Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(73)

I wanted more of this … more of him.

I had forgotten how much I had missed and loved this. I had forgotten how good of a kisser Thom was. Forget letting him run his thumb over my hand … That wasn’t enough anymore.

With a sigh, he pulled away, leaving me lying against him, heaving, my lungs finally receiving the air they were so desperate for. Thom’s hand was tight against me, keeping me pressed into him as he, too, heaved. The heat of his skin lessened, and the sound of his heartbeat rattled in amped up excitement.

“Either you enjoyed that, or you are going into cardiac arrest,” I teased, my voice windswept.

“I was wondering why my arm was numb,” he teased back, shaking it above us. “I guess that’s why I kissed you—reflex from all the extra blood that’s pumping through me.”

“Ha! Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it!”

“Oh, I’m not pretending. I did enjoy it.” Thom gave me with that same deep, smoldering look he had for so long. His eyes melted me as his magic pressed into me.

Yep. I was forgetting to breathe again, which was fine by me. I didn’t need oxygen as long as I was kissing him. So I did, pulling him into me and running my hands over his shoulders and arms.

A deep groan of pleasure came from his throat as I moved to kiss his jaw. His breath was hot on my face as the sound escaped, his body shivering underneath me.

My magic heated, pressing against me in such a desperate need to reach him that Thom gasped and removed his hand from my bare back.

I was that hot.

“I think…” I gasped as I pulled away, but his arms were so tight I couldn’t move very far. Fine by me. “I need to amp up my kissing game if I am going to be any kind of match for you in the future.” I was so out of breath I was surprised I got the words out or that they were even coherent. I might have said something about spaceman underpants for all I knew.

“What do you mean?”

“Thom …” I hesitated, clearing my throat dramatically as I sat up to look at him, hoping it would take my butterflies away. Nope. It made them worse. “You are an extraordinarily good kisser.” My voice cracked. What was I, twelve? How on earth did my voice crack? “I mean, you were good before … but you must have been practicing or something.”

“No practice, just patiently waiting for you.” He smiled, moving closer.

I knew what was coming.

“You mean…” Everything was tight and twisted in nervousness and excitement, making the snark all that much harder to process. The hard drive in my brain must have been shutting down. “All of that is natural talent?”

“As natural as a poison ivy rash.”

“Ew.”

“You know you love it,” he said with his own sass. “I think we should do that again.”

“I’m not saying no,” I replied, moving away enough that he got the hint, “but I think we should take a break. That is, of course, unless you want third-degree burns.”

My magic was a little too hot, fire sweltering over my skin.

“Hmmm, I think I’ll pass on that.” He smirked, tucking me under his arm in an attempt to keep me safe or warm or something. I didn’t need any of those, but I wasn’t about to complain. “We’ve had enough death and maiming around here. Let’s give everyone a rest.”

It was a joke, but I still stiffened underneath him. I still felt that sharp, stabbing pain in my chest, the same one I’d had when they had removed Dramin’s body from the room. The old man had been such a fixture that I couldn’t believe he was now gone.

Maybe I didn’t want to.

I wondered how Jos was doing.

The thought hit me like a ton of bricks, my gut twisting into the dance of the butterflies.

I needed to see her.

“I didn’t even get to say good-bye,” Thom began, his arms still tight around me as he pulled me right back to the consuming sadness, the bitter reality smacking me upside the face.

I hadn’t realized that Thom had been deprived of that moment. It was an unfair truth that tickled my nose. Dammit, I didn’t want to cry.

“I didn’t expect to wake up to this,” he choked out with tears.

The longing in his voice burned my eyes with grief.

“To death?”

He nodded, his hand pressing against my spine, holding me close as he moved his thumb over my skin.

“To betrayal,” he amended. The word, while harsher, fit a bit more.

I wrinkled my nose at that, knowing how painful the truth in those words must be to him.

Thom had woken up to nothing more than a bad dream. Worse still, he had to hear of everything secondhand and accept that his best friend, Sain, had turned on us all. He had to accept that the man Thom had been hidden away with for hundreds of years, the one who was more of a friend than he would like to admit, was gone.

“We can still say good-bye,” I said, trying not to think of what that really meant. I sat there, letting the silence and the pain in my words linger in the air like a vile perfume, infecting us. Then, with an exaggerated exhale, I twisted against Thom’s chest, wishing there were anywhere else to look other than at empty beds and bloodstained floors.

“I know,” Thom finally said, his voice too soft for him, broken by too much emotion.