Gently, she inserted two fingers under the edge of the fabric. Iestyn jerked from her touch, baring his teeth like an animal in pain.
Her heart wobbled. Shifting to block the cable guy’s vision, she slowly, careful y peeled back the col ar of Iestyn’s Tshirt.
Her stomach lurched. Her vision blurred. She blinked to clear it. The skin around the heth puffed, fresh blisters bubbling on already raw flesh.
“I think he’s had too much sun,” she said to the cable guy.
She moistened her lips. “Would you mind . . . Could you get us some water?”
“I don’t need anything,” Iestyn said.
“Water? Sure.” The man pushed to his feet, leaving his bucket under the bench. His boots clanged on the metal stairs as he descended to the lower deck.
“How long has it been like this?” she asked Iestyn.
“Started . . . When the island came in sight.”
He raised his lashes and looked at her. “Because I’m okay.
I’m breathing, aren’t I?”
Worry made her sharp. “Barely.”
Incredibly, his dry lips twitched in a shadow of his customary smile. “Beats the alternative.”
Yes, it did. But she didn’t know what to do for him now.
Forcing air into his lungs wouldn’t relieve his pain.
“We need to take it off. The heth.”
His lips tightened. “Not now. Your friend with the bucket wil be back any minute.”
be back any minute.”
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She stared at him helplessly. She had to do something to relieve his pain. What would Miriam do? Or Simon?
Burns were common at Rockhaven. The factory workers cal ed the process of blowing, pressing, and casting glass
“taming fire.” Jacob was always complaining of firstdegree burns from pausing too long at the furnace or gloryhole, second-degree burns from handling hot glass. The first, best treatment was to plunge the burn in water.
Which she didn’t have. She glanced at the ocean tumbling out of reach before she stooped and blew gently on Iestyn’s inflamed skin.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to help.”
“I’m not a steak dinner, babe. You’re not going to cool my meat by blowing on it.”
She ignored his innuendo, focusing instead on the angry red swel ing below his col arbone. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah. Ignore it,” he said.
“And it’l go away?”
Their eyes met, the memory of last night vibrating in the air between them, the feel of him in her hand, hot satin over stone.
“Eventual y,” he muttered.
But an idea had sparked. “There’s a sign for water.”
His brows drew together. “A sign.”
She nodded. “A rune. Mem.”
Like the letter M with an extra uptick at the beginning.
She traced it in her mind, sort of a wave shape. Inside her, power squiggled, rising and fal ing with each line, a surge of possibility, a downstroke of intent.
She touched a single fingertip to his throat. The contact F o r g o t t e n s e a 223
kindled a quiver low in her bel y, a tingle in her fingers and her toes. Down and up and . . .
His hand, warm and strong, covered hers. She jumped.
His hand, warm and strong, covered hers. She jumped.
“No spel s,” he said flatly. “No magic. I don’t want the demons tracing us here.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “Then we shouldn’t have had sex.”
Their gazes locked. Held.
A corner of his mouth curled. “That was worth it.”
Warmth flooded her face. “So is this,” she insisted. “So are you.”
He looked unconvinced.
“Anyway, we’re in the middle of the ocean,” she said.
“What are they going to do? Swim after us?”
Al those years, the sea had protected him. Until she found him and brought the demons down on them both.
“At least let me try,” she said.
Slowly, his grip on her hand relaxed. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Water was not her element. But she traced the sign of it Water was not her element. But she traced the sign of it careful y on his skin, standing between his thighs, conscious of his blood pulsing below the surface, the ebb and flow of his breath. She imagined water, glasses and buckets and tubs ful of water, quenching, cooling, soothing.
Iestyn’s skin sizzled. Heat flared.
She gasped. But Iestyn reached up and covered her hand with his, pressing her fingers deep into his blistered skin.
His thought swel ed and supported hers.
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He shuddered, a deep, hard spasm like orgasm, his grasp on her hand almost painful. The reverberations shivered from his body to hers, every tremble and quake echoed deep inside her, the aftershock of power like the release after sex.
Lara sagged.
Iestyn wrapped his arms around her, almost as if he were protecting her from something. For long moments, neither of them spoke. The ship engines rumbled. A seabird cried and plummeted into the water.
“That did it,” Iestyn said final y, his voice muffled. His warm breath seared her breasts.
