To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2)(64)

He trudged toward the chair as she crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over her cold feet. “That chair must be terribly uncomfortable to sleep in.”

“No, it’s fine.” He sank down onto it.

“Would you like to lie on the bed with me for the rest of the night? It’s only a few more hours.”

He didn’t respond, and she couldn’t really see his expression well enough to gauge his reaction to the suggestion. In the absence of a discouraging look on his part, she decided to press him a little more. “Just lie on top of the covers if you like. No touching required.”

To her surprise, he reached down to tug off his boots, set them aside, then rose and moved toward the bed. She scooted back to give him room, and the mattress shifted under his weight as he stretched out beside her, lying on his back on top of the blankets as she’d suggested.

“That’s better.” She rested her head on the pillow.

He folded his arms across his chest.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

“No.”

“You can take the filstoc.” She pushed it toward him.

“Then you’ll be cold.”

“Not if you scoot a little closer so we can share it.”

He turned toward her, pulling the filstoc fur over them both. She scooted back against him as best she could with her body under the blankets and him on top of them. His body heat radiated comfortingly against her back.

After a moment, she ventured another suggestion. “I don’t think putting your arm around me would be a violation of your oath. Do you?”

She heard him sigh as he shifted under the filstoc, and then felt the weight of his arm slide over her. She smiled, reveling in the feel of his big body shielding and protecting hers.

“I like to be guarded like this.”

“Go back to sleep, Sheir-zin.”

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She had to have more of him, a caress, a kiss, something.

“Hold on—let me just do this one thing.” She rolled over to face him, freed her arm from the sheets and blankets, and boldly slipped it around his neck. The chain of the emperor’s ruby felt warm against his skin.

To her delight, he tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her in closer.

“Yavi?”

“Mm?” His deep voice rumbled in his chest, tantalizing her ears in its nearness.

“I don’t think you would be breaking your oath if I kissed you goodnight, and you just lay there doing nothing. Do you?”

He reached up and stroked a stray lock of hair away from her face. “Do it,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes and stretched forward to press her lips to his, missing his mouth a little and encountering the warm, soft stubble on his cheek. When she corrected her position, his lips parted and claimed hers, the tip of his tongue sweeping sensuously over her lower lip. It felt so intimate that she breathed “oh” against his mouth. He responded by cupping her jaw to deepen the kiss even more, his mouth hot and alive against hers.

He shifted their positions and leaned over her, driving her head back against the pillow with his insistent kissing. The emperor’s ruby slipped out of the neckline of his shirt and dropped down to lie against her breastbone. Suddenly she wasn’t cold anymore. She was warm, very warm, and very, very desperate for more contact with him. When he broke off the kiss to trail his lips over her jawline and down to the curve of her neck, she felt as if she were struggling for air.

“Yavi?” Her voice came out thick and gurgled.

“Mm?”

“I have bad news.”

“How bad?” He moved the ruby out of the way so that his tongue could flick along the sensitive skin of her collarbones, nuzzle the upper swell of her breasts, lick at the crease between them.

“I’m about to break my promise not to try to seduce you anymore.”

“That’s terrible news.” He kissed the tip of her chin, open-mouthed. He trailed kisses to her earlobe, nipped at it gently with his teeth, then nuzzled her neck again.

“I tried; really I did,” she whispered.

“This is my fault for giving Wolfan the night off,” he admitted huskily. “I deserve this broken promise on your part.”

“Damn Wolfan. Can we just blame it on him?”

“Damn him to hell,” Yavi agreed, claiming her lips again.

His tongue was the most tantalizing thing Graciella had ever tasted, and he used it to make kissing seem like the naughtiest, most scandalizing thing one could do with a man. She held on to his angular jaw, trying to match his licking, sucking movements, her lips all tingly from being devoured by his heated, seeking mouth.

“I need to…” She pulled at the neckline of his shirt, attempting to slip a hand inside.

He reached up to loosen the laces a bit, then pulled her hand inside the linen fabric, flattening her palm against his thick pectoral muscle.

“Oooh,” she crooned. She followed the corded muscle up and over his massive shoulder, caressing him. “This is a very nice bit here.”

He chuckled, then groaned when she stroked back down over his pec, brushing her fingers over his hard nipple.

She pulled at the laces on his shirt, widening the opening so she could explore lower, running her hand over the upper ridges of his lean abdominal muscles. He pulled back to tug the shirt over his head and toss it aside, and she eagerly hugged his big torso.