“You’re always such a contrast to me,” he teases. “Always so well pressed and tidy.”

Lucretia gives him an inviting look. “I think it’s high time you mussed me up.”

A husky laugh escapes Jules’s throat, and Lucretia’s flush deepens over her sudden boldness, unable to suppress a delighted smile as Jules’s gaze slides over her in a new way—as if she’s a Xishlon sweet he wants to devour. And when he raises his brown eyes to meet hers once more, there’s a molten light in them that shimmers her water power into a tingling rush.

Jules’s voice is pitched lower when it comes. “I’ve let my mind stray to the idea of mussing you up on more occasions than I’d care to admit.” The moon’s purple light glints off his glasses as Lucretia thrills to the suggestion in his tone.

His gaze drifts down as he gently fingers the white bird pendant hanging from the glittering silver chain around Lucretia’s neck. “You kept this,” he says, a question in his tone as his eyes flick back up to meet hers. “Through everything.”

Lucretia shrugs, heatedly aware of him touching her necklace, her collar, so freely. Taking his time. As if savoring the open invitation she’s laid out this evening. “I’ve cast so much of my religion away,” she says, “but...I still believe in this.” She gives him a meaningful look. “And in you.”

Tentatively, she places her palm on the center of his chest and slides it up over his soft, worn shirt. She can feel the heat of him through it, his strong heartbeat, his deepening breaths. It’s surprisingly soft to the touch, his deep-brown woolen shirt. A shirt she’s seen on him countless times over the years, his clothing as familiar to her as her own. But what lies beneath the clothes and what he would feel like in the throes of passion is a mystery she’s pondered more than the mysteries of religion.

Her own breathing unsteady, she traces a line over his shirt and fondles his top button, the polished mahogany wood of it sensuously smooth beneath the pads of her fingertips as she flicks it open. She meets Jules’s eyes, her pulse quickening as she thrills to the deep, shuddering breath Jules takes in response to her touch.

“Lucretia,” he says, a ragged edge to his tone. He cups his palm around her waist, then slides it up to caress her back, coaxing her closer, as he leans down and brings his lips to hers.

Lucretia’s water power surges toward him as she presses her mouth to Jules’s warm lips, the clean taste of bergamot on his breath. Heat blooms in her center and her magic eddies toward him, a small, eager sound of pleasure escaping her lips.