Page 81 of Dare
On a wistful tangent, Jeryn reminisced about the richness of gravy. “Seasons, I fucking miss gravy.”
Chuckling, I scooted closer to the blaze. “What does your suite look like?”
“I’ll tell you, if you describe at least one particular to me,” he compromised. “Consider it a trade. Your tidefarer boat, for instance. I didn’t see the inside of it.”
“That’s because we were too busy trying to kill each other.”
His eyes glittered. “Who says we’ve stopped?”
The husk in his voice coiled low in my stomach. Stretching that hard body across the sand, with all that hair falling like a river around his face, he resembled a lord of the sea. Though, he would probably curl his nose at the description.
The flames crackled as we stared at one another. I shook myself out of the vision, the movement knocking Jeryn from his own trance.
Registering the provocative dip in his tone, he cleared his throat. “Where did you sleep?”
“In a room below deck. My pillow was as big as me. I loved my pillow.” I nestled deeper into the shore. “Your turn.”
“My suite is furnished with mahogany wood. Everything is accented in cold shades.”
I kept a straight face. “To match—”
“Do not finish that question.”
“—your hair?” I baited anyway.
He gave me a stern look. “If you insist on amusing yourself, may I be excused?”
“You’re actually asking my permission?”
That frown deepened in a rather endearing way. This man looked fetching whenever I got on his nerves. Pleased with myself, I asked, “What is snow like?”
Jeryn bypassed the technical things, knowing what type of details I fancied. “Sometimes the starkness can make you squint,” he shared. “Other times, it’s tinted blue or blackened with footprints, like it’s been bruised. It can be as soft as powder or as coarse as rubble. You can make art from hard-packed snow, or it might be so light and soft that it cannot bear your weight.” He held my gaze. “Always, you can draw in it.”
I swirled my finger across the ground and whispered, “I was born in the sand.”
“My first sight was of ice,” he confided. “To this day, my family often recounts the birth.”
He told me the story. Apparently, the prince had craned his small head toward the window. Instantly, his eyebrows had pressed together, his gaze assessing the frozen land beyond as if demanding an explanation for everything that existed out there.
Jeryn’s features became remote. “I miss them.”
I nodded. “I miss my family too.”
As the sea whisked back and forth in a gentle rhythm, and the pit glowed with warmth, the prince raised himself on his elbow. “Tell me why you enjoy drawing in the sand. Tell me why you prefer it to canvas or parchment.”
My finger stopped moving. “Because it’s stronger than people give it credit for. Everyone adores the ocean so much that they forget what holds it up.”
I told him more about my passion, the details unfurling like a wave. All the while, he did more than absorb my answer. He listened.
***
By the time we returned to the ruins, it had to be midnight. Plants glowed, and damp spiderwebs glistened like ropes of diamonds. Although some areas got so dark we struggled to see our fingers in front of our faces, the moon snuck through the canopy, enameling the world in pearly light.
While I padded to my chamber, I spied on Jeryn in his adjoining room. Through the arched doorway, he rested on his back, as heavy as an anchor. From the way he’d described snow, the prince slumbered as though buried under a layer of it, his large frame going still.
I paid attention to the straight lines of his face, from the aristocratic slant of his nose to the cleft in his chin. He’d been graced with a chilling sort of beauty. Yet rainforest scars branded the prince’s skin. More than anything else, I liked seeing those marks on him, proof that he was vulnerable.
I dragged my gaze from his sculpted body. It had become harder to ignore the sight. My eyes might not linger, but my mind was another story.