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Tav slunk into Sorcerous Sundries like a kicked dog. She ducked behind a bookcase and darted along in the shadows as shoppers filtered past her toward the exit, looking for the shop’s big wall of potions.
Jahiera had been absolutely no help when she’d asked her to look her over and see what was wrong. “You’re absolutely fine,” she’d insisted in her clipped accent, waving her hands over Tav’s skin, “not even a head cold. If you’re so worried that you ran to me, why don’t you tell me what I’m looking for?”
“Nothing,” Tav had rushed to reply. “Nothing, I just—I felt out of sorts, is all.”
Jahiera had fixed her with a skeptical look, but didn’t press. Thank gods. The real nature of her concern wasn’t a conversation she was remotely prepared to have with the sarcastic druid.
Now that a healer’s intervention wasn’t an option, she figured potions were her best bet—and if anywhere had the potion to help her, it was Sorcerous Sundries. As if on cue, the shop’s shining display of color-coded bottles towered before her.
She crept up to the wall of shelves and started reading labels. Supreme Healing, no, Hill Giant Strength, no. Philter of Love? Almost there, but not quite right, though maybe—
“We’re closed, you know,” a haughty voice drawled behind her. She startled. “As of three minutes ago.”
She spun, a retort to whoever was scolding her already on her tongue, but froze when she saw Rolan himself standing there with his arms crossed. He regarded her through narrowed eyes, down the length of his strong nose.
Fuck, if he wasn’t even more striking than the day he’d taken Ramazith Tower. The memory of that afternoon returned in vivid detail, the mess and the triumph, the long look they’d shared before Tav had been tugged off to the party’s next adventure. That moment had felt so thick with possibilities. In the chaos of postwar rebuilding, she’d never had the chance to follow through on them.
They had time, now, she realized. If only she hadn’t come here on business.
His scowl dissolved as he recognized her. Relief and dread warred inside her as she smiled at him. It was so good to see him again, especially looking so well—but now she was going to have to dance around an explanation of why she was here, sneaking around his tower after closing.
“Why didn’t the hero of Baldur’s Gate let me know she was finally going to grace us with her presence?” She rolled her eyes at him, earning a smirk in return.
“Maybe the hero of Baldur’s Gate is a little tired of people not just calling her by her name,” she returned. “Especially friends. Hi, Rolan.”
He raised his eyebrows at her, but conceded the point.
“Hello, Tav,” he intoned, his deep voice rich with a familiar warmth that made her heart thump. “Dare I ask why you’re skulking around my potions like a cat-burglar? You know you can take anything you need. All of this is only mine because of you.”
She bit her cheek and stared at her feet, then her hands, then anywhere but his face. “I was going to leave gold on the counter.”
He took a step toward her, his fine robes rustling against the marble floor. “I’d rather hoped I had earned a bit more courtesy than that.” Gods, he was gorgeous even when he was disappointed. He held her gaze for a long moment.
With a sigh, she turned away from him and back to the towering wall of bottle-lined shelves. This would be easier facing away from him. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just—I need a potion.”
“Well. Glad that’s established,” he deadpanned. “Any further details, or shall I make you a sampler of all six dozen formulas?”
She snorted, scanning across the labels again. Nothing called to her. Well, may as well ask. “You don’t have anything close to, uh, succubus saliva, do you?”
Suddenly, he was next to her, his face a storm of concern. “Whatever need you think you have for succubus saliva, you absolutely do not. That is a highly regulated substance with no use in polite society—”
“Whoa, hey,” she protested, “I’m not doing anything impolite with it, it’s for me!”
“For you? Hell’s teeth, Tav, I’d never taken you as that kind of thrill-seeker.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “Are the fawning attentions of every man, woman, and otherwise on the Sword Coast not enough? Already looking to enhance things?”
“Oh, fuck you,” she spat, rising to his bait. She and Rolan stood inches apart now, almost chest to chest. She had to crane her neck to glare at him. “You, you have no fucking clue—if you’re so disgusted by my sex life, then you’ll be happy to know I don’t have one. That’s why the fuck I’m here. ”
The words were out of her mouth before she even registered them. Well, shit. He reeled backwards a fraction, his brow furrowed as he tried to parse out her meaning.
“Then why,” he asked, with an earnestness that shattered the last vestige of her composure, “in all nine hells, are you sneaking into my shop looking for succubus saliva?”
The dam inside her broke. Tav burst into frustrated tears. Rolan froze in front of her, clearly at a loss, as she tried to choke out the truth between heaving sobs.
“I was seeing this guy, just something casual but it was fun, I thought, but then whenever we—I never, you know, finished?” she stammered, a furious blush overtaking her face. “And that’s normal for me, whatever, but he broke it off with me last tenday over it. Said he didn’t see the point in fucking me if I wasn’t going to enjoy it. So now I’m, like, what if I’m broken, you know? Ugh, gods, I’m so sorry, this must be so uncomfortable for you but I haven’t told anyone about it and my friends have all left and I’m still so fucking tired.”
Rolan’s broad hand cradled the back of her neck and gently pulled her to lean into him. Her tears soaked into his robes, staining the silk. Suddenly, she felt herself being lifted: he’d picked her up and sat her on the potion department counter, bringing them eye to eye. She clung even harder to his shoulders as he held her.
“I don’t think there’s anything in the planes I could deny you,” he murmured, “especially if what you need is something I’m personally well equipped to provide.”
She leaned back to look at him, and he wiped the last of her tears away with a thumb. His bright eyes considered her, intent and preternaturally clear.
“Rolan,” she whispered. There’s no way he meant—
“You are not broken,” he said, emphatic and low. “That whelp you deigned to grace with your attention doesn’t deserve to speak your name. I would make a pact with the Dark Lady herself to destroy his every recollection of you; he’s unworthy of even your memory.”
His hand rested on her knee. He shot her a careful look, and she nodded, still in disbelief.
“Do you come when you touch yourself?” he asked.
“What?” Her world had either stopped spinning or rapidly accelerated; she wasn’t sure.
“When you lie awake at night,” he purred, caressing clawed fingertips over the inside of her knee, “fucking yourself on your lovely fingers, do you climax then?”
She nodded. Why lie? A hot pulse of need bloomed in her cunt. This afternoon had already taken several turns, and at this point, she was just along for the ride.
“Your body is without flaw. This I know. I also know that I can show you what it’s capable of, if you let me,” he lilted. His fingers slipped under the hem of her short summer dress and ghosted up her thigh. A shock of arousal rushed so hard between her legs that it was almost painful.
“Do you want me?” She was too far gone for subtlety. “Actually want me, not just because you feel bad?”
“Every moment,” he admitted. The breath punched from her lungs. “Since I saw you in that damned grove, covered in goblin blood.”
She surged forward and captured his lips, pulling a feral moan from him that went straight to her head. He licked into her mouth and she opened for him, let him kiss her like he owned her. His mouth felt unusually warm against her tongue, which she supposed made sense, and the sensation of his sharp teeth against her soft skin made her shiver.
“Open your legs for me,” he commanded with a nip to her earlobe. “You’ll take your first now.”
“Here?” she began to protest, but one look from him had her leaning back on her hands and letting her knees fall wide.
He rucked her skirt up, revealing the expanse of her legs and hips all the way up to her underclothes. His spade-tipped tail whipped back and forth behind him as he smoothed his hands up her inner thighs. She trembled under his touch, and he looked up at her with a hungry gleam.
“Do you see how sensitive you are?” He ran the back of one finger along her cunt through the damp fabric, and a whimper escaped her. She covered her mouth with her hand, but he knocked it away.
“Don’t hide,” he admonished, and a fresh wave of arousal soaked her under his feather-light touch. “All those pretty sounds belong to me; I’ll not be denied them.”
He flipped his hand over and curled two fingertips to rest near her clit, gently scraping his claws over the fabric in maddening circles. She let her head fall back with a full-throated moan. Her entire body felt alive, eager, present, and he hadn’t even taken her clothes off yet.
“Imagine how good it will be when I finally touch you here. Gods. You’re so wet I can smell you,” he murmured, and a hot jolt of pleasepleaseplease scorched through her. He switched from his claws to the pads of his fingers, rubbing spirals until her eyes rolled back in her head.
Suddenly, his touch disappeared. He let her pant and whine for a moment, indifferent to her confusion, and then resumed with even more sweet pressure. A surge of fresh pleasure made her clench around nothing. She keened.
“You’ll come like this. Just like this.” His eyes smoldered into hers as he paused again, letting her hips buck to seek him, and then continued his attentions. She babbled in gratitude. His fingers pressed harder, faster, and her hips canted off the counter.
“Look how easy it is to bring you off, Tav. It’s embarrassing. All I have to do is leave you alone just long enough to let your nerves recover, let you get a little desperate—” he stopped and something close to a sob tore from her, “—and then give it to you hard— ” his open hand slapped her cunt, and she came so suddenly that she collapsed back onto the countertop and writhed through it. When she came back to herself, glassy-eyed and vague, Rolan pulled her up to lean against him and pressed a kiss into her disheveled hair.
“Are you all right?” Genuine concern colored his voice.
Tav groaned into his chest, satisfied and fuzzy. “M’ great. Holy shit.”
He chuckled, clearly pleased with himself. “Poor thing. You don’t have any important hero business tomorrow, do you?”
“Nope.”
“Excellent. You’ll stay here tonight.”
She pulled back to look at him, shocked at his boldness but delighted at what this meant for her next 12 hours. “Oh yeah?”
He smirked and helped her down from the counter. “Well. You came in here concerned about a…medical problem, was it? It would ruin my reputation to let you leave without my absolute confidence in your health.”
Smug bastard. She desired him carnally.
She expected him to whisk her up the grand staircase and through the portal to his library, but instead he conjured a shimmering doorway and led her through. They stepped out into an enormous bedroom washed in golden light from floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Lower City. A cluster of couches and armchairs surrounded a coffee table and fireplace at one end of the room, and at the other, the biggest bed Tav had ever seen invited her to dive into its many pillows.
Or be tossed, her brain added. A shiver ran up her spine.
She turned to Rolan to find him already looking at her. She’d found him beautiful when he was a refugee, in his own proud, striking way, but there were no words to describe the full force of him now. Healthy, powerful, master of his domain. The afternoon sun glistened off his carmine skin and onyx horns. His amber eyes, wide and soft and awestruck, mirrored her own feelings back to her.
The opportunity they’d missed after Lorroakan’s defeat had found them again. This time, she wasn’t leaving.
He took her hand in his and led her toward the bed. She followed. Without a word, he sat her on the edge and knelt at her feet to remove her sandals. He unlaced one, then the other, pressing a kiss to her shin after each. Her fingers reached for the clasp of his robes, and with some fumbling, they came undone and pooled around him in a shimmering puddle. He was left in just his shirt and breeches, on one knee in front of her. She’d never wanted someone more.
“As mouthwatering as you are in this,” he said, tugging at her hem, “it’s coming off. Everything is.”
“You too?” she asked.
Surprise flickered across his face for a split second before he managed to regain his composure. A smile tugged at his mouth. “Greedy. You’re fortunate I like that.”
Rolan loosened the laces of his shirt and tugged it off. Tav drank him in as he pulled his long hair back and secured it in his usual way, not bothering to hide her appreciation—the sweeping ridges fanning along his collarbones and down the lines of his muscular torso begged to be admired, to be touched. He deftly slipped her underclothes down her legs and then leaned in close to ease her dress over her hips. He stole a hot, slow kiss before he stripped it over her head, tossing it to the floor.
A breeze from an open window cooled her newly bare skin, bringing her nipples to attention.
“ Faex, ” he swore.
He stood, towering over her where she perched on the edge of his bed. She watched as his nimble fingers undid the lacing of his breeches. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband and slid them down his legs, stepping out of them to join her on the bed.
His cock was just as impressive as she’d expected for someone with an attitude as bad as his. Ridged, too, in a way she hadn’t expected. Her thighs squeezed together.
“Come here,” he murmured, coaxing her to lie with him on the pillows. She scrambled up the bed to him, settling in the crook of his arm and curling against his side.
“Ooh, you’re warm,” she sighed, wrapping an arm across him to soak up his body heat.
“I must be your first tiefling,” he replied, humor in his voice. “I run notoriously cold. Always have.”
She snorted. “You’re half right. I’ve kissed Karlach a couple times, but she’s…”
“Wreathed in superheated infernal flames?” he drawled.
“Yeah.” She dropped an idle kiss to his chest. “Not really a fair comparison for anyone, I reckon.”
“Consider my feelings spared.” He pulled her to lay across his chest and snaked his arms around her as he slanted his mouth over hers, deep and languid. She hummed into the kiss, and he rewarded her with a smooth lave of his tongue along her lower lip.
Her legs settled on either side of one of his thighs, and her hips lazily rutted against him as his embrace grew more passionate. He left her mouth to suck a bruise onto her pulse point, and her entire body shook with want.
“Greedy, Tav,” he purred into her neck. “Your body already knows what I can give. It calls for me.”
“Rolan,” she whined.
“Mm, my name sounds so sweet like that.” He grabbed her by the hips and ground her down onto him, and an inhuman noise escaped her. “Say it again.”
She chanted his name, voice breaking as he began to rock his hips up into her while he rubbed her against his thigh. He shifted beneath her, and suddenly his cock lay trapped between them, hard and thick. Her head went fuzzy—he could just do that, she realized, use her and toy with her like a plaything, and she’d love every moment. A fresh wave of wet heat leaked from her.
“You’ll get this later,” he rasped into her ear. “When you’re so wrung out and spent that you won’t even have the words to beg. Then I’ll take you.”
One of the ridges decorating the jut of his hip bone grazed her clit just as he promised to fuck her, and her second peak took her by surprise. She gasped as waves of ecstasy made her shudder against him while he worked her through it.
“Gods,” she panted, gazing up at him with wide eyes. “I didn’t know I could—I’ve never—”
He planted a fond kiss on her forehead, then another. “I told you. I know what you’re capable of.”
Her eyes slid shut and she let her head drop to his sternum. He chuckled deeply. Or, no, not chuckled. Something different.
“Oh, gods, no ,” he cursed under his breath as the rumbling in his chest continued.
“Are you okay?” Tav asked, pressing her ear to his ribcage. “Are your lungs—”
Rolan made a pained noise. “It’s perfectly normal, when tieflings are, ah, contented, for the muscles in our superpulmonal complexes to relax such that they create a sound,” he explained tightly. “Just— just ignore it.” He took a breath, and her whole head buzzed pleasantly with the vibration of it. Something clicked in her brain.
She whipped her head up to face him, a grin already spreading on her face. His eyes narrowed at her, a crease between his eyebrows, but it was too late.
“Don’t say it—”
“You’re purring. ”
He scoffed, one of his specialty top-shelf scoffs he usually reserved for affronts to his prowess or an especially elaborate prank from Cal and Lia, and she did her best to stifle the bubble of delighted laughter rising up from her chest.
“That’s so fucking sweet,” she beamed at him. He grabbed one of the pillows next to them on the bed and pressed it over his face with a mortified groan, and she finally collapsed into giggles.
“No, no, it’s lovely, Rolan, I love that you’re happy—” She straddled his chest and playfully tugged at his arms, but he wouldn’t budge. Beneath her, the purring only grew louder. “Oh, you’re such a bad actor.”
He whipped the pillow away with a put-upon eye roll. Amusement played at the corner of his mouth. “Ugh. Fine. I suppose we’re even now, anyway.”
She cocked her head down at him. “How?”
“I already know what sounds you make when you’re happy.” With a twist, he flipped her onto her back and hovered over her. His hand trailed down the soft planes of her stomach and dipped between her legs.
She gasped and squirmed beneath him. “I just came, I don’t know if I can—”
“You will.” He brought his hand up between their faces and vanished the claws off two of his fingers with a whip-crack of Weave, smirking with pride when she gasped. He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment.
“Actually,” he muttered to himself. He rolled off of her and gently sat her upright, then slid between her and the headboard. She relished the warm press of his chest against her back as he settled her in the V of his long legs. Rolan recited something quick, and two spectral hands picked up her legs behind the knees and draped them over his, spreading her open.
He kissed just under her ear, and she pulled her hair out of the way to give him unfettered access to her neck.
“Clever,” he praised her in a low, dangerous tone. He ravaged the long column of her neck with bruising kisses and nips of his teeth, letting his hands shamelessly roam her body. Somewhere, in the back of her head, she imagined one of his sharp bites drawing blood. She moaned.
“You should see yourself. Sprawled across me, so fucked out before I’ve even put anything in you. Desperate. Divine.” He scraped his canine teeth against the tender junction of her neck and jaw, and her hips bucked against nothing.
“Maybe you should see yourself,” he mused. The warmth of his mouth left her, and he incanted something complex with a flurry of intricate gestures. In front of them, a shimmering mist coalesced into an enormous mirror floating a few feet off the bed.
Tav’s eyes widened as she took in their scene. Her loose limbs draped over Rolan, her already purpled neck, her debauched hair and bright flush. He caught her eye in the mirror as he deliberately palmed one of her breasts in his vermilion hand, and her breath stuttered at how wanton they looked together. Seduced and seducer, like a Renaissance painting.
Holding his gaze, she covered his hand with her own and gave it a squeeze. His eyes blazed in triumph.
“Watch me take you apart,” he murmured into her ear. “See for yourself how easy you are for me.”
She lifted her arms, settling one hand on her shoulder and using the other to grip the back of his neck. No resistance. He snarled and pulled her legs further apart, digging into the soft flesh of her thighs.
He trailed his two clawless fingers up to cover the length of her slit. She tried to move against him, find some friction, but he wouldn’t give it to her. He nipped her ear, silently admonishing her.
“Greedy,” she breathed. He chuckled.
One fingertip dipped to stroke in and out just at her entrance. Her back arched. His tail wrapped around one of her ankles possessively, and fuck if that didn’t awaken something in her.
His other hand lifted her chin again. In the mirror, she watched him sink his finger into her completely. He curled it inside her, grinding his palm against her clit while he stroked against her walls. Her vision grew hazy at the edges. Of their own accord, her knees floated up toward her chest, desperate to make room for him to go deeper.
“There you go,” he praised her, low and rough. “Let me in. Hold those legs apart and give yourself to me.”
He slipped a second finger into her, and her eyelids fluttered. The stretch felt incredible; a new note in the deafening chorus of sensations already thrumming through her. She flung both arms behind her, scrabbling for purchase on his shoulders, on his horns, and he hummed approvingly.
He withdrew his fingers and pushed them back in with a wet, filthy noise, and her face flashed hot in embarrassment.
“You sound gorgeous,” he purred. Her toes curled in response to his unexpected tenderness. The tension building inside her pulled dangerously tight, made her shake against him. More, she needed more.
“I want you, gods, want you inside me, Rolan please, ” she keened as his fingers drew agonizingly perfect patterns inside her.
He growled . Her eyes rolled back in her head at how primal it felt. His hand came up to rest gently around her neck, cautious, and she leaned eagerly into it. She sobbed with relief when his fingers collared her.
“Come on my hand. Give me one more, pretty thing, and I’ll press you to this bed and claim you so hard that you’ll never want anyone else again—”
Her eyes blew wide as she watched herself come undone for him. Her body convulsed under his grip, her legs trembled in the air as wave after devastating wave wracked her. It was beautiful, he was beautiful, holding her tight and mouthing kisses to her temple while every nerve in her body sang for him. The mirror dissolved into mist again and faded away, leaving her to ride out the rest of her pleasure with just the sensation of him behind her, around her, inside her.
When she came down, loose and pleasantly shaky, he disappeared from behind her and pulled her further down the bed. He knelt between her legs, panting, so hard she could see his pulse jump.
“Tav,” he rasped. “Tell me.”
She flashed him a tired smile. He’d just choked her through her third orgasm of the afternoon, but he was so careful with her that it made her want to cry. “Rolan. Ride me like you fucking stole me.”
He huffed a surprised laugh, swiping a hand down his face. “ Zurgan. I had a thoughtful monologue prepared about how I’ve pined for you, and what this means to me, but clearly I failed to account for your astonishingly brusque sense of scene — ”
She stifled a cackle, poorly. He shot her an exasperated glare, although his eyes were still so soft when he looked at her that she didn’t believe him at all. Especially not if he’d pined for her. The implications of what he’d just admitted made her heart pound against her ribs.
“It’s not my fault I’m running on, like, a tenth of my mental faculties right now,” she sighed, grinning. “Come here and give me your monologue.”
“No, no, I don’t think I will,” he replied, leaning over her and snaking a broad hand under her hips. His tone was light, teasing, but the hunger in his touch was palpable.
“I rather think,” he drawled, folding one of her legs to her chest, then the other, “I’ll do what the lady so sweetly begged me to do a few minutes ago, and bury my cock in her so deeply that it alters her fundamental perception of sex.”
Tav’s eyes blew wide. If recent experience was anything to trust, he absolutely meant what he said.
He planted his free hand next to her head. She felt the other lift her hips, and the ridged length of his dick glided deliciously over her cunt before he pulled back and pressed the head to her entrance. “Does that sound amenable?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. He kissed her, deep and reassuring, and rolled his hips forward.
He pressed into her slowly. He was big, but he’d pulled so many orgasms from her already that she stretched around him beautifully. When he bottomed out, he kissed her again, murmuring something in Infernal she didn’t quite catch.
She was about to ask what he’d said when he withdrew a few inches, and all the perfectly placed ridges on his cock dragged against every sweet spot she had.
“ Rolan, ” she gasped, clawing at his shoulders.
He dropped his head and moaned, deep and long, into her neck. His hips rolled again, and again, and every movement brought pleasure so sharp and bright that it obliterated all other thought.
“Holy fuck. Holy fuck, ” she chanted. He was only just beginning to fuck her in earnest, and she already felt like she might not survive this. Her vision swam with the intensity of how right he felt inside her.
“Feel how I fit into you. You’re perfect for this.” A new, low rumble laced his voice, a hunger she’d never heard from him before but instantly craved. “Fuck, you’re never leaving my bed.”
A stream of yes and Rolan please escaped her. He crushed their mouths together and she moaned in relief.
He tossed her legs over his shoulders and folded her in half before rutting into her with a controlled, deliberate rhythm that made her almost scream.
“Stay here. I’ll make you happy, I’ll take care of you,” he swore. His golden eyes looked glazed, intensely focused on something she couldn’t see. “Let me feed you. Let me ruin you. Gods you’re so tight—”
An ecstatic sob ripped from her, overwhelmed with both the prospect of finally having a real home and sharing that home with Rolan, and he fucked her harder into the mattress. His hair, long since free of its bun, fell around her face and stuck to his forehead. She could feel the beginnings of a truly devastating orgasm cresting in her.
She barely knew what she was saying as white light started to fill her vision. “Yes, keep me, I’ll never leave, oh fuck, stay with you—”
He buried his head in her neck, horns knocking against her, and growled. “ Mine. ” His teeth sank, hard, into the soft flesh of her shoulder.
Shock sent her hurtling headlong into her release. Her head snapped back against the sheets and her abs clenched hard, over and over, as mine in his rough and perfect voice echoed through her.
He ground out something else in Infernal, a gravelly sentence she had no way of deciphering but that sounded reverent. Pulses of his spend filled her. He shuddered, and she reached to cup his face in her hands, smoothing her thumbs along the high planes of his cheekbones and threading her fingers into his thick hair.
His shoulders eased, letting her legs fall to the bed, and he turned to press his lips to the inside of her wrist. Through the loose tendrils scattered across his face, his brilliant gaze burned into her.
“Before you ask,” he panted. “I meant it. All of it. I certainly wanted to say it better, perhaps over dinner tonight, but you have a way of putting me on my back foot.” He let his head fall forward. She craned her neck to kiss the tips of his horns where they peeked through his hair.
“Come lay down with me,” she beckoned softly. He carefully pulled out of her, clearly trying to spare her overstimulated body, and rolled to lie next to her. They faced each other on the white expanse of the sunlit bed.
For a long moment, she was content to just drink him in. His hard lines and rough edges, the cracks where his infinite tenderness shone through. In her chest, the adoration that had simmered in her battered heart for the length of her strange adventure finally came to boil.
“It seems like you have a lot to tell me,” she began, “but I have some things to say first.”
“Shocking,” he deadpanned. She smacked him on the shoulder.
“You’re pretty fucking obstinate for someone who’s about to be on the receiving end of a love confession.” His eyebrows shot almost into his hairline, and she smiled serenely back at him. “Fortunately for you, I guess I’m into that.”
“I’m not going to improve,” he cautioned her. “I’m stubborn, unsociable, and a terror in the mornings. Sometimes I get into a research problem and don’t emerge from my library for days.”
She hummed. “Noted. Anything else?”
“My dancing is terrible. Beyond help.” He cocked his head at her, eyes shining brighter than she’d ever seen. “And I’m so revoltingly in love with you that, I’m informed, I frequently ruin family dinners with my forlorn stares into the middle distance.”
“You!” she shouted, lunging to tackle him. He laughed, genuine and hearty, as she scrambled on top of him. “You smug idiot, I love you so fucking much—”
He took her face in his broad, warm hands and slotted their lips together. They luxuriated in each other, with kisses and murmurs and gentle, secret laughter, as the sun dipped low over the Chionthar. Rolan’s chest thrummed with joy against her the entire time.