“I lied to you before.” Stone’s hands traced her back, her hips.
“About what?” She leaned back so she could see his face. He looked pained, like whatever he was about to tell her would shatter their facade, would destroy their new pretend personalities. “What, Stone?”
He licked his lips, his eyes darting to her mouth for a moment before he looked at her again. “I dreamt of you.”
Twenty-Five
Stone
Stone was fucked.
Moonlight spilled over Aesira’s skin, highlighting the water droplets that clung to her hair and lashes. He didn’t mean to tell her he’d dreamt of her, but with the moon and her eyes…
He knew they were pretending for the sake of the trip, but he was so enraptured by her that the truth slipped out.
“You dreamt of me when we drank the tea?” She frowned, a tiny crease forming between her brows.
“Yes,” he said. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, so he anchored his hands on her hips hoping she’d stay put. “I didn’t know how to tell you, so I made up the Ravki–”
“I dreamt of you too.” A smile crept over her lips and he wasn’t sure if she meant to, but her legs tightened around his middle.
She desired him and the thought alone had his skin scorching.
Was it reckless that they’d both lied about seeing visions of Ravki in their dreams? Maybe. Did it make his heart race and his stomach tighten knowing that she’d thought of him, possibly in the same depraved way he’d thought of her? Absolutely.
There was more he wasn’t saying. He wanted to tell her ofallthe times he’d dreamt of her, but he couldn’t find any words that didn’t make him sound so desperate.
“So who will we pretend to be tonight?” His fingers drifted over her skin, pebbled from the cold of the spring. Maybe he’d tell her one day, of all the dreams he’d had, but tonight this was enough. The fact that she was even in his arms, was enough.
“Hm.” Aesira scrunched her nose. “Maybe tonight I’m a free spirit. A drifter.” She laced her fingers behind his neck. “Wouldn’t it be easier to erase our last names?” she said. “Scratch them from the parchment. Start over. Be nobody.”
“Is that what you wish to be? No one?”
“Sometimes,” she said through a sigh. “Sometimes I wish I was brave enough to run away from the Order. I wish I never became the person they wanted me to be.”
He stroked a piece of hair from her face. “And what is wrong with this person? I see someone who is brave and cunning. Respected by her knights. Loved by her family.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Someone who is insanely beautiful.”
He’d hoped she’d smile but instead she frowned and a pit of worry grew in stomach, unfurling like a fresh sprout. “Thisperson,” she said, “has made one too many mistakes. If I were no one, I could erase them.”
She couldn’t know it, but that was all Stone wanted too. It’s why he was here. Why he was determined to find Ravki–findastra. It was why he made the terms to get the others out of prison before they came. All they wanted was to be somebody forgotten, erased from memory, so they could finally have a fresh start.
“So what do you say, tonight we’re no one?”
"Sure." He stroked his hand down her back, settling on the crook of her hip. “I could be nobody with you,” he said.
She smiled then and his heart, a wild thing he'd kept caged for a very long time, threatened to escape. Her eyes traced his lips, before she leaned in and met him with a soft kiss. It was brief, barely-there, but he felt it in every ounce of blood flowing in his body, electric.
Pretend with me. Lie to me. Let this desire consume us both.
She kissed him again, stealing his breath. She tasted sweet like dates, her lips were cold, her tongue warm, her body still tangled around his. He could get lost in this–in her. In the past, kissing and intimacy were simply nothing more than a task to be marked done but with Aesira, his heart raced and his overly loud mind quieted and it didn’t feel like something he had to do, butwantedto do.
Needed to do.
He cupped the back of her head, holding her tightly to him so he could kiss her deeper. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her legs still around his middle. A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him that they were pretending. That she was somebody so far out of his reach. That this wasn’t real.
Then her lips met his neck and that voice inside his head went completely quiet and he focused on all the ways her lips movedagainst his skin, all the things her simple touch did to his body. How it made him feel alive.
There was movement under the water, rippling the surface and brushing against his leg, making him jolt away. “What happened?” Aesira’s eyes went wide and then without any warning, she was pulled under the water.
