I lift my head so I can look at him, one last chance to see if there’s any deceit in his eyes. There isn’t.
“Arewea mistake?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t mock me. Doesn’t get mad. Instead, he rubs my back with tenderness. “Like I told you before, you’re the best mistake I want to make. Over and over again. For the rest of our lives. So what do you say?”
My eyes burn, and the feeling goes all the way into my chest, settling deep.
Emotions churn wildly, but I know the answer, know what I want, even though I shouldn’t want it. Yet whatever happened between us on that deathbed has changed us, and I realize that he’s right—I can’t fight it anymore.
I don’t want to.
I let out a breath and then reach up to grip his beard hard, making sure I have his attention and that he knows I’m deadly serious. “Don’t let me down, Osrik. Don’t you dare,ever, make me regret this,” I demand harshly, delving into his brown gaze, sticking him just like he’s stuck me.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You threatening me, Yellow Bell?”
“I absolutely am.”
I release his beard as his hands come up to cup my face. “Good,” he says. “Because the two of us? We threaten anything that might try to tear us apart—including each other.”
I swallow hard at the praise in his tone. “You won’t let me down?” I press.
“Never, Rissa,” he replies firmly. “I will never, ever make you fucking regret this.”
My breath sucks in at the potency of his promise. Then I nod out a shaky breath. “Alright then.”
He cocks a brow. “That’s it? Just,alright then?”
My eyes narrow. “Is that not up to your standards, Captain? Would you like me to say something prettier? Perhaps you’ll also request a foot massage or for me to dance around you in nothing but your vest?”
“Now that is a nice picture,” he says, and my lips press into a hard line. “But no.”
“No?”
“You speak and act and feel however the fuck you want.”
That’s not something a man has ever told me. It was alwaysdo this,wear that, pander right down to the smallest detail for a client. Being a royal saddle, there was no room for error. No space for a single slip. I had to be on, or I would be out.
“It’s okay,” Osrik rumbles. “Just be you.”
I want to scoff, but I suppress the urge, because…maybe I trulycanbe me. Maybe with him, everything can be different.So instead, I fall into this impulsive wave of longing, and I lean forward and kiss him.
Because that’s what I’ve wanted to do since the moment I woke up.
My kiss doesn’t catch him by surprise. It feels like he’s been waiting for me all along. His lips part for me, and they’re surprisingly soft. I flick my tongue against the wooden piercing through his bottom lip and feel the texture of his scratchy beard against my face.
He cradles the back of my head with one hand and splays the other against my spine like he wants to prove he’ll always be here to hold me up.
Kissing him is like the first sip of warmed mead during a snowstorm. He heats me from the inside out, making me want another gulp, another taste, more and more, even when I’ve drained the cup.
He makes me want to keep drinking him down forever.
“Rissa Bell…” he murmurs, lips pulling slightly away, even as I try to chase them down. “I will kiss you for fucking ever, but you just woke up from your deathbed hours ago and you need to rest…”
“I can’t rest,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t want to rest.”
“What do you want?”
The question suspends in the inches between our faces, holding between our gazes.
