Page 93 of The Keeper of the Kingdoms

“What, Jaxus? Say it to my face,” she demanded. “You can’t handle me now that you see what being a healer really involves? My duty? My family? I didn’t choose any of this, but I cannot change what I am. And I’m still the same fae I was yesterday. So please, tell me what you suddenly can’t handle?” Her voice raised at the last and she got in my face, her delicate skin brushing mine.

“You miss the point.” My restraint wore thin. Could she not tell I was suffering? I backed up, but she followed until my back hit a tree.

She put her hands on her hips, pressing closer still. “Then explain it to me? You are stuck with all of me, so like you said, you’d better learn to live with this life.” Her hair wafted around her face in the breeze, submerging me in her scent.

I balled my hands into fists. “I just need time to process.”

“Process what? My life? That I had a life before you?” She poked a finger into my chest, and I grabbed her wrist. She glanced down. “Let go of me.”

“I am trying to respect you and your—commitments,” I said through my teeth. “All I asked for was time to process them.”

Her brow pinched, and her expression morphed. “Oh.” Whatever she’d come to realize might make or break the last dregs of my reserve.

Warmth grew between us like the deafening silence.

I released her hand, willing the Goddess to give me strength. “Like I said, I respect your life here and your free will. I merely asked for a moment?—”

She cut me off. “What if I don’t want you to respect those things?”

I blinked. “Pardon me?”

“You’re too respectful sometimes, Jaxus. Some of these things don’t deserve your respect. That dragon back there knew it—where did he go? He was all DRAGON in bold capitals, no respect for them and their bullshit, and not afraid to show it.”

“I try not to be that way if I can help it. It’s no way to behave?—”

She leaned in, putting her lips next to my ear. “I don’t want you to behave, Jaxus. I quite liked thatdragon.” Her warm breath fanned across my skin, sending a shiver down my spine. “He seems like he takes what he wants.”

I sucked in a breath. What was she saying? “But your betrothed?—”

“Are you going to let him stop you?” Her tongue curled at my earlobe and the dam broke.

I flipped us, lifting her as I did to press her into the tree. “Don’t toy with me, Firefly,” I breathed over her throat, my lips a millimeter away from devouring her. “Say I can have you if you mean it.”

She arched, pressing her hips into mine. Arousal coming off her in waves. I was a fucking goner. “No. If you want me, take me.”

Goddess save me. This female knew every button of mine.

I snarled at her throat, biting there but only briefly before letting her slide down me to her feet as I dropped to one knee. I hitched one of her legs over my shoulder and pressed my face into her pussy. I inhaled, her scent driving me wild.

She gasped, hands weaving into my hair. “Jaxus!”

“You told me to take what I want.” I skimmed my nose over her, teasing.

“This wasn’t what I was expecting.” But she lifted her other leg over my shoulder, balancing between me and the tree.

“I gave you a chance to ask for what you wanted.” I laughed softly before flicking my tongue along the thin cloth separating me from what I wanted.

She squirmed, pressing her cunt against me. “Damn you.”

“Do you know how long I’ve been thinking about you riding my face?” I sucked before she could answer, tasting her wetness through the fabric with a groan.

“Is that what you were thinking of earlier.”

I growled against her. “Yes.”

She had no reply other than curses and whimpers.

“These need to come off before I ruin them.”