The Price Of Fate Chapter 39

The Price Of Fate Chapter 39

He exhaled, a rough shiver of a breath, then gentled. His hand lifted to my cheek; his thumb brushed the fading sting there as if to erase it. “You won’t ruin anything.” The words were a vow. “You’re new to this. I know.” His mouth ghosted over mine without taking, a promise

held on a string. “I will try to go slow for you.”

He stiffened, eyes flashing with truth he couldn’t smother. “But, Kira… I am not built for ‘slow’ for long.”

Something fluttered wild in my chest. “Show me,” I whispered. “Please.”

His eyes darkened in a way that made heat pool low in my belly. “Give me your hands.”

I lifted them, palms uncertain. He took them both, big hands swallowing mine, and placed them gently where he wanted: one flattened against his chest, over the thunder of his heart; the other guided up into the hair at the nape of his neck. My fingers tangled there on instinct. He sucked in a breath like the touch did something to him he hadn’t braced for.

“Good,” he murmured, pride in the word. “Just like that.”

Then he lowered his mouth to mine again-slower, shaping the kiss so I could learn the rhythm with him. When he tilted my chin with two fingers, I followed. When he nipped softly at my lower lip, I answered with a shy, braver press. He rewarded me with a sound that vibrated through my bones.

“You’re a fast study,” he said against my mouth, and the praise kindled something fierce and glowing in me.

He explored the line of my jaw with his lips, a brush here, a warmer press there, and heat blurred the edges of the room. The hand at my waist slid higher, then lower, mapping the curve of me like he was committing a coastline to memory. Every place he touched became a

compass point.

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” he said, voice rough silk. “I mean it. I will stop.”

“I don’t want you to,” I breathed, surprised at my own boldness. “I just-” My laugh broke soft and breathless. “I want to do it right.”

His smile was dangerous and tender all at once. “There is no wrong with you.”

He guided my hand at his chest down, letting me feel the steel of him through fine fabric, the breadth, the heat. “Touch me where you want,” he said, eyes never leaving my face as if the map he followed was written there. “And I’ll teach you the rest.”

Courage unfurled inside me like a new wing. I smoothed my palm up, then down, feeling the play of muscle shift beneath my touch. His eyes fluttered half-shut, the line of his throat tightening, and that small reaction-my doing-sent a triumphant thrill through me.

I tugged faintly at the hair at his nape. He groaned, head bowing, mouth catching mine with a hunger that told me exactly what that did to him. Heat streaked through me, bright and dizzying.

“Careful,” he warned, breath skimming my lips, a smile in the threat. “You’ll teach me ‘not slow’ by accident.”

“Maybe I want to,” I said before I could think, then clapped my lips together, mortified. He laughed-low, delighted, undone-and kissed me, softer this time, the kind of kiss that felt like relief after a storm. “There she is,” he murmured. “My brave girl.”

My chest swelled. No one had ever called me that and made me believe it.

He pressed his brow to mine again, breathing me in. The world narrowed to the circle of his arms and the steady drum under my hand. The cracked door, the threats, the Elders-everything fell to the far edges.

“Toren?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“I’m still scared.”

“I know.” He lifted my hand from his chest and kissed the center of my palm, tender and reverent. “Be scared. I’ll be brave for both of us until you don’t need me to be.”

My eyes burned. “What if I always need you to be?”

“Then I’ll never stop.” A beat. “And when you are brave for me-which you already are-I’ll be smart enough to let you.”

A knock sounded, distant and polite-a staff knock, not a threat. He didn’t move. Neither did I. We just breathed, foreheads touching, learning the shape of quiet together.

“Breakfast,” he said at last, voice still frayed with heat. “Eat with me. Then we face the rest.”