Page 61 of Into Ember

“No one has ever accused me of that.”

She laughs, and I feel it travel down her leg into my hand, and I’d kneel on this stone the rest of the night to feel it again.

The leggings from here, since I’m down anyway. I hook the waistband and draw them off slow, and she steps out one foot at a time with her hand still on my shoulder, and her skin comes warm under my palms — calf, knee, the back of her thigh — and my dragon presses close and I make him wait. He’s had three years of practice. So have I.

I stand. Her shirt, over her head, her hair coming down messy after it, and I want to put my hands in it and I don’t. Tonight isn’t about me or my dragon. It’s about her.

She goes redder with every layer. Ears, then her face, then her chest, and she’s naming things — the candle count, the petal supplier, the water temperature, anything to distract herself from this. From me.

I move behind her, standing far closer than necessary. I feel her shiver and I am absolutely not grinning about that. My hand slides from her neck, down the top of her shoulder until it reaches her bra strap. My fingers travel down, and my lips find their home in the spot behind her ear.

She tastes like her scent has been promising for three years.

She lets out a breath, and I keep going. My mouth works while my hands find the clasp of her bra, and it gives, and I slide the straps down her arms slow enough that she could stop me anywhere along the way. She doesn’t. The bra lands somewhere. I’ll find it later.

Then I go down again, mouth first. A kiss to the top of her spine. Another between her shoulder blades. Another at the small of her back, following my own hands as they hook the last of the fabric at her hips and draw it down, and she’s trembling under my mouth, and it isn’t cold in here.

I come back up the same road. One more kiss at her neck, longer.

“Erik…” Barely sound. “You can’t—”

“I can.” I say it into her skin. “But I’m not going to.”

I step around to face her.

And there it is.

Her eyes. Not the blush, not the bare skin, not even the nerves. Her eyes, up on mine and wide open, and what’s in them isn’t about how I touched her. It isn’t even about how I was going to. It’s me. She wants me.

Me.

She didn’t stop me. She didn’t even try. She nodded when I asked, and her hand stayed on my shoulder the whole time I was on my knees, and none of this is new to her.

None of this is new.

“How long?”

She blinks. Twenty different thoughts cross her face before she can focus back on me. “What?”

“How long have you wanted this?”

“Erik.” She shakes her head. “You can’t ask me that. I don’t… that’s not…”

She turns for the tub.

“Wait.”

She stops. Her bare feet on stone, three steps from the water, and she stays stopped. I wasn’t ready for that.

She turns back to face me slowly and I look at her. Just look. The candles are generous with her and they don’t need to be.

Her arms come up, crossing over herself, and I wish she wouldn’t, but I understand it.

“How long, Ella?”

“Erik. Oh my God. I can’t.”

“You can.”