In her surprise at the encounter, she had raised both her hands. They rested now, flat against the starched lace of his shirt front. The solid muscles of his chest were warm beneath her hands. She should just push him away. Or should she? Were his words true, or an excuse for coming to her only after he had dallied at his game and flirtation? Indecision held her motionless in his arms. She breathed in his smells as if he, too, were a night-blooming plant. The cinnamon wine spiced his breath. His skin smelled of sandalwood.

And nothing else, she realized. Her rival had reeked of patchouli, as if she had bathed in it, drunk it, and then drenched her clothes in it. But Tellator did not. She let her hands slip around him, finding no words to say. A seed of doubt had been planted in her heart and nourished by the delay, a delay created by her own foolish plan to test him. Had he mastered her challenge?

“Amarinda,” he said, his voice gone suddenly husky. He pulled her firmly to him, pressed the length of his body against hers so that she could feel how much he desired her. She lifted her face to counsel him to restraint, but his head darted down and his mouth seized hers in a kiss. She tried to turn her head aside, but he would not let her. Instead he held the kiss and deepened it, pushing her back and then astonishing her when he lifted her onto the table. “Here,” he said, and, “Now,” he demanded. He pushed the panels of her skirts aside and set his warm hands on her knees to open her legs.

“We cannot! Tellator, not here, not like this!” She was horrified, not only by his assumption that she would agree but also by her body’s hungry response to him.

“Oh, but we can. And I must. I cannot wait, not another moment. Not another breath.”

Something. Distress. Danger.

Thymara pried her eyes open. She was sitting, not on a table in a garden on a warm summer evening but on the hard stone steps with a chill winter day dying around her. Yet she was not cold. She was panting still with the passion she had shared, and Amarinda’s heat and desire still warmed her. She cleared her throat, coughed, and then was suddenly aware that she held his hand. Tellator looked at her from Rapskal’s eyes. “Here,” he said quietly. “And now. There is no better time than this.”