Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Bites

“I wouldn’t know if you did since I’ve never had a kiss either. And even though you might bungle it, I still think I’d like to see what the fuss is about. Are you not curious, Ari?”

Aricles felt his heart pound at her question. He was more than curious about how her lips would taste. But he was also a bit scared.

Who are you to question a goddess?

He was her servant and her warrior…

Still unsure, he gently laid his hand against her cheek and stroked her lips with his thumb. “Are you certain you want me to do this?”

She nodded.

Ever so slowly, he lowered his lips to hers. The moment he tasted her, his entire body erupted with a heat so high that it made his past attractions to other women seem mild and insignificant. He shook all over as images of making love to Bathymaas tormented him. He would give anything to hold her like that, but he knew it could never be and he was lucky she’d allowed him this much.

Bathymaas wasn’t sure what to expect, but as his tongue swept across hers and his scent filled her head, something inside her splintered. Her breathing intensified even more… as did his. She felt his heart pounding against her hand. Strong and powerful.

Like him.

He was so hard and fierce, except for his lips that were soft and gentle. And in spite of his inexperience, his kiss was wonderful and it did the oddest things to her body. Made her throb and ache.

Aricles’s head spun at the taste of Bathymaas. In all his fantasies, he’d never dreamed a kiss could be so sweet. His body roared to life, making demands on him the likes of which he’d never felt before. It took every ounce of self-control he had to placate himself with just this tiny part of her.

Pulling back, he stared down at her beautiful face.

She opened her eyes and for the first time, he saw real emotion in those golden depths. Her eyes flared before she cupped his head in her hands and pulled him back for another sizzling kiss.

Bathymaas knew she should release him. It would be the smart thing to do, and yet…

She wanted to possess him in a way she couldn’t comprehend. More than that, she wanted to push him back and straddle him. To run her hands all over his body, and she had no idea why. While she’d occasionally seen animals have sex, she’d never really thought about it. It was what they did to have offspring.

But right now, she wanted him inside her. It was as if her body starved for him the way her stomach craved food.

And she had no idea why.

Did he feel that, too?

Forcing herself to withdraw, she tried to steady her breathing as she looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Is this emotion, Aricles?”

“It is for me, goddess.”

“What do you feel?”

“Hunger, my lady. Possessiveness. Tenderness.” Love. But he didn’t dare say that out loud. He’d already made that mistake with a woman. “Most of all, protective and caring.”

Bathymaas looked down at her arms and the strange bumps that always came to her whenever he was near. “What are these?”

“Chills.”

She ran her hand over his biceps. “You have them, too. Do you also want to touch me?”

“I do, my lady.”

“And yet you don’t.”

“I told you I wouldn’t dishonor you. I would sooner die than cause you any harm.”

Her vision clouded and her throat tightened as he spoke. She blinked several times, but instead of getting clearer, her vision worsened and something wet fell down her cheeks. “What is this? Am I going blind?”

With a tender expression, he lifted his hand and gently brushed his thumb against her face. “They’re called tears.”

“Why do I have them?”

He tenderly dried her cheeks. “Whenever something hurts inside you or something touches your heart they can manifest unexpectedly.”

Frowning, she looked down and lifted the Egyptian amulet from between her breasts. “But my heart is here. Nothing has touched it.”

Biting back a smile at her innocence, Aricles placed a single finger between her breasts. “No, my lady, your heart is in here.” But as he spoke the words, he realized she didn’t have a heartbeat. He scowled.

She held her amulet out to him. “I’m not like you, Ari. When I was a child, I discovered that those who are born to mothers have hearts and heartbeats and that I do not. I asked my father about it and he gave me this amulet and said that it contains his heart that he lost to me the moment I was created. He said it holds his love for me and that even though I’d never understand what love is, that so long as I wore my amulet, I’d have a piece of him with me to keep me safe in his absence. This is my heart.” Her frown deepened at the happy expression that brightened his face. “Why do you smile like that?”

“Because you now have two hearts, my lady. Your father’s and mine.”

She still didn’t understand what he meant. Placing her hand to his chest, she felt his heart beating. “Yours is like my father’s. Strong.”

“Even so, hearts are fragile and easily broken.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t take much. When you love someone, a single tear,” he wiped away another of hers, “or frown can shatter a heart. And if something happens to the one you’ve given your heart to, their loss can break it into so many pieces that it never heals again.”

Her jaw went slack. “Then it’s a good thing you gave yours to me to keep. For I can never die or be harmed.”

His smile widened. “I am lucky, indeed.”

“And this physical side of love… is it important?”

“No. Love can endure without it.”

“Are you sure?”

Aricles nodded as he brushed back a piece of hair from her face. He knew that they would never be physically intimate, and while a part of him craved that experience, he loved her enough to not ask for something he knew he couldn’t have. Something he wasn’t worthy of. But at the same time, the thought of not sharing these quiet afternoons alone with her, of not having her drill him with random odd and embarrassing questions, hurt more than he could bear. “I am.”

Suddenly, she pulled her amulet off and placed it around his neck. The stone amulet was still warm from her body temperature. “What are you doing?”

She placed her hand over it. “You gave me your heart. It’s only fair that I give you mine.”

He smiled at her precious and innocent sweetness that touched him all the way to his soul. “It doesn’t work like that, my lady. Love isn’t about fairness. It’s about emotion.”

“You are about emotion. I’m about fairness.” She patted her necklace. “This is fair. I don’t need two hearts and you can’t live without one. So I have yours and you have mine.”

And he would never treasure anything more. He placed his hand over hers and reveled in the inner beauty that was his goddess. “Thank you, my lady.”

Bathymaas inclined her head to him as she stared at their joined hands. For the first time, she was beginning to understand why people did the strange things they did.

Not for themselves, but for others.

As she’d told Ari, she couldn’t be hurt or killed. But that wasn’t true of him. And the more she thought about something happening to him, the more her chest tightened. The harder it was to breathe. Even without asking, she knew this was physical pain. Something she should be completely ignorant of.

Yet that was no longer true.

Somehow, they had exchanged hearts, and if anything ever happened to Ari…

She honestly feared what she might do. When her father had given her a heart, he’d never said what would happen should it break or shatter. All her life, she’d kept it safe. But now that Ari had it, she could no longer keep it from getting hurt.