Page 9 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
For all its brightness, it wasn’t reflected in his eyes, though he was looking right at it, right at her.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
He blinked—and somehow it was a strange gesture, as if he were copying her. When his long lashes parted, his eyes were just…dark and clear. Had she imagined thestars swirling there? “I am called Tynan. Who are you?”
She hesitated. But he was just the local holy man officiating at Rayna’s wedding. So why was her heart skipping every other beat? “I’m Lishelle.”
A faint line appeared between his strong black brows. “Lishelle…” As if he’d heard of her.
She wanted to smack her forehead. Of course he’d heard of her. She was one of the Black Hole Bridesand an Earther; not too many of those anywhere near Thorkon space.
He touched the flower at her temple, and a drift of golden pollen wafted down. “When you look into the abyss, what doyousee? A flower? Yourself?”
“Wh-what?” Now her heart was skipping every three beats, practically a jazz trio in her veins. “I didn’t…”
His fingertip eased higher, tracing her baby hairs and coiling into thelocks she’d been growing out with alien styling product before the wedding. “Everyone does, eventually. But you…you were right there, weren’t you?” He leaned closer, capturing the intoxicating scent of the flower between their bodies, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
She closed her eyes helplessly.
The senior medic onboard the rescue dreadnaught had kept in touch ever since, offering helpwith their universal translators, getting them the necessary inoculations…and gently steering them toward mental health care to deal with the aftermath of their trauma. But after discovering the existence of memory wiping, admitting any lingering nightmares seemed to Lishelle like an invitation to lose sovereignty of her own mind. And while she might not be duchess of a solar system, she was herown queen.
An imprisoned queen, locked up tight.
But Tynan didn’t push for an answer. He just breathed with her for a moment, that strange, sweet pollen drifting around them.
Church had been a huge part of her life with her aunties, but finding the right community once she’d gone away to school had been hard, and she’d fallen away, gotten too busy. To receive a kind, compassionate touch rattledat the chains she hadn’t realized she was still holding.
And that she wasn’t sure she wanted to let go.
Not yet. What did she have left in this new life except the tatters of the old?
Rather than let him unravel her, she tilted her head—not far; she was tall, not as tall as him, but enough—and let his lips fall lightly on hers.
He exhaled softly, a sound of surprise and, she thought, pleasure.The perfume of the flower seemed a hundred times as strong, making her lightheaded.
Maybe she was going to hell for groping a man of God, but considering she’d already been right on that event horizon, she wasn’t sure it mattered. Floating dreamily, as if she were just another mote of pollen looking for a place to land, to mingle, to bloom, she reached up to thread her fingers through his hair.It was every bit the dark silkiness she thought it would be, and she made a fist to hold him close. Not that he was making any attempt to escape. He matched her embrace, his hand slipping back to cup her nape, his grip lighter than hers, maybe, but no less insistent.
Their breaths seethed between them, each swapped gust of air a little more ragged and needy than the last.
Maybe it was just thather friend was getting married, or maybe she was finally ready to believe she’d made it out alive, and wanted tofeelalive. But she couldn’t stop herself from fitting her curves to the strong angles his body. As much as Rayna and Trixie had giggled about their Thorkon males, Lishelle suddenly understood the appeal. When God—or the gods—had been distributing hard bodies, s/he had been particularlygenerous with this galaxy.
She laid her palms flat over his chest, not quite a prayer but certainly in thanksgiving. The intense thud of his heartbeat under her hands was almost as fast as her own. When he finally lifted his head, his dark eyes glittered with a desire brighter than the stars had been. “A kiss,” he murmured, with a note of wonder in his voice. “It’s been so long…”
Uh-oh. WereThorkon holy men celibate? The Thorkons she knew were forthright people, not repressed like some religious types, but just because the flock might stray didn’t mean the shepherd was easy.
Not that Tynan seemed easy. If anything, his hold on her was as unwavering as his gaze, and the way he angled one knee between her thighs as he fit her against him was the instinctive move of an experiencedmale. It sent a pulse of pleasure through her groin, tightening her inner muscles with delicious anticipation.
She licked her lips. “Should I…not have kissed you?”
“You took the first step.”
Unsure whether he was accusing or approving, she nodded cautiously.
“The first invocation of the beloved is the Prayer of Steps Seeking,” he murmured, “when the lover takes the first step toward the beloved,however far away.” And his mouth crashed down on hers again with undeniable mastery.
So, okay, not celibate.
She fell into the kiss gladly, leaning into him with all her not negligible weight, trusting the Thorkon strength of his braced legs. He held her easily, as if the artificial gravity of the station had failed and she was light as a flower petal. That would explain the whirling of hersenses…