Page 72 of A Touch of Stars and Stones (Kirrian #1)

forty-one

. . .

Ever

W e eat in silence, and I take the time to compose myself. I can feel all my fear, pain, and confusion fade back into that well in the centre of my chest and hope that the water will drown them for me.

Ten opens the wine and pours us each a glass, and I sip the rich, fruity drink.

The more I eat, the more I settle, and it gives me something to focus on rather than the events of the day.

The worry for Ascella, Kyra, and the rest of my friends creeps back to the edge of my mind.

I try to press it down or imagine it being locked in a box inside my mind, somewhere secure, where the feelings can’t bleed out and affect Ten.

We finish our food, and I drink the remaining wine from the goblet.

As if by magic, Rigel comes back into the room and clears our plates.

“I’m going to check on Mother. Be right back.” Ten follows the older man, leaving me to myself.

I try to picture Ten in here growing up, and can’t help but reflect on my own house, Lyle and the people who would come by and trade. I think about Kalan, too. I have so many questions about him, and the biggest: why did he leave me that brooch?

After today, I’m sure I’ll never reach the truth or even know what it sounds like when I hear it.

But thinking of home brings comfort, and a longing to return to that pounds inside of me like a war cry.

And then my mind skitters towards Ten and the first time I saw him, the first time we talked, touched, and kissed.

And the beating drums shift into a pang that captures my heart in a whole new way.

Could I really leave him? I barely know him.

The door snicking open pulls my head, but it’s Ten coming back. I instantly worry at the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just… she seems so different. Lost. It’s only been a few months, and she’s unrecognisable. Talking in riddles.”

Will this day ever end?

“Come on. Let’s get back. It’s already late,” he says.

“Is it safe?” We’ve not heard anything.

“Well, that depends on if you trust me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Good. Then, we’re safe,” he declares as if it’s a fact. My eyes track his as they run over me, and it sends my stomach dropping through the floor in response.

He opens the door and beckons me through and back into the corridor, leading me towards the exit. Seeing the double doors to the entrance, my body seizes, shying away from the exit, and my pace slows. Suddenly, I don’t want to go anywhere. Not yet. Not tonight.

“I don’t want to go back tonight,” I admit as he reaches for the handle.

His hand stills, and he shifts to face me.

“Stay. We don’t have to leave.” He shrugs as if there’s no issue with my comment.

“Really?” Relief lifts my voice.

“At this point, I’m not sure what the Custodians could do to stop us considering what’s happened. Come.”

He turns down the other hallway, away from the sitting room where we met his mother and then opens another room.

His bedroom.

It’s huge.

Similar to my rooms when I first arrived. It’s like an apartment.

My eyes catch and stay on the bed in the far corner of the open plan room, framed by the equally grand and ornate arched window next to it.

My footsteps are tentative as they creep inside, nerves now happy to come out and dance.

“They keep your room for you?” I ask in part to distract me.

“I’ve not been back in here since training commenced.

But it’s tradition. We don’t know what will happen after training or what our next assignment or task will mean for us.

So, families keep rooms until after the fourth trial.

And you don’t have to look so nervous.” He shuts the door behind me and manages to crowd my space, stealing my breath and bringing those early nerves to a riot.

“You’re safe here. And I’m glad I won’t have to say goodnight.

Because I know I’m not ready to leave you right now,” he whispers as he pulls back, his lips grazing my unruly hair.

“I’m not nervous.”

“I can feel you, Ever, even if I’m not touching you. I want you to feel safe with me.”

“The nerves aren’t because I’m scared.” I close my eyes and think of what I want to happen on that bed, picturing him.

Us.

“Ever,” he growls and turns from me, running his hands through his hair, just as I’m desperate to. “It’s been a really long fucking day. And I don’t want to take advantage…”

His hand gripping mine, his weight above my body, his lips on the hollow of my throat. I push the thoughts, focusing on him.

“Ever…” This time, my name sounds like a plea. It’s selfish to want this after what he said at dinner only moments ago. Nothing has changed, and I know this will be a huge risk, but it doesn’t stop me wanting it—wanting him.

He told me he could shield me. I felt it when he kissed me.

“I don’t want to wait, Ten.”

He pauses as if he’s deciding, and, unfair as it might be, I picture what I want in my mind, let every desire I have infuse and wash away any of the bad from today.

Drawing on that still lake at my centre, I focus my thoughts, but just like in the cells, I’m met with a foggy barrier before I reach Ten.

And I smile.

I pull all my power back and force it under the surface, instructing it to stay there and behave. If Ten’s going to shield, then so am I.

Because I want him, and I need this to work.

He turns and barrels towards me.

His lips meet mine, punishing and consuming, and I want to sag against him in relief—in joy.

He hooks his hands under my thighs and lifts me with a way-too-sexy ease, before taking me to his bed and dropping me down.

Our contact isn’t constant. He takes little breathers, but then he’s back, leaning over me, running kisses over my face as his fingers run through my hair.

Mine mimics his, running up his chest and around his neck, but as I do, his body tenses, and I doubt my actions.

Instead of the images of what I want to happen between us, stuttering visions start to interrupt.

Scenes, flicking between each other, memories or futures…

but as his lips continue to move against mine, and his hand wraps around my hair, pulling my head back so he can kiss my throat, the vision doesn’t solidify into one particular vista.

They keep flipping like they can’t quite settle.

“Ten, tell me… this is okay.” My words are laced with hope.

“Yes,” he pants. “Concentrate on me. Not the images.”

“You see them?” I ask, my breathing laboured as his lips kiss over the hollow of my neck before he comes back and leans over me, locking our eyes together.

The movement of his head is his only confirmation.

“Tell me to stop.”

“No,” he growls.

“Ten…”

“I don’t want to stop, Ever. I never want to stop when it comes to you. I crave you, yearn for you, and I’ll be damned if I’ll only touch you, hold you, and kiss you on the new moon. That’s not enough. No fucking way. I said I’d be strong enough, and this is me getting stronger. I’ll find a way.”

“And the visions?” I don’t want to be back on the ground by that snow-covered mountain bleeding out when we’re like this.

He smiles as if he knows exactly what I’m afraid of.

“We focus on us, what your touch does to me, and what mine does to you. We keep the shields in the best shape possible, but if the visions come, know I will endure every possible future as long as you’re still there with me.”

“Ten…” I squeeze my eyes closed and send up a silent prayer to Aslendrix to give me this—give me Ten. Because after that, what I feel for him can’t be contained inside my heart—it’s bigger than that. More. Filling every part of my body, quietening that power in my chest.

“I’ve got you.” He pulls back, and I open my eyes, needing to look at him.

He places his knife on the bedside table and then starts unlacing his boots, and then his belt.

I twist and do the same, now racing to be undressed, but his hands still my movements, stopping me from ridding myself of clothes.

“Slow. I’m not rushing this part, Little Siren.” His fingers replace mine, brushing over the top of my shirt and ghosting against my skin. It sends shudders of anticipation through me.

His fingers run up the slope of my stomach, and the curve of my breast, to my neck, crossing the divide from material to skin, and I flush, hot and wanting at the slight graze.

The pull and push of my shirt from my shoulders is still torturous. He’s careful, limiting any direct touch, building the pressure between us, but making every inch sexier like the weight is laden with promises.

My shirt finally drops to the floor, and he sets to work on my cami top, and all the while, my eyes are riveted. Transfixed. Pleading with him to go faster, to slow down. Stars, my stomach is revelling and driving me breathless.

His eyes blaze back at me. Molten. Smouldering.

The tug at the corner of his lips tells me he knows what he’s doing, and it isn’t playing fair.

I thought this would be all quick: fast and furious. But my limbs feel like they’ve turned to liquid at the slow pace he’s commanding. The nerves from earlier are swept away with the raw feeling of desire, that heavy ache between my legs.

With agonising precision, Ten strips my trousers with the same tentative care.

His fingers slide back up my legs and brush over the last of the material between us, running over the thin cotton and my skin, to drive my need, teasing me, playing me with every stroke.

It’s mortifying how much I want this man.

My hands hum with warmth, the itch to run them over Ten, to feel him and savour every inch of skin, and as if reading my mind, his face cracks into a smile.

“Have at me, Ever.” He stands back a fraction, and my hands dive for the hem of his top. There’s no smooth, slow touch for me, I tear it up over his chest and let Ten do the rest of the removing as I run my hands over his chest, sparked on by the low growl from the back of his throat.

Leaning forward, I don’t stop at my hands exploring him, and my lips press against the hard plains of muscle trailing down to his trousers.

“Ever…” he grits my name as his head falls back on his shoulders.

“Shhh, I want to play.” My tongue licks over his chest as my hands claw at his back. He tastes of salt and citrus, and he makes me ache by doing nothing but standing before me.

“Aslendrix, I’m begging you.”

“Shouldn’t you be begging me?” I grin against his skin and look up at him.

He tilts his head forward. “Oh, Little Siren, I will beg on my knees for you. I will worship every inch of you until there is nothing left for me to give,” he smooths his hand up my jaw and sweeps his thumb over my cheek, “and I promise to be the only man worthy of touching you, even if it takes me a lifetime to prove it.”

I look up at him through hungry eyes. My pulse beats, but how? Because he just speared my heart with each of his words, opening me up and gutting me with the veneration behind them.

“Ten—”

He kisses me so softly, so reverently, I melt.

The fierceness of my power crests as I plaster my body against his and pull him against me, chest to chest. Heat surges between us as we hold each other.

My power disobeys my earlier command, and the gentle humming now rages, enflamed with Ten’s as if welcoming the contact.

But even now, I can feel his body trembling, and not in the way it was just a moment ago.

I will not do this to him. I will not put him through this for my benefit. How can I?

I pull my arms from around his neck and step back, noticing the deep rise and fall of his bare chest as I do.

“I won’t make you do this. You say you want to be worthy, to be the only man worthy, then let’s do this right.

Because I can’t share something so important with you, giving my whole self to you when I know how much it costs you. ”

“Ever, I can do this. I’m fucking on my knees for this…”

“This is more than sex between us. I thought I needed to prove something and have this with you now. But with the words you just said, well, stars, there’s no choice now.”

His hand snakes around my waist, tugging me back towards him. “Are you sure?” He rests his head against mine. “Because I meant every word I’ve said to you tonight.”

“I know. I feel you, Ten. Not just in my head, but in my heart .” I push the last words through our connection, through the fog surrounding him.

“There have been a lot of things that I wish you could erase from my memory of today. Being with you would have been a good cure for that. But I want to be worthy of your sacrifice, too. Every time you touch me, you suffer. I know what you’ll do for me.

To protect me. I don’t want you to have to be that person when we’re together, too. ”

He plants a kiss over each of my eyes before he walks across the room to a chest of drawers and pulls out what looks like a grey top.

“It’s a training top. Should be more than big enough.

” He tosses it over, and I slip it over my bare skin.

It smells of him, and I inhale deeply as the material slides down my torso and pools at my hips.

I turn to climb onto the bed and scoot down, pull the blanket over me, and turn on my side.

Before he comes back to bed, he checks the door and then slides in next to me, his back to the door and slides his knife under his pillow.

The air thickens with unanswered questions, perhaps, of what didn’t happen tonight, but my heart feels full. Satisfied. And I know it was the right decision, even if there’s still an ache within me.

“Do you always do that? Even when you lived here?” I ask, bringing my hands up and using them as a makeshift pillow, even though the one in his bed is plenty comfy.

“The knife? It’s a little closer than usual tonight.”

There’s a good few inches between us, but I don’t feel the distance. Not now.

My body cools, but there’s a warmth which infuses through me that has nothing to do with the physical temperature. It’s simply because he’s next to me.

“I could get used to this.” My eyes begin to drift closed, the day finally catching up to me. The strength to even keep them open to stare at Ten isn’t even there.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of you ever being able to miss me now, Little Siren.”