. “You wore your spear?” He swallowed again, like the weapon sheathed in her garter might be the reason his heart imploded right this very second.

How he kept his voice so steady was a true skill, one that she had yet to learn.

“Yes,” she breathed. “A great trainer once told me never to go anywhere without it.”

He chuckled, amusement in his features. “If you had told me of this earlier, I wouldn’t have put in so much protest to head to the veranda. Can you imagine if I found that out there? I would have caused an awful scene in the great ballroom. We would have been the talk of the winter solstice.”

Emara’s throat bobbed as she pictured how wild that might have been, how free she would have felt in the frenzy of his lust. “I feel like people were already talking when your hands found my waist in front of every faction there tonight.”

“Let them talk. I like letting people know how much I want you. I will never be sorry for that.” He chuckled a little before his face stilled, his jaw setting in hard. “You really want this?”

A vulnerability flashed in his eyes, and he left it there for her to see.

Finally.

“Yes, Torin.” His name was thick in her throat. “I want this. I want you. I meant it when I said I would choose you.”

He looked her over again, emotion riding in the ocean waves of his eyes. “You are so fucking out of my league, it’s unreal. You know that, right?”

Her chest constricted at the weakness in his voice, but as quick as it had been there, it was gone. He moved towards her. She braced herself as his lips crashed against hers in a ravishing and unrelenting kiss, and his body collided with hers, hard muscle against soft flesh. Her hands flew up, wrapping around his neck, and his strong hands found her face, pulling her deeper into the kiss. It was burning and savage. It was soul-changing.