Despite all my determined intentions, my gaze zapped right to him and then those deep, chocolate eyes of his locked onto me and wouldn’t let go.
I could feel his tension as it radiated around him. His Magic left his body in a whoosh of motion. It knocked into mine so forcefully, I nearly fell over.
And my stupid, frustrating, selfish Magic opened up for him.
This was one of the things I hated about being an Immortal. I didn’t only have to deal with my traitor-heart reacting to his every move and longing gaze. I also had to deal with my slutty Magic that wanted attention and didn’t care who she got it from.
I tried my best to rein it in, to keep it from accepting the connection from Talbott’s Magic, but it was no good. It had already decided to latch on to that frustrating Titan and it had no plans to let go.
He seemed to relax some when our Magics finally touched. His intense gaze tempered just a little bit and his shoulders turned to softer stone. Well, stone was still stone, but they somehow seemed less rigid.
Talbott had apparently been paying better attention than me, because he responded to something that was said. “Eden, our deal?”
Eden seemed to hold back a wince and then said, “Lilly, Talbott will help you to the plane. I'll be there in just a few minutes.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at her professional diplomacy. I looked up at Kiran, hoping he would make a big deal about the exchange. I didn’t want to be alone with Talbott.
At all.
But I should have known better to count on a Kendrick. He was just as bad as his bodyguard. He nodded at me and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Get the heck out of here already.”
I glared back at him, conveying an “I’m going! I’m going!” thought.
Why was it so much easier to forgive the Prince than it was his Guard? Was it because I didn’t feel so personally betrayed by Kiran? Or was it because my feelings for Talbott only continued to grow, despite everything he’d done to me?
Damn. I needed to pull myself together.
I walked across the sand and flew to my best friend. Despite the boy drama poisoning our happy reunion, I was so grateful to see Eden again.
We hugged tightly and I felt hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I sniffled against the ambush of emotion and then allowed Talbott to drag me away when Kiran cleared his throat.
He didn’t speak to me the entire walk across the sands to the plane staircase. He helped me the entire way though. His strong hands always found a place on my body to hold up or help me in some way.
By the time we reached the cabin of the plane, my Magic had started buzzing frantically in my veins from all the skin-to-skin contact. I wanted to brush it off as my lack of physical touch for the last several months, but I had been on my own and without that kind of thing for years now.
Talbott finally let go of me when we were in the even ground of the plane cabin. We stood a few feet apart just looking at each other.
I didn’t really know what to say. In fact, I didn’t really want to say anything.
As it turned out, neither did he.
He took slow steps toward me, closing the distance between us within seconds. His hands reached out to touch me and then his head descended with the patience of a monk. He seemed to be afraid that I would run or push him away. But I felt absolutely transfixed to this place.
I knew he intended to kiss me just as slowly, but something happened when our lips touched. He stopped being careful with me. He stopped taking things slow. Suddenly his mouth pressed against mine demanding and desperate.
I gasped out of surprise and something more… something hot and needy. Talbott’s tongue invaded my mouth and did something wicked to mine.
It should be said, this was my first kiss.
Ever.
I might have known what to expect, but nothing could have prepared me for the way that Talbott kissed me or how I reacted to him.
I had no idea what I was doing with my lips, tongue or teeth, but that didn’t deter Talbott at all. He coaxed me into kissing him back with insisting kisses and expert moves of his tongue. His lips were so much softer than I had expected and felt amazing as they erased every coherent or logical thought in my head.
The feel of his mouth moving against me, tasting me… devouring me was intoxicating. I found myself kissing him back, mimicking his movements and trying to keep up.
His hands seared my waist with their possessive hold, clutching me tightly to him. His chest heaved in panting breaths, brushing against mine with every lift.
I had never been kissed before, but now that I had, I would never be the same.
This kiss changed me.
Talbott, against all my better judgment… changed me.
He pulled back from my lips and I immediately felt the loss. I wanted to follow his mouth until I felt it on mine again. I wanted his hands to pull me closer. I wanted to taste him until I took my last, dying breath.
“Lilly, we need to talk.” His accent was thick with desire and his eyes sparkled in their darkness.
“No,” I pleaded. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want him to make me fall deeper for him. I just wanted him to kiss me again.
Was that so much to ask?
He led me to a seat and sat me down. He deliberated between the seat next to me and the one across the aisle before choosing the latter one.
“I’ll be better with some separation,” he explained. But then he leaned into me anyway, so I wasn’t sure what separation he meant. “I want to be with you.”
He said it. He just said it. He said it as if it was the most obvious, clearest thing in the world. I want to be with you.
Like it was possible.
“No,” I said again. Apparently, his kisses reduced me to a single-word response.
“I care about you,” he went on with a low, intimate voice. “I have cared about you for some time. My actions have not always reflected this. And I have made many mistakes. But I need you, Lilly. I am tired of fighting what I know is inevitable.”
“This is not inevitable,” I whispered fiercely, afraid someone would hear this craziness.
I was a Shape-Shifter. A Shape-Shifter. My existence was illegal. And he would one day be head of the Titan Guard if Eden didn’t overthrow this Monarchy!
It was crazy to think we could even make-out without facing dire consequences. Let alone be together in any kind of committed relationship!
“It is,” he insisted. “I want you. I want you to be with me.”
“Fine,” I told him, calling his bluff. “Defect. Leave the Guard and join the Resistance. I’ll be with you then.”
He dipped his head lower, nodding as if he anticipated this response from me. “I know that would make sense to you, but you do not know the entire story. I am… I am bound to Kiran. I am loyal to him.”
“You’re loyal to a Monarchy that wants to kill me.”
His head snapped up and those eyes hit me with a severity I wasn’t ready for. It robbed me of breath and sent my heart pounding in my chest. “No,” he said. “I am loyal to only one King and only one family.”
“The Kendricks. And they all want my entire species eradicated.”
“You’re wrong.” I opened my mouth to argue and he quickly said, “About me. You’re wrong about my loyalty. But I will never leave Kiran. I could never even think of it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I don’t need to make sense. I just need time.”
I pursed my lips together to keep from screaming. Had there ever been a more frustrating conversation?
Nope. Never.
“I need you to be with me, Lilly,” he continued. “Sometimes… sometimes it feels as though I cannot breathe unless you are near. Sometimes it feels as though I will die if I cannot touch you. I want to be with you, iubita mea. I want you to be mine.”
I tried to ignore the swelling of my heart and the butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t
realized I’d leaned so close to him until our lips were only just a breath apart.
“What does that mean?” I asked him. “That Romanian word?”
His lips curled at the corners in a sweet smile. “Someday I will tell you. I will tell you when you say yes to me.”
“I will never-”
“Get off!” Eden screeched.
Both of us jumped apart. I had never been more startled in my entire life and Eden looked as crazy as I’d ever seen her.
“Kiran needs you and I need you to get out!” she shouted at Talbott.
Those were the magic words because he hurried from the plane without once looking back at me.
And I realized that would always be how it was between us. Even if I had said yes to Talbott, he still would have run off to Kiran. No matter how he felt about me, his loyalty and duty would always be to Kiran and the Kendrick family first.
I added that to the other million reasons never to be with him. I couldn’t completely regret the kiss we’d shared. But I knew now that I could never do it again.
Chapter Five
Now
“Mrs. Angelo,” Talbott whispered into my ear as we twirled around the dance floor. He sounded so reverent as the word tumbled out of him that I knew I would never be happier than this moment. Until the next moment happened and I had the same thought all over again.
“I think you like that more than you like saying Lilly,” I teased him.
He made a murmur of approval and pressed me tighter against him with his hand against my lower back. “I love them both.”
My face heated to that ridiculous color of red and so I leaned forward and rested my forehead against his shoulder. The summer breeze had cooled off now that the sun had completely disappeared and it helped relax me as it floated over my heated skin.
The chairs had been removed to make way for an outdoor dance floor. The string ensemble continued to provide the soundtrack of the happiest day of my life. The stars twinkled overhead without a single cloud in the sky to detract from their brilliance. And my husband had not let me out of his arms the entire night.
This was heaven.
At some point during the evening, I had started to wonder if maybe I was still in a coma. If this were some dream world, my subconscious had created to ease my real pain and suffering.
This had to be a fantasy.
This could not be real.
Good things of this magnitude just did not happen to me. I had lived a lifetime of fear and imprisonment. I’d been beaten and tortured more times than I could count. For a large part of my life, I had been completely and utterly alone.
And now I had this?
I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it.
“Is this real?” I asked through thick emotion coating my throat.
Talbott pulled back just a few inches and used his finger to tilt my chin up. “This is real, Lilly. My wife. My love. This is as real as it gets.”
“Thank you,” I whispered as a rogue tear slipped from the corner of my eye.
“For what?”
“For not giving up on me. For seeing something in me that nobody else did.” I held his chocolate gaze and felt myself fall in love with him all over again. For a lot of years I hated the strife he brought to my life, the confusion and uncertainty. I hated that he made me fall for him when all I wanted to do was run.
He smiled adoringly at me. “I saw the same thing everybody else did, Lilly. I was just the only one smart enough to go after you.”
I laughed at that. “So you’re more intelligent than anyone else. You’re clearly stronger…” I let my hands trail up the smooth silk of his lapel. “What else? I want to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“More handsome,” he told me. “Faster. Funnier. Sweeter.”
I sighed. It was all true. I threaded my fingers through the thick hair at the nape of his neck. “What else? There has to be more.”
“Luckier,” he answered gruffly. “I’m luckier than anyone else alive to have such a wife as you.”
“I love you.”
He pressed a slow kiss to my mouth. “I love you too.”
“Alright, my friend, share the bride,” Kiran’s voice cut through our happy moment and we both looked up a little surprised. We had drifted into our own universe and the rest of the world faded away.
“I’m not sure that I want to do that,” Talbott replied with his thick, lilting accent.
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. He was serious and Kiran knew it too.
“I promise to give her right back,” Kiran told him. “I just want a quick dance. Besides, you’ve sworn an oath to share everything with me.” He made a hand-it-over gesture with his two hands.
“Not my wife!” Talbott roared. “And I made that oath when we were children. You made me do it. You told me it if I didn’t you would throw me in the dungeon.”
“Oh, nobody held a sword to your throat,” Kiran argued.
Talbott’s eyes grew huge. “You did! You held my own sword to my throat!”
By this time, I was nearly doubled over with laughter. Kiran threw me a wink and Talbott tugged me closer.
“You’ll not get your spoiled, Royal hands on my wife. So forget about it.”
Kiran looked as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I gave him a helpless shrug. I was as reluctant to leave Talbott’s arms as he was to let me.
“Where is your wife,” Talbott demanded. “You should be with her anyway.”
Kiran scowled. “With my cousin.”
We all glanced over to Eden, who was now in the process of dumping Seraphina into Sebastian’s arms. I stared at them wide-eyed. Those two hated each other!
“I’m going to need to call in security, aren’t I?” Talbott mumbled.
Kiran made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. “What is she thinking! Sebastian is going to kill her! And then he’s going to kill me. Of course, he’ll leave Eden alone. He favors her. The traitor.”
“They’re grownups,” I defended them both. “We all are. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Both men’s heads swiveled to me with comically terrified matching expressions.
“You’ve been in a coma, so I’ll forgive you for saying that,” Kiran said seriously. “But believe me when I say, that no matter how old we get, and I mean in the millennia to come, those two will never be capable of sharing space as civilized adults ever again. They are beyond rational, mature thinking. They are even beyond tolerable hatred. I’m impressed that they’ve lasted this long without putting their hands around each other’s throats yet.”
“They can’t be that bad!”
Talbott surprised me by agreeing with Kiran’s rather dramatic description. “They are, Lilly. They really, truly are.”
“They’ll be civilized for me,” I assured them. “If not because they like me, then at least because I was in a coma for so long and they feel sorry for me.”
“Nobody feels sorry for you,” Kiran and Talbott said at the same time.
“Except for me,” Eden chimed in. She crashed our little group and linked her arm through Kiran’s and laid her head on his shoulder. “I feel very sorry for you.”
“And why’s that?” I wasn’t the only one that felt more than happy tonight. Eden practically glowed with joy. She was radiant tonight and just one more reason for me to be brimming with contentment.
“Because you’re not miserable like me.”
I reached out a hand and pressed it against her stomach. If it had been anyone else, I would have never dreamed of violating their bump, but this was Eden, I held all belly-rubbing rights.
“You’re not miserable,” I told her. “You’re very, very far from miserable.”
She rested one of her hands on top of mine. “You are too, my sweet friend.” She glanced up at her husband and then back at me. “So, we were hoping… if we asked you to be godparents, you might say yes?”
“Us?” I whispe
red. “What about Avalon and Mimi?”
I could feel Talbott’s confusion in our united Magic. “Sebastian?”
They both smiled at us, and Eden explained, “We’ll probably ask Avalon and Mimi too. He’s my brother, but you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, Lills. I would love it if you said yes.”
“And you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a brother, Mate,” Kiran told Talbott. “I hardly trust Sebastian to post a letter. I won’t entrust my children with him anytime soon.”
“We’d be honored,” I told them.
Talbott disagreed. “They don’t need two sets of godparents, iubita mea. They’ll be more spoiled than their father was.”
What I loved about my husband was that he was completely serious.
“But they’re Royals. They’ll be spoiled no matter what!” Eden grinned at him. “I’m counting you in. Lilly said yes, and now that you’re married, that’s as good as a blood oath.”
“Is that true?” Talbott quirked an eyebrow at her.
Kiran clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Give it up, Mate. She runs your life now. You’re just supposed to say, ‘Yes, Love,’ and ‘Of course, Dear.’”
Talbott shot me a skeptical look, so I shook my head to give him a false sense of security. “I’m sure I’ll let you make some of the decisions. Every once in a while. Like on your birthday.”
He hooked his arm around my waist again and yanked me against him. “You’re teasing me.”
I ran my finger down his nose, “I am.”
“I think it’s time to leave.”
“Leave? Why?” I couldn’t believe Talbott wanted this night to end. Instead of answering my question, he gave me a heated look that erased any questions I had. “Oh.” My cheeks burned red. I felt the flush reach from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
I’d nearly forgotten about the wedding night.
Nearly.
Eden and Kiran laughed at my shyness. Even Talbott chuckled a little.