A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(69)

Dendri took his daughter from his wife’s arms and let Yasra snuggle down onto her pillow.

“What will we name her?” he asked abruptly. “We never decided on a name.”

“What do you think of Elizabeth? After Bess.”

“I think I like that very much. But we cannot call her Bess.”

“We can call her Beth. Elizabeth Adiron. Beth Adiron.”

“Elizabeth Yasra Adiron,” he corrected her. “She deserves your name.”

Yasra sighed. It was her only agreement. She soon fell asleep.

Left alone with his daughter, and feeling exhausted himself, Dendri settled the baby on the bed between its mother and father and laid his head on his pillow.

Together, they all slept.

The next two days he spent every waking moment discovering his daughter. He drank in everything about her. From her tiny fingers to her tiny toes. The fact that she wasn't a screamer to the fact that she was a noisy suckler at Yasra’s breast. It was common for women of station to hire a wet nurse for their children, but Yasra was having none of it. She would feed her own child and that was the end of it. Dendri worried it would needlessly exhaust her, but she wouldn’t hear another word about it. Of course he let her do whatever she wanted.

Two days after Beth’s birth, Dendri presented himself to the triumvirate.

Within hours he was on horseback, riding quickly for the country of Kilt.





Chapter Nineteen


Sin awoke with a sudden intake of breath. He knew he was in a strange bed instantly, but he remembered where he was just as quickly. He remembered because he could feel the weight of a light arm across his chest and a heavier body against his side. She was flush against him, half on and half off his body. In the three days they had been lovers he had barely left her room. They had made love endlessly, slept and eaten when the mood struck them, then repeated the process. He found his hunger for her was insatiable. Nothing, he realized, would rub the bloom off his regard for her. His passion for her. Oh, he was aware she was holding a large part of herself in reserve, a part he very desperately wanted to win over, but he kept reassuring himself that would come with time. She was a strong and independent woman who was not used to giving in to her emotions. It meant enough that she had come this far, that she had admitted some feelings for him. Her feelings of fear that he would simply grow tired of her only proved to him that she wanted more than just a sexual relationship from him. Now all he had to do was get her to see that life here could be just as fulfilling as life in Saren.

To that end he had plans to get them out of her room today. He had been neglecting his kingdom in order to be with her, and while in winter there wasn't as much to do and oversee and tabulate, it was still a busy time. His brother helped very little, although he enjoyed the days of complaint because he could sit and pass judgment on those beneath him, making himself feel his own power and making others feel it as well. It was one of the reasons why he allowed his brother to substitute for him very rarely. His brother’s ideas of justice also left something to be desired. They were not of one mind on many things.

Sin stirred. He reached to brush her hair back from her face, exposing one pale cheek flushed with sleep. Her thick auburn lashes glinted in the morning sunlight. Her face was beautiful and peaceful in sleep. But as she had every morning, as soon as he awoke, she was not far behind. She must sense his awakening, he realized, and it gave him pleasure. He knew it was possible he was just disturbing her and she was a light sleeper, but he preferred to think she was attuned to him.

Her lashes fluttered open and she looked up into his eyes. She smiled and stretched.

“Have you been awake long?” she asked predictably.

“No. Only just.”

“Good. I’d hate to think you were sitting there staring at me as I slept.”

He would have if given the opportunity.

“No. Not at all. Did you sleep well?”

She tilted her head and took stock. “Yes. Yes, I did. I seem to be exhausted of late and am sleeping accordingly.”

He grinned as she cocked an impudent brow at him.

“Am I wearing you out?”

“Ha! I am not the one who falls asleep first.”

He had to work at keeping from blushing in chagrin. She was right. She took everything out of him and being with her gave him more comfort than he had known in years. The combination had made it easy for him to fall asleep with her after making love. Between that and the fact that their lovemaking was like a hard-running sport, there wasn't much to induce him to keep his eyes open…save more lovemaking.

“Come on, get up. We have a busy day today.”

He sat up to get up, but she threw her weight against his torso until he lay back down.

“Not even a good morning kiss?” she asked petulantly.

When she pouted at him, that full bottom lip protruding so fetchingly, he was putty in her hands.

“But good morning kisses tend to become good morning touches,” he noted. “And then it expounds from there.”

“And is that so bad?” she asked as his mouth settled on hers. He kissed her gently, tenderly.

“It is when I have much to do today. I have been neglect—“

He was cut off when she sealed her mouth over his and kissed him with no little amount of fever. He took over the kiss, rolling her beneath himself, settling his bigger body over the full length of hers. It was like coming home, the feeling he got when he settled over her like this. There was no place he’d rather be. No place in the world.