A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(41)

“Oh no! I couldn’t,” she said, pulling against him.

“Yes. You can.”

He reached out and snared her about her waist, scooping her up into his arms as if she weighed no more than a flea. He walked out onto the ice, tottering once as his feet tried to slide out from under him.

“Keep still or we’ll both go down!” he said, laughing.

She immediately obeyed, going still in his arms until he had her out on smooth ice. The children were running and sliding, challenging each other to see who could slide the farthest. Sin dropped her feet and waited until she had them under herself before loosening his grip on her. She slipped, but he caught her. She squealed as she almost went down, nearly taking him with her.

“Perhaps this is too dangerous for you,” he said dubiously.

That just got her dander up.

“No! I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”

She wobbled a bit, caught her balance, then gave him a triumphant smile when she took two very steady steps on the ice.

“Yes but can you run and build up speed?” he challenged her.

“Enough to beat you!” she cried.

Then she ran a few steps and, locking her ankles, she slid. About a foot. He laughed at the pathetic attempt. Determined now, she ran a few steps more and slid. Before long she was sliding three and four feet at a try.

Laughing and rosy cheeked, she challenged him to do any better. He obliged her by running and sliding a good ten feet.

“Hey! How’d you do that?” she asked with consternation.

“Raja Sin’s the best ice slider around!” a little boy said.

“So you do this often! That isn’t very fair.”

“I’m not the one who threw out a challenge. Are you ready to get beat?”

The children all shouted encouragement. One child drew a line in the frost of the ice.

“You can only run up to the line, then you slide as far as you can,” he said, wiping his running nose on the back of his mittened hand.

“Start here! Start here!” A little girl said, pointing to a spot on the ice.

“Don’t I get to practice first?” Ariana asked hesitantly.

“Scared?” he taunted.

“Not on your life! One test run. That’s all I ask.”

“Very well. One test run.”

She set herself at the start and waited until he shouted, “Go!” before running and hitting the line. She skidded a good distance, but it was nowhere near what she had already seen him do. Oh well. She was the one who had made the challenge after all. They reset together and when the little boy yelled “Go!” they both ran like mad and hit the line. But just as Sin hit his line she lobbed a fireball into his path. The sudden appearance of fire startled him and he lost his footing, crashing down onto the ice. Of course that meant she slid the furthest and she laughed and jumped in celebration until she too slipped and fell onto the ice.

“You cheated!” he cried, crawling over to her.

“Cheat! Cheat!” the kids cried in unison.

“No one said anything about no fire!” she declared as he reached her and, grabbing her foot he yanked her toward himself. Her momentum slid her completely under the cage of his body, so he was kneeling hands and knees over her, their noses level, their faces close.

“I would think that was a given,” he said dryly. “It is ice after all.”

“It isn’t as though I melted it out from under you,” she said, her hands going to his chest as he loomed over her. “That would have been mean.”

“Far be it from you to be mean,” he said, smiling down into her face.

Suddenly Ariana was aware of just how near he was. Just how intimidating it was to have so much raw muscle and power hovering over her. She was suddenly breathless and it had nothing to do with the cold or how hard she had been laughing. Sin seemed to notice the change that came over her almost instantly, and he shifted his weight to one hand so he could free up the other. He used it to brush back the tangle of curls that had escaped Mariah’s hard work of the morning, her pins half scattered on the ice.

“Please don’t,” she whispered.

“I can’t. I can’t help myself,” he said apologetically right before he lowered his mouth onto hers.

Just the same, he tested her gently, gave her full opportunity to buck him off of her and shove him away.

She did neither.

Sin’s mouth was firm and vital, everything that the man himself was. Dominant. Fierce. Male. His free hand tipped her chin up and gave him better connection between them. He kissed her soulfully deep. As usual he didn’t bother with slow introductions. He took her ferociously. His kiss was heated and intense and then, with the gentlest slip of his tongue, it was profound. He swept her tongue up with his, tasted her in every corner of her mouth. He groaned when she tentatively did the same to him.

Oh, she shouldn’t be doing this! she cried to herself. She should be pushing him off and away. She shouldn’t be letting him this close. This was dangerous. Oh so dangerous.

Apparently she liked danger. She liked him. The feel of him. The taste of him. Who he was and the things he did. Oh, not all the things he did. She disagreed with his tactics in many things. Not the least of which was those concerning herself. But there was so much about him that she understood now. Maybe she didn’t want to understand, but she did.