“I did mean last night. I knew as soon as I was inside you that it was your first time. I only hoped I hadn’t hurt you.” He kissed me, long and slow. “I wish you’d said something ahead of time.”
“I should have, but I didn’t want you to think I was an amateur.”
Rolling to the side, still inside me, he brought me with him and we cuddled close, face-to-face. “Amateur status isn’t a bad thing in lovemaking, you know. It just means you were waiting for the right person.”
“Yes. I did that.”
“Or people.”
“Bain, about Zephyr…”
He quelled my words with kisses, and when we finally broke for air, he said, “I’d only be jealous if you were with people who didn’t matter, if you ran from bed to bed without thought. For you to not be with someone fated for you wouldn’t improve what’s between us. It would leave us lacking.”
“Does that mean there’d be something physical between you and...and Zephyr or anyone else who is my mate?’
“Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn’t matter right now. What we have is pretty awesome, and if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to do it again.”
“Yes, please,” I breathed. “And again.”
He never asked where I’d been all day or chastised me for missing our tutoring...never did anything but love me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Little one, you are here too much. And sitting in the deep, dark corner...tsk, tsk. This is where the bad girls go to…but you’re a sweet one, aren’t you?”
I didn’t bother looking up from my notes. I’d even been sleeping with the damned things under my pillow, trying to make osmosis work for me. Then again, my wings didn’t work, and I was a constant victim to the veil’s cries, so things didn’t really jive.
And the last thing I needed to deal with was Adair and his hissing girlfriend, excuse me, betrothed, on me while I was trying to study. I had stories to remember. Wings to get out. Boys to deal with and all of these flirty, flowery fables to memorize.
Instead of responding, I said nothing. Judging by the way he pulled out a chair and made himself at home across from me at the table, that was the wrong move. I should’ve told him to go to hell or back to Nissa.
“I’m trying to study. Where’s Nissa? I’m not really in the mood to get books tossed at me or whatever she does to people in her spare time.”
His chuckle weaved across the table and infiltrated my chest, unbidden and unwelcome. Yeah, he was hot, and something about him tugged at me like the veil, but I wasn’t interested in a fight, and Nissa had more weapons than I did.
I.e., she actually knew how to use her fairy powers.
“I don’t know where she is. Probably off fucking anyone who waved his dick at her. I’ve been looking for you. And here you are.”
I tossed my pen on top of my notebook and blew out a breath, heaving myself to sit up in the library chair instead of hunched over. He wasn’t wrong about the dark corner. I couldn’t even make out the titles of the books on the shelves next to me. To my credit, there was sun filtering through the stained glass windows earlier. I checked my watch. It was past dinnertime. No wonder it was dark back here now. Still, the desk lamp next to me had been my constant companion. I actually hadn’t noticed the passing of the day.
“Here I am.”
I was so not asking him why he was looking for me.
A smile played at his perfectly chiseled face. “Don’t you want to know why I was looking for you?”
I could play this two ways. One: Flirt right along and play his game. Or two: Stay aloof, keep my nose down, and stay out of trouble. And let me tell you, Adair was all 360 degrees of trouble. His smile said it. The twinkle in his sapphire eyes said it.
“Is that going to make you go away faster?”
Two.
“Aww, you’re hurting my feelings, Endymion. Let’s not play coy. You know I want you, and the way you’re wringing your hands tells me you want me.”
I scoffed. “You’re really full of yourself, aren’t you?”
He cocked one eyebrow. “You could be full of me, too.”