Page 74 of Silver & Gold
Seth threaded his fingers together with Raider’s. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, Raider. I don’t know why this is so hard.”
“Because there’s been a lot going on other than you and me wanting to fuck. That’s all this was supposed to be, you know.”
Seth laughed and looked at Raider, who was giving him a warm, playful smile that he probably didn’t deserve right now but was really damn glad to see.
Seth said, “This hasn’t been just fucking for a long, long time.”
“I don’t think it ever was. Not with the way I wanted you from the minute I first saw you. I think I knew, deep down, that I needed you. I just wish …”
“You wish what?”
“You’ll get mad if I say it.”
“What did you just say about trusting each other and talking about things?”
“Fine. I wish I deserved you.”
“Goddamn it, Raider.”
“I knew you’d be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I just hate that you feel that way. I don’t understand it. You deserve better than me, and guess what? I don’t give a shit. You’re mine.”
Raider huffed, sounding amused, and leaned into Seth. Seth wrapped his arm around him. They barely had a chance to relax against each other before a knock sounded from within the room.
It startled Seth. It reminded him that he didn’t understand where they were or how they’d gotten here or what their status was. Among the djinn.
Fuck.
***
It was a summons. It was delivered by a blue-skinned, dark-haired female clothed only in a yellow skirt and ropes of pearls. (Raider, ignoring Seth’s protest, had answered the door clothed in even less. In fact, he’d been stark naked because he and Seth had no clothes.)
Fortunately, the female djinn delivered their clothes along with the summons. Seth’s Curator garb had been cleaned and repaired as perfectly as his leg had been. It was a reminder that the djinn were powerful. And that he and Raider were very much at their mercy.
Dressed in his usual black clothes, Seth walked beside Raider along a covered walkway. Gardens sprawled on either side.
Bare chested, Raider was wearing only his short green sarong. Seth couldn’t help that the sight turned him on. He shouldn’t be thinking like that. He should be focused. Alert. Even wary. But ever since he’d woken up in that white bed, arousal had been humming in his blood.
He needed to be with Raider. Intimately. Intensely. They’d made a start at reconnecting, but it wasn’t enough. Seth needed Raider to let him in all the way.
When their guide suddenly vanished, Seth jumped … then realized that she hadn’t actually vanished. She had shapeshifted into a large, tawny desert cat.
The djinn in her graceful cat form stood aside at an open doorway at the end of the walkway, clearly signaling that Seth and Raider should walk through.
The doorway led not into a building but into a garden. Or another part of the endless garden that was Jannat. Seth and Raider shared a look before following a grassy path to a magnificent stone pergola. As with every structure in Jannat, the stone was a mere canvas for the greenery. White flowering vines twined around the stone columns to the pointed roof.
Seth and Raider climbed the short set of steps into the interior. There was no one there. Only a low table laden with covered dishes.
“What the hell is this?” Seth asked. He’d expected a king or a council. An interrogation.
“I think it’s dinner,” Raider answered. “Or breakfast? I have no idea what time it is.”
“I thought someone would ask us questions.”
Raider raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer that?”
“Yes, actually. Then I’d known how things stood.”