Free [Psy-Changeling 12.1] Hide and Seek by Nalini Singh Page B

It’s so warm!”

For the second time that day, he played with Sahara. Leaving his clothes beside hers, he dove in and stroked out to her. Telepathically touching base with his aide at the same time, he cancelled the meeting he was meant to be attending in thirty minutes and told her to reorganize it for tomorrow. 

An hour later, he teleported in food and drink. She pulled on his T-shirt over damp skin, while he tugged on his cargo pants.

When she aligned herself against him while they lay on the sand and watched the moon, he held her as she stroked his chest, and he thought of how as a child, she’d patted helplessly at him with those same hands, her eyes wet and distress in her voice at his wounds.

In all his life, Sahara alone had touched him with gentleness, was the only one from whom he’d accept it. He didn’t know how to ask her to never stop doing that...and he didn’t need to. The bond between them pulsed bright as she pressed a kiss to his pectoral, his shoulder, his jaw. 

Sahara knew his need. 

She always knew.

“Kaleb?”

He turned to her to see a wicked smile on her face.

“Want to make an earthquake?” she said, running one foot up his shin.

“Yes,” Kaleb responded, his body already rock hard for her. “But not in this region. The atolls are too low and may flood.”

Sahara stared at him, and then she started laughing, falling over onto her back with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Leaning down on his elbow, he watched her, and he thought he might learn to laugh with her, too.

She snorted, slapped a hand over her mouth. Tears rolled down her face. “W-w-we’re almost naked,” she pointed out, “a-and you d-d-d—”

Seduced, he gripped her jaw and kissed that laughing mouth. Her laughter poured into him, her arms locking around his shoulders and her legs around his hips. Before her, he’d understood the mechanics of sex, but he hadn’t understood other things. Like the fact people laughed and smiled during the act—and that it was about far more than the physical. “I wouldn’t want you to drown,” he said, releasing her lips so she could suck in a breath. “I also don’t want to stop midway.”

She giggled again, her fingers caressing his nape. “Excellent point.” Nipping at his lower lip, she kissed her way along his jaw. “You’re all salty.” A lick, a nibble, before she suddenly went still. “Kaleb,” she whispered. “Remember that thing we always wanted to do?”

He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Come with me,” he said, rising to his feet. 

When she went to grab her pants, he said, “You won’t need them.”

Not arguing, she slipped her hand into his and he led her up the sugar-fine sand of the beach and to a narrow pier about five minutes away. Dropping his hand the instant she saw the rowboat anchored by it, she ran over to it and hopped inside the small vessel—where she knelt on the boards and looked over the side. “You even named her the  Gypsy Queen !”

“It’s what you wanted.” To row away to parts unknown under the moonlight, the dream one of the final ones she’d shared with him before the monsters had stolen her away and hurt her. 

Cold rage threatened to bloom in him, until he wanted to go to the hole in the earth where he’d imprisoned one of those responsible, mete out the same kind of torture. But he didn’t, because to do so would be to give too much of himself to the darkness, going against Sahara’s express wishes.

Kaleb had never broken a promise he’d made to her and he wasn’t about to start now.

Stepping into the boat, he released the rope that anchored it, then taking a seat, picked up the paddles and began to row them out. Sahara lay back on the cushions and watched him with eyes that had always seen everything. “You own this atoll, don’t you?” 

“I usually keep the boat stored elsewhere. Out of the elements.”

She touched his knee with her toes. “What else have you kept safe