Page 200 of Fallen Stars

“Don’t call me that,” she whispered.

“Fine,Oceanne.”

“What?” she hissed.

“Just one last…” he was panting, unsure how to describe what he needed, what he was begging for.

“Just once more,” he pleaded roughly, even as his mind told him to let her leave.

Cancia’s eyes widened beneath her mask as they searched his, mouth parting as his nose grazed it, skimming up her face and down as he soaked in the feel of her skin.

“We can’t,” she whispered.

“I know,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers with each syllable.

And then she sighed, longing and want held within the melodic note, and Adrian slipped his tongue onto hers, Cancia melting into him. Their masks clashed, and he grunted in frustration, pushing her back gently.

He raised a hand, running the back of it over the shells glued to the disguise.

Cancia gulped, and Adrian took it as his cue, pulling her mask up, a hand stroking the edge of her cheekbone as her face was finally revealed.

The hand stilled. She was more beautiful than any painting he had seen of her. Art didn’t do her justice; words wouldn’t have either.

It was painful to look at her, his heart stuttering as he did.

Her olive skin was smooth as glass and glowing faintly, a smatter of iridescent freckles across her nose that shone like fish scales as she moved her head to face him full on. Her almond eyes regarded him warily, one the blue of a clear river, the other green as the ocean.

“You’re breathtaking,” he breathed.

A slight pink tinged her cheeks as she looked away. “I’m a Star. We’re supposed to be.”

Adrian raised his thumb to brush a freckle, convinced it would transfer to his hand like a sprinkle of sugardust. Gods, he wanted to lick every freckle, kiss every scale on her, see her in her true form.

Cancia’s hand wrapped around his wrist, stilling his. “Someone will see.”

Adrian leant in to kiss a freckle, and she shuddered. “I know.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

His mouth skimmed up to her ear, tongue swirling the sensitive lobe. “I know.”

He felt her melt further and further into him.

“You could be killed.”

Adrian grinned as his tongue found its way down her neck where he could taste her sweetness, already headier at her pulse point. “I know.”

“Icould be killed.”

Adrian stilled at that, pulling away. He looked around the deserted alleyway and to the fountain behind them.

“I will keep you safe,” he whispered, picking her up. Cancia’s legs wrapped around him as he walked them to the fountain. A mere thought made the water jump around them as Cancia gasped, another had it forming a tall wall of water that parted as Adrian guided them through it. It was so easy, wielding this water that ran in his veins now. Still holding Cancia, he made the sheets of water form a dome so the two were enclosed.

“Now,” he murmured, setting her gently into the ankle-deep water, “no one can see us, and no one can pass through unless I let them.”

Cancia’s mouth was slack as she craned her neck to look at what Adrian had created. He looked too, noticing that starlight was shining off her gently, a beautiful periwinkle blue that played off the domed water ceiling, creating patterns that looked like an ocean night sky.

She turned to him.