Page 55 of Demon's Beauty

“Sunshine.” Finn reaches up and curls his hand around my jaw. “I can almost hear you thinking.”

Despite my better judgment, I lean into his touch. I lean so far my forehead rests against his chest. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Finn wraps his other arm around my back, and something else circles my waist.

His tail.

A gentle tether, pulling me into him. We stay that way for a few long moments.

“Last night was awful,” I say quietly. “I was so scared for you. I don’t think… I don’t think I’m fully over it yet.”

“I’m not either,” he murmurs. “You have no idea how terrified I was when I saw you with that drakon.”

“I might have an idea.”

Finn lets out a shaky exhale. “But we lived.”

“Yeah. We lived.”

“And we’re here.” He uses the hand he has on my jaw to nudge me to look at him.

“We’re here,” I whisper, and a devastatingly handsome smile breaks across his face.

“So,” he says, and his thumb strokes against my skin, slow and soothing. “How about you give me a little more of that salve, and then you can get some more rest before—”

“Yes to the salve, no to the rest.”

He sighs, though his eyes dance with mirth. “Has anyone ever told you how contrary you are?”

An unlikely grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “Yes.”

“Well, then. I suppose I don’t need to tell you, too.” He reaches for the pot of salve where I left it with my supplies beside the bed and hands it to me.

I spend the next few minutes massaging it into his skin. By his slight inhale when I touch him, and the tension radiating from his muscles, I’m not entirely ready to declare him all better, and I give him my sternest healer’s look as I turn him around.

“I’m going to check on you throughout the day,” I warn. “Especially if you insist on getting up and leaving this tent.”

“Deal,” he says gamely, reaching for his shirt. “I look forward to your continued ministrations, Healer Soleil.”

Cheeky demon.

He knows exactly what he’s doing as he looks me up and down, as the suggestive lilt in his voice makes it more than clear what otherministrationsthe two of us might get up to.

I roll my eyes. “Has anyone ever told you how incorrigible you are?”

“Yes,” he says, shameless.

“Well, then. I suppose I don’t need to tell you, too.”

My face has a permanent pink stain to it with how mortified I am to face demon after demon.

Everyone knows what happened.

News travels fast in a camp this small, and I’m sure by dawn, everyone was aware what Finn and I went through last night.

No one seems to blame me, but I feel like an idiot.

Why on earth I thought it made sense to wander off into the wilds of a realm I barely know anything about, I have no idea. But if everyone else is thinking it too, at least they don’t show it.