A bit from Bound by Wyvern’s Blood, a work-in-progress:

He studied her. “Do you know why your father banished me?”

“I only know that the two of you argued in private, and that you struck him. He said later that you had grown ungrateful.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “I wasn’t the ungrateful one. I asked him for you, Mirrin.”

She swallowed. “You wanted me?” Her heartbeat was impossibly loud. The men on the city walls would mistake it for a drum-message.

“Does it surprise you so much?”

“But we were raised as foster-siblings—”

He took the single stride necessary to close the distance between them and set his hands on her waist. “Can you truly tell me that you always thought of me as your brother, and nothing more? That you still do, even if I hold you like this?” He pulled her body flush against his. She thought she could make out the imprint of every one of his muscles, even through their clothing. “And even if I touch you like this?”

His palms slid down to her hips. Such a small movement to have such a great effect. There was something undeniably territorial about it, and a short distance from the pit of her belly, where heat bloomed in response.

He bent his head and his mouth hovered just above hers. She couldn’t help parting her lips; she needed air, desperately.

Then he uttered a dry laugh and let her loose. “See.”