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I nodded and a peal of anticipation rang through me. When I tried to lift my aching leg into the stirrup, it slipped, and I nearly stumbled. A pained groan filled my chest, but Theodore was at my back, hands encircling my waist. He tightened his grip like he was readying to lift me, but he leaned in instead. His hand traveled up so his knuckles just grazed the underside of my breast.
His lips were at my ear. “If I had known you then…”
Heart on a rampage, I looked up into his eyes. “Yes?”
I couldn’t breathe. He furrowed his brow, pressed his mouth shut, like he’d thought better than to speak the words that sat on his tongue.
“Tell me.”
Slowly, he spread his fingers wide and dug into my ribs, as if he wanted to touch as much of me as possible. “I would have worshipped you,” he said, husky and slow. “Laid you out over my bed like a goddess on her altar and gotten on my knees before you. And when we were done, after a very long time…” He brought me tighter to his chest, and I all but melted into him. My nose brushed his chin. “… I’d thank you for tearing me to ribbons with those pretty talons of yours.”
Abruptly, he pulled away. He lifted me up into the saddle so quickly that my head spun. A protesting, throaty moan slipped past my lips, forcing an embarrassed flush to my cheeks. He looked up at me with a cocky smile.
“You’re an ass.”
“Yes, I know,” he said through a chuckle. He mounted and clicked his tongue and both horses started down the road. For the first time, his body had relaxed, strong shoulders sloping with an easiness I’d never seen him wear.
“You’re looking very self-satisfied,” I snipped.
“Easy to do when you get a woman to make that sound.”
Theodore kept the horses at a slow walk, and thank the Gods, because every muscle in my body hurt. As did my ego. But the air between us was clearer, less charged.
“I wouldn’t have torn you to ribbons,” I finally said, coyly. “I’m not that wasteful.”
“Oh no?” That chuckle again. “What would you have done?”
“What any Goddess worthy of devotion would.” He looked over his shoulder expectantly, heat and amusement in his gaze. “I’d have demanded you worship me a second time. And a third.”
A grin spread over his face as he turned away from me. He tipped his head back toward the sky like he’d been swept into a pleasant daydream. I thought I heard a low, satisfied hum fill his chest.
I spent the rest of the short ride lost in a daydream of my own.