I met his eyes to see his desire mirroring my own. I wanted everything, I wanted this. The silence was profound. I thought about Ray safe in her bed, then Jon and Quen at the stables. My hands were behind his neck, my fingers playing in the damp ends of his hair. “Is it worth it?” I said. “Everything you gave up?”

He couldn’t take my pants off with my knees to either side of him like that. There was only one foot on the floor, and it was his. I smiled, knowing he was stymied. “You tell me.”

I leaned to find his ear. I felt him tremble, his hands on me hesitate and move against me even more strongly as I nibbled on his ear. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” I whispered.

“Mmmm.” His grip on me shifted, finding my center of gravity. “I work best under pressure.”

“Me too.” I barely breathed the words, my hand trailing down his chest to wiggle the last tie closing his robe open. I tensed, knowing he was going to have to do something drastic if he wanted my pants off. His balance shifted, and I countered it, wanting to prolong this. He saw my wicked grin, and he smiled, changing his attack.

He went for my shirt, and I shivered as he pulled it and my chemise over my head in one smooth motion. They fell to the floor beside the couch in a soft hush. The cooler air gave me goose bumps, but they vanished in a wash of heat, driven away as his eyes traveled over me an instant ahead of his hands.

His robe was open, and I eased closer to him, my hands tracing an ever-circling path inward to find him. Trent’s breath quickened as I dipped to his inner thighs, and then I gasped when he unexpectedly found my breast and gently bit me. “You wicked elf ... ,” I whispered, reaching for him, then almost lost it when he pulled a trace of energy from me.

My eyes widened at the scintillating feeling icing through me. We’d played with the lines before, and my pulse quickened. It was going to be like that, then.

I felt our auras begin to shift to find a middle ground, and I almost lost it when he suddenly dropped the line and everything he collected washed back into me, balancing in a wave of sparkles along my spine. “Ooh,” I groaned, and in that instant of bemused sensation, he shifted his weight, pushing me back into the couch and pinning me there.

His robe fell open around us, and I blinked up at him, reaching to play with the hair behind his ears, letting little spills of energy trace a path where my lips had been.