The Prince didn’t kiss me. He didn’t move his lips against mine. It was the lightest touch, and I still felt the contact in every cell, in every part of my body.
And then he exhaled against my lips.
It was like warm silk slipped down my throat and it tasted like sun-baked coconut. How strange was that? The warmth hooked itself into the very center of my being and then pulled.
My entire body jerked as if I too was being lifted, but I wasn’t sure if I actually moved or not or if the Prince was holding me in place when his hands glided down to my shoulders.
It didn’t… it didn’t hurt.
Not at all. Instead, I felt… lighter. Like I was floating in warm water. The warmth from his body blanketed my skin, and I was only vaguely aware of my hands slipping off his wrists, to fall to my sides. But when he tilted his head to the side, the deep, deep tugging intensified and then—oh, God—then it turned into something else.
Everything inside me tightened all of a sudden. My heart raced as my senses overloaded. A rush of acute pleasure came out of nowhere, slamming into me with a force that turned my blood to nothing more than liquid heat as a coiling sensation began deep inside me. There was no stopping the sound that came out of me as my entire body arched—a sound that I knew I would be mortified about later.
The Prince shuddered as his hands curled under my arms. He lifted me up and then laid me down and then his weight came down on me.
I stopped thinking.
I stopped being me, whoever me was, and I just let what I was feeling happen, and what I was feeling was something so beautiful it was almost painful.
My hands slid to the bare skin of his chest and my legs spread as his thigh eased between them. My body wasn’t my own, and I didn’t care. I began to move, twisting and churning against his thigh, the friction so good it made me pant. One of his hands curved around my hip as he braced his weight on his other.
And then it happened.
The whirling force inside me whipped out of control as the first wave of pure, full-bodied bliss crashed over me. I cried out against his mouth as spasms racked my body, and it went on and on, a wave I rode for what felt like an eternity. When it was over, every muscle in my body was limp.
I only became aware as the soft tugging motion slowed, eased and then faded off. He wasn’t feeding anymore, but his mouth was still close to mine and the pounding in my chest had turned to a throbbing in several pulse points throughout my body. That delicious ache was still there, pulsing, pounding, waiting for more, because while the experience had been amazing, there was this hollowness about what I’d just felt. And I knew it was from him feeding and I knew it was… it was simply because it was him.
The Prince lifted his head.
I opened my eyes and saw that his were closed. His head was thrown back, neck muscles taut and corded. He was striking like this, awe-inspiring. I lowered my gaze to his shoulder. The wound was healed, as was the one in his chest. Nothing but faint streaks of dried blood remained. I figured the one in his thigh was also healed, but he looked like he was… he was in pain.
I lifted my hand, placing just the tips of my fingers onto his cheek. “Are you… you okay?” When he didn’t answer, I guided his chin down. “Prince?”
His chest rose with a sharp, unsteady breath and when he opened his eyes, I gasped. Their color had changed.
“Your eyes,” I whispered. No longer were they the pale wolf’s blue. Instead, they were a stunning shade of amber, rich and intense.
“It’s all right,” he said, voice thick. “It was… it was bound to happen.”
My brows knitted. “What… what does that mean?”
He gave a little shake of his head. “Nothing. Are you okay?”
I managed a nod.
Those eyes drifted shut again. “Can you do me a favor?” He turned to my hand, startling me when he kissed the center of my palm. “Call me Caden.”
“Caden?”
“That is my name.” His lips brushed my palm again. “My name is Caden.”
A swelling sensation rose in my chest. “Okay. Caden. I can do that.” I lowered my hand to his bare shoulder and he flinched. I jerked my hand away. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you take enough?”
“Did I take enough?” He let out a dry laugh as he dropped his chin to the chest. “I took enough.”
“Then what’s…?” Air caught in my throat as the Prince—no, as Caden shifted just an inch, pressing against me, and I felt him then, hard and heavy against my hip.
He was aroused.
Seriously so.
Those odd eyes were closed again and those features were just as stark as they had been before he fed. He was hungry… he was hungry for me.
I don’t know what it was. If it was what we just shared that gave me the courage or if it was something deeper than that, but whatever it was, I welcomed it.
Grazing his cheek with my fingertips, I dragged my thumb over his full bottom lip, reveling in the way he inhaled sharply, as if my touch had some heavy impact on him. My thumb followed the line of his jaw and his eyes drifted shut as the muscle along his jaw flexed against my palm.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” That wasn’t completely true. I knew what I was doing as I threaded my fingers through the silky soft strands of hair and curled my hand around the nape of his neck, tugging his head down as I lifted mine.
I knew exactly what I was doing when I brushed my lips over his parted ones, touching the tip of his tongue with mine.
Caden locked up. He didn’t move. He didn’t kiss me back. He just froze above me, and when I opened my eyes, his were wide and dilated.
Oh no….
Had I done it… wrong? It had been forever since I’d been kissed and even longer since I kissed someone, so I had no idea if I was doing this right or if there really was a wrong way of doing this.
I started to pull my hand away. “I’m—”
His hand left my hip and shot to my neck just as his mouth came down, stopping a hairsbreadth from touching mine. “We can’t.” His thumb smoothed over my wildly beating pulse. “We can’t do this.”
Confusion filled me. “We can’t?”
Caden shuddered as he dropped his forehead to mine, his hips moving in a slow roll.
“No.”
“No?” I whispered.
“I promised you that I would not let this go too far.”
“I want this.” To prove my point, I ran my hands down the tense muscles of his back and then lower, slipping my fingers under his loose pants. “Don’t… don’t you want this? It seems like you do.”
“God,” he groaned, moving his mouth to my neck. “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.” He kissed the spot just below my ear, causing my back to arch. “But you can’t say what you want is all yours. Not after me feeding.”
“It feels like it’s all me,” I said, and I thought I felt him smile against my neck.
“I’m trying to be… better than who I was,” he explained after a long moment. He lifted his head and that striking gaze latched onto mine. “I don’t know if that will make a difference or mean anything, but I’m trying to be better and it’s never been harder than this moment.”
My breath caught as I slid my hand back along his jaw and I remembered what he’d said before he fed. That there were some things you couldn’t come back from. I searched his gaze as a knot of emotion formed in my throat. I could understand that feeling—that there were some things in life, even if you weren’t responsible, you just couldn’t get past.
But I didn’t… I didn’t want that for him. “You aren’t guilty for those things you did when you were under the Queen’s spell.” I caught his gaze when he started to look away. “You’re already better. You didn’t hurt me. You don’t want to take advantage of me. You’ve saved my life, more than once. You’re not him.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Knowing I didn’t have control doesn’t erase the memories. I was aware of everything, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop any of it.”
My heart squeezed with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Caden. I really am.”
His eyes flared wide and then he rolled off me, onto his back beside me. “You’re really making this hard.”
I bit down on my lip as I stared up at the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom. “Sorry?”
He didn’t respond.
It took a surprising amount of energy for me to roll onto my side, but I managed to do it.
“Does your brother know you hadn’t fed?”
“I think he’s had his suspicions, but he’s left it alone.”
“Why haven’t you fed? Are you wanting to live your life like Tanner?”
“We don’t have that choice. If an Ancient doesn’t feed, we just weaken and we age, but it’s still at a substantially slower rate than humans. Wounds can become mortal and we lose our strength,” he explained.
“So, why?”
His hands came to rest on his chest. “When I was under the Queen’s control, my feeding was… gluttonous. Several times a day. Some I killed,” he said quietly, and I flinched. “Some I enslaved. Others I have no idea what happened to them, and I didn’t care. That wasn’t the only aspect of my life that became… excessive.”
“Sex?” I asked.
“I haven’t fed and I haven’t been with anyone since Fabian broke the spell. I just….”
I reached over, placing my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I understand.”
He turned his head toward me. “You do, don’t you, sunshine?”
“Yeah.” At least I did on some level. I lowered my gaze to where my hand rested on his arm. “Why do you call me that? Sunshine?”
“Because I saw you smile once and it was like the sun finally rising.”
That was… that was wow.
“And your hair is like golden rays of sun,” he finished.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it or stop it. The laugh just came right out of me.
He lifted a brow as a small grin played at the corners of his lips. “I just complimented you and you laughed at me.”
“I did. I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s just coming from anyone but you that would sound ridiculous.”
“And it doesn’t sound ridiculous coming from me?”
“No,” I admitted, lifting my gaze to his. “It doesn’t.”
That small grin appeared once more. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a big deal, I realized.
“I… I have another question.”
“Of course you do,” he replied wryly.
I grinned at that. “How… how did you heal me? I didn’t know that anything like that was possible.”
“It’s something only I can do.”
“Why?”
The Prince sighed heavily, but there was a fondness to the sound, like my one hundred and one questions amused him more than they irritated him. “As the eldest of my Court, I can… how do I explain this? Reverse feed.”
“Reverse feed? That sounds… weird.”
“Instead of taking from a human, I can give. And if there is still life left in the human, there’s a chance what I can do can save them.”
I considered that. “So, you basically made out with me while I was unconscious in a hospital bed?”
He snorted. “Not quite. I would not do that. Who I was, though?”
“I know. I was teasing.” I squeezed his arm and then started to pull my hand away, but the strangest thing happened.
Caden caught my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “I did it once before,” he said. “When I was under the spell of the Queen and I’d just come through the gateway.” Pausing, he exhaled heavily as he turned his gaze back to the ceiling. “Ivy had followed me and we fought. She didn’t… fare too well.”
I remembered this. That was the night he got his hands on the blood crystal—the crystal that could open the gateway and was now in the hands of the Queen. I’d seen Ivy briefly after the fight and there didn’t seem to be an inch of her that hadn’t been bruised.
“She was pretty bad off,” he said, and he started to loosen his grip, but I held on. His gaze found mine. “I healed her.”
“Does she know?”
“Yeah, she does.” There was a pause as his lashes lowered. “I think she thought it worked because she was a halfling. I never corrected that assumption.”
“Well, thank you… for saving my life.”
Those lashes rose. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“I do. If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t be here. I would be—” Unable to stop it, I yawned loudly, flushing at how obnoxious it was. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” A faint smile reappeared, tugging at his full lips. “It’s the feeding. You’re going to be really tired for a couple of hours and you’ll have the deepest sleep you’ve probably ever experienced. But when you wake up, it will be like any other time you wake up.”
I looked around the room as I started to pull my hand free. It was getting late and the last thing I should do is pass out in his bed. “I should—”
“You should stay.”
My gaze swung back to his. “Come again?”
“You can stay.”
“I… I don’t know.” That seemed like a big step toward… toward I didn’t know what and I wasn’t sure he wanted me here. Yes, he’d saved my life. Yes, he called me sunshine and hadn’t taken advantage of me. But he said he wanted me… more than anyone he ever wanted, and that was, well, that couldn’t be true.
I didn’t think that because I had low self-esteem or anything. I was just realistic. I knew what I was—what I looked like. I also now knew that he hadn’t been with anyone in two years. He probably wanted anything more than anyone at this point.
And that shouldn’t matter. It really shouldn’t.
But it did nonetheless.
So that meant I really, really should go before I got in over my head when it already felt like I was there.
Tugging my hand free, I went to sit up and it took a moment, but I did it. “I do need to go. Tink will worry.”
“Tink.” Caden murmured the brownie’s name as he sat up much faster and more gracefully than I did. “He’s staying with you?”
I nodded as my gaze fell to my ruined jacket. Probably best it stayed here, which meant I wasn’t able to take the stake with me. “I guess until Ivy gets back and so does Fabian.”
“Do you wonder why he didn’t go with my brother?” he asked.
“I have. I asked him why and he said he didn’t like Florida. I think he called it the Australia of the United States or something.” I reached up and could tell that my ponytail was half undone. I tried to tighten it, but gave up and just pulled the rubber band out.
“I like that.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him, and almost wished I hadn’t. The golden hue of his skin had returned and as he rose, his muscles did a whole lot of interesting things. “The whole Florida being Australia thing?”
“No. I have no idea if that is true, but I’ll take Tink’s word on it.” He faced me. “I meant your hair. I like it down.”
“Oh.” My hand floated to the ends of my hair as I shifted my gaze away from his, landed on his chest and decided that was worse, and then I ended up staring at my sneakers. “It’s a mess.”
“Sunshine,” he said, and then his hand was pulling mine away from my hair. He tugged me to my feet. “Still looks like sunshine.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “I really need to go.”
I thought he’d let go, but when he didn’t, I looked up just as he pulled me to his warm chest. His arms went around me, holding me tight, and I… God, I liked that. I can’t say I didn’t know why I did what I did next. I know why I did, because I wanted to.
Drawing in a shallow breath, I closed my eyes and leaned in, resting my cheek against his chest. When was the last time I was hugged like this? I felt the next breath he took. When was the last time he’d hugged someone like this?
“Thank you,” he said, voice rough as he rubbed my back, following the line of my spine. “Thank you for what you did tonight.”
“It’s no big deal.”
He chuckled, the sound untried but nice. “You know that’s not true.” Pulling back, he dragged those hands up to my cheeks. “Thank you, Brighton.”
“You’re welcome.”
He held me a moment longer as he glided his thumbs over my cheeks, and I thought he might not let go. He might insist that I stay, and if he did, I… would, no matter how much of a bad idea it would be.
But he let go.