It was so big, gravity drew her in. Her stare nearly took her down, her balance off kilter with the mulled wine. Or the spiced cider. Or the… what else had she drunk? Some mushroom flavored liquor?
Before Erryc could follow just how far down her gaze had taken her, she slipped and knocked her shoulder into his,landing against him bodily. He caught her, his massive hands around her upper back, one cupping her elbow.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, whether or not it was true. He was holding her so close, and she was still so dizzy, even with her hand splayed out across one side of his chest. Fawn’s beating heart stilled.
He took her chin in his hand, lifting her face to his. “Are you sure?”
Fawn blinked, her heart still catching up to how close he was holding her when he leaned down, nose to nose with her.
His eyes were such a dark brown, but here, the candlelight danced across them, catching and engraving a maze of details within them.
“As long as we’re just pretending,” she sighed, the thought, the justification, the reason she could do this without putting her heart on the line, and then surged forward.
She kissed him again, deeply. Not the fearful peck she’d given him earlier. Fawn took his lower lip between hers, worrying her teeth against the soft inner side, brushing her tongue just over the sharp line of his teeth.
Fawn pulled back for a breath, and Erryc blinked at her.
For a heart-rending second, Fawn wondered if she’d crossed a line she shouldn’t have, until a quiet sort of wonder and understanding spread across his face.
She leaned in to kiss him again, and this time he kissed her back. She threaded her hands in his hair, he adjusted his grip on her, cupping her ass to hold her close against him.
Against her leg, Fawn felt his hardened cock, straining through the fabric of his pants. She dragged a hand down the expanse of his chest, his stomach, to trace the shape of it through his pants.
Erryc’s hands slid down her arms, capturing her hands. Fawn frowned, pulling out of their kiss. She swayed a little, realizing he had stopped her. She blinked.
“Fawn, no,” Erryc sighed, holding her loosely in his grasp as she stood. “We shouldn’t. It was wrong of me to let it get this far.”
There was something in his tone, as he glanced back towards the festival, the market stalls. Was it simply that their little ruse had gone too far, that it wasn’t worth the touching and kissing if their audience wasn’t present?
Or was it just that he didn’t feel quite the same way as she did?
Heat pricked under Fawn's collar, her heart rate picking up uncomfortably. She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. So he did know how to refuse people directly, she was just the only one he’d needed it for.
His brow creased in worry, his hand closed gently around hers. “Fawn–”
Hot tears pricked in her eyes, and Fawn pulled her hands out of his grasp, disentangling herself from Erryc. Then she turned and ran.
5
The snowfall wrapping the village in white was decidedly less romantic when Fawn was fleeing in embarrassment, slipping on the sporadic patches of compacted ice.
“Fawn, wait!” Erryc called after her, but she didn’t turn around or slow down.
The festival was still in full swing, most of the distance Fawn was able to put between herself and Erryc was by slipping through the crowd easier. At a brisk pace, soon he was at least a hundred steps behind her.
It wasn’t just that he refused her, that she would never recover from the embarrassment. The worst of it was that she’d still shown her feelings when she thought she knew better. It hurt that what intimacy they’d shared wasn’t real, when she’d wanted it so badly. She had just taken what she could until she took too much.
Felt too much.
A thin, trickling creek wound down the hill, barely ten paces across, intersecting the main village road. The creaky wooden footbridge covered in a fresh layer of snow gave her pause as she reached partway across, her footing sliding uneasily on one board.
She stopped for breath there, leaning hard on the railing. The endless red burning her cheeks blurred her vision as well, her breath sharp and painful as tears fought exhausted gasps.
She didn’t want his apology, or an explanation. The rejection stung enough without salt rubbed in it. She didn’t need him to break her heart any further.
Despite herself, she looked back to him as Erryc reached her, and stepped up onto the bridge.
His eyes met hers for a heartbeat, his hand outstretched, her name on his lips, when the bridge groaned and the rotted wood finally snapped.
