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With another rolling surge, the warm waves returned, swelling higher this time, past their knees.
Varen’s silver lip ring teased as it caressed, lulling Isobel’s mind as it beckoned the rest of her toward abandon.
Watching him through the lashes of lids that had dropped on their own, Isobel found herself locked in a bittersweet battle, torn between never wanting this moment to end and needing to look into his eyes again. To be certain she hadn’t imagined the return of their polished jade hue.
She pressed her palms to his chest but could not bring herself to push him back. The fever of his kiss, the strength of the arms that held her to him—the power of the spell he’d cast over them both—won out.
Giving in, Isobel permitted her thoughts to float off without her. Her lips matched his painstaking pace, trading brush for brush and stroke for stroke.
Varen lifted both hands, hooking them under her jaw. His thumbs grazed her cheeks as he took his turn to hold her in place.
He kissed her as if doing so was the one thing that could keep him, all of this, from unraveling—again—into pandemonium.
She knew how he felt. Lost and found. Freed and captive. Calm and desperate . . .
She knew, because she felt it too.
So she let the fabricated dream continue, trying to keep the nagging truth at bay for one more moment. Then another, and another . . .
But when the water’s warmth began to fade, when the current grew stronger with each sigh and heave—when the sensation of pins and needles crept into her awareness, growing strong enough to drown out the sensation of his lips—she had to stop.
Isobel froze. Her eyelids lifted.
Grimacing, Varen parted the kiss that had already ended.
He pressed his forehead to hers, and Isobel relished the sensation of his hair catching in her lashes. She saw that he held his own eyes shut, clenched tight, and she knew his fear had returned.
That had to be why the water had turned cold so quickly. Why, in the passing seconds, the darkness surrounding them had grown more absolute.
Already the tide had risen to mid-thigh. But . . . he couldn’t still be doubting her, could he?
“Open your eyes,” Isobel urged, tucking silken bits of hair behind his ear, though the strands wouldn’t stay. “Please?”
“You’ll leave,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with the emotion he was trying hard to keep bottled.
“Never,” she said. “Nevermore,” she corrected in a whisper.
She stayed silent for the next few seconds, watching him, giving him time to trust.
When Varen finally did open his eyes, he kept them fixed on her hamsa charm. She could feel him holding his breath as he grabbed her shoulders and squeezed.
Isobel ignored the pain of his fingers digging into her flesh, because she knew what he was trying to assure himself of. That when he looked up, he would not find a dead girl staring back at him.
Then his clear green gaze flicked to Isobel’s, igniting a smile that sprang, involuntarily, to her lips.
“There you are,” she said, taking in the sight of those twin emeralds, whose color she could detect even in the dark. “I knew I’d find you.”
Varen scowled in pain as though her words had cut him. But she could feel relief, too, in the breath he exhaled as he pulled her against him.
With fierce strength, Varen’s arms wound around her, and he clutched her tightly. Isobel surrendered to his hold and, laying her head to his shoulder, yielded to the rush of bliss that she could not have fought off if she tried.
But even in his embrace—on the other side of fulfilling her promise—she knew they both had to be thinking the same thing. How, as beautiful as this was, as real as it seemed, it wouldn’t last. Couldn’t . . .
“Please,” she said, pushing back against him gently, enough to find his gaze again. “Say you’ll come with me.”
“Where?” he asked. But he sounded so uncertain.
“Home,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Where else?”
