“Freya.”Elliotspeaksina whisper, his eyes roaming my face and lingering on my lips. He wants this as much as I do, but there is hesitation in his eyes.
I understand why. We need to talk about this and what it would mean, but right now I do not want to talk. I want to know how it would feel to kiss the soldier who has become a fixture of my life in only a few weeks.
Freeing one of my hands, I lift it to his cheek, then slide my fingers through the short hair on the side of his head. I am being bolder than I ever have been, but before Wulfric found us, I thought I was going to lose this man. That is not a pain I wish to endure. I do not know what I would do without him.
Elliot’s eyebrows pull together, but he doesn’t shy away from my touch. He leans into it, closing his eyes. “What are youdoing, Rapunzel?” His fingers find my hair near my collarbone and wrap around the locks, making me smile despite my nerves.
I move closer until our noses almost touch. “I am answering your question.”
He shakes his head, but the movement brings him close enough that his nose brushes mine, and I can nearly taste him. “We shouldn’t do this.”
“I have lived my entire life dictated by shoulds and should nots,” I whisper. “Let me have this moment for myself.”
He drops his forehead to mine and takes a shaky breath. “Freya.”
“Will you kiss me, Elliot? Please? Just this once.” If he resists me again, I will accept his choice, no matter how much I want otherwise. At least I will know that he is not willing to—
Elliot’s hand slides to the back of my neck, cutting off my thoughts as he pulls me across the last bit of distance between us and presses his lips to mine. While this is not my first kiss, I do not think a few stolen kisses from fellow dignitaries at events in my young adult years really gave me a good grasp of how my body would respond to someone I am attracted to. Those long-ago kisses were secret and exciting, but they did not spark a fire to life in my chest and drown out the world around me.
But as Elliot kisses me, his lips warm and soft, I become all too aware that this is unlike anything I have experienced before now.
He pulls back, breathless, and brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Frey—”
I cut him off, pulling him close again and taking my turn, asking him for more.
He obliges. As he parts my lips, deepening the kiss, something shifts between us, like the ground falls away and sends us into a freefall. I press a hand to his smooth chest as the kiss intensifies and grows more heated, my other hand gripping his hair. I am desperate to be nearer to him, so when Elliot’s large hands wrap around my waist and tug me toward him, it is only logical for me to move to his lap.
I am halfway to him when he curses and pulls back, glaring down at the angry red wound on his torso as his face drains of what little color it had.
“Oh!” I cry, immediately moving back to my chair. “Elliot, I am so sorry!”
Groaning, he slowly lowers himself onto his back, wincing when he rests on the stitches there. “Not your fault,” he grunts, shutting his eyes. I can only imagine the pain he is in—for a moment, I forgot about the bullet holes.
“I should not have done that,” I whisper, covering my mouth with my hand. My lips feel swollen, tingling with the remnants of Elliot’s kiss. I may never recover, and all I want is to do it again.
His expression twists even more than it already was. “I told you it was a bad idea.”
Though he cannot see me, I glare at him anyway. “Kissing you was a bad idea only because you are injured, not because it should not have happened.”
That gets him to look at me again. “Freya, I’m yourbodyguard.”
“I am aware.”
“We can’t…” He grits his teeth and shakes his head.
Taking a slow breath, I wait a moment to let his pain recede. But if he thinks we are going to kiss like that and pretend nothing happened, he is wrong. I have spent the last several days ignoring the tension between us, but I cannot do it anymore. “Elliot,” I say firmly, “there is a connection between us that goes beyond tabloid speculation and internet gossip. You cannot argue that.”
His scowl seems only half-hearted as he looks at me, but his jaw is so tight that he says nothing.
So I continue. “I am well aware that a relationship would be complicated at best.”
He huffs a small laugh.
“I have never met anyone who infuriates me the way you do, and I am certain I drive you half mad most days.”
He grunts.
“There are few people who would want us to be together.”
