Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(46)

“Taste is very powerful that way. Together with smell, they’re like the strongest time machine. Take you anywhere you like, and even where you don’t.”

“I don’t know,” I said, my insides still rising and falling, aloft on a warm tide. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. You don’t know me. You didn’t know her.”

“I’d wager you can feel how similar we are,” he suggested. His eyes were so intent on mine that even in the dark it made me squirm, scrabbling for someplace safe, a shell to drag over my most tender parts. These were the insides I kept sealed away, from air and from everybody else. “You look at me and simply know me, the way I looked at you and knew you. Even our names. Iris, Fjolar. My name means ‘violet flower,’ a bit like yours. And it means ‘warrior’ as well.”

“No more wagers, please,” I said with mock haste, trying to lighten the weight between us. “If we keep going this way, I might wind up in your debt forever.”

He huffed out a low, growly laugh. “I imagine you’d make the time pass very quickly.”

“Maybe once I could,” I said, thinking of my whirlpools and spirals. “Not as much anymore. It’s mostly just flowers now, and before you, I couldn’t even make anyone see them.”

“So you say, and yet, ceilings keep turning so interesting around you.” He gestured at the water with his free hand, the other still curled warm and heavy around my thigh. I could feel the width of his palm and the pressure of each fingertip so acutely I wondered if I could draw his fingerprints just by feel. “Have you ever tried to bloom that?”

“Yes,” I said. My voice came out raspier than I expected, and I cleared my throat. “Though only in daytime, with the sun on it. And just for myself, of course. It was one of my favorite things. Like a bonfire made of sun and water.”

“How about from beneath?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come. I’ll show you.”

He stubbed out the cigarette and heaved himself up in one smooth movement, then turned to stand in front of me, holding out his hands. I took them and he pulled me up, so hard I stumbled into him with a surprised squeak, palms flat against his chest. We stood there for a moment, his eyes on mine, his mouth so close my lips parted in response to the tickle of his breath.

“My, my,” he murmured, running his hands down my bare arms, over my shoulders, and down my back. “That was a very adorable little mouse sound. Not what I would expect from you. Tell me, do you make any others?”

I felt that giddy rush again, like a globe filled with sparkling water being tilted back and forth. “That’s just—do you always say things like that to girls you barely know?”

“Sometimes, yes,” he whispered in my ear, brushing his stubbled cheek against mine. “But definitely never always.”

“Why do I feel so sparkly around you?”

He swirled one hand into a courtier’s bow. “Turning girls’ blood into glitter happens to be my specialty.”

I burst into giggles against his chest. Being around him was so much better than drinks, better than the smoke that still wisped through my blood. It was making me forget entirely how angry I was at Malina, how adrift I had felt when we returned from Perast with near nothing to show for it.

It nearly made me forget my missing mother.

“You, sir, are ridiculous.”

“And you, miss, are the same.” He took one of my hands and lifted it to his mouth, turning it over to press an openmouthed kiss into my wrist, and this time I was sure I felt the hot flick of his tongue against it. “So . . . wild. Iris suits you, you know. Irises grow everywhere, in cold and heat and desert, set down roots even in rocks. A warrior of a flower, no kind of lady.”

“It’s true,” I murmured back. “I’ve never been strong in the ladyship department.”

“And a very good thing that you’re so lacking. Because ladies don’t take off their tunics and leap into dark waters with strangers, do they?”

“Wait, what—” He flashed me a lazy half smile and abruptly let me go, pivoting on a bare foot to set off down one of the short concrete piers that jutted off into the water, stairs cut into their sides. He stripped down as he walked, tugging his V-neck over his head. The muscles in his wide back corded in the moonlight, shifting black and gray shadows. His torso tapered sharply at the waist, and as he stepped out of his jeans, I caught my breath at how dense his thighs and calves were, how solid all of him was, like he had been carved out of a single slab.

I swallowed hard. He glanced at me over his shoulder, his cheek creasing from his smile.

“Are you coming or not, then, flower? I’m not going to stand here for your inspection all night.” He let his hair down from its bun; it just brushed his shoulders as it fell loose. “Unless that happens to be your thing.”

It could be made to be my thing, I thought as I followed him. If he was willing to continue looking that way.

I pulled my tunic over my head, so aware of the fabric’s whisper against my skin. Everything felt high-pitched and sensuous, my mind and body vibrating at the same high frequency as I stepped next to him in my bra and panties, trying not to shiver as he took my hand. His thumb stroked over my knuckles, and his eyes went heavy-lidded as he ran a slow gaze over my body.