“You couldn’t have prevented me from making a fool of myself.”
“Fawn, no. You did not.”
“Didn’t I? I did what all the rest of the girls do, flirting with you. I’ve seen so many try and fail. It was a mistake.”
Fawn dared a peek over her shoulder at Erryc. His mouth was set in a hard line, his hand balled up in a fist on his knee. “The fault is mine. I was selfish.”
She closed her eyes in exasperation. The last thing she wanted was Erryc to think he should have let her kiss him just to keep the peace between them. “It is not selfish to say no–”
“No, I... I was selfish in that I wanted it to go on. I waited over a year trying to find the right moment, and then you kissed me. You were stumbling down drunk, I didn’t know if you would even remember what you did in the morning and I let you go as far as you did because I wanted it. I wish I’d been stronger to do the right thing.”
Fawn frowned. Were they even speaking of the same thing? She had kissed him, and she had drunk a lot more than she usually did. She hadn’t realized how inebriated she must have looked to him, that he was concerned she couldn’t truly consent to her actions.
She held still, trying to swallow back the hope fluttering up her chest.
“You... wanted me to kiss you?”
She watched his expression carefully, how his pupils darkened and his nostrils flared, the way his eyes dipped briefly from her face to her bare breasts, and then pointedly away from her.
“Yes,” he admitted, lashes dark against his cheeks, “Badly enough that I would even take a meaningless drunken kiss.”
6
Erryc
“Meaningless?” Fawn twisted around fully in her place between Erryc’s legs, turning her knees onto the rug.
She had been as agitated tonight as he’d ever seen her, but the way her teeth gnashed down on that word, with true outrage in her eyes, he wondered how that was what had upset her the most.
Erryc’s mouth tightened on a frown, concern reaching his eyes as he realized she was facing him now, and though she had been naked this entire time, it felt somehow even more inopportune at this moment than others.
He tried, valiantly, not to look too much, even as his cock took interest. “You were drunk, you couldn’t have meant it–”
Again he couldn’t keep his attention from dipping to her breasts, hanging deliciously from her as she crawled towards him. Erryc moved to scoot backwards, but Fawn was faster, situating herself between his legs, sitting up on her heels so that she was nose to nose with him.
“Fawn,” he breathed, something not unlike a whimper in his voice as he closed his eyes. The sight of her naked body so close to his was an exquisite torture. He suppressed a groan as the blood rushed to his cock. Between their bodies, it grew longer, thicker, as it hardened.
It seemed absurd that there was any blood left for his cheeks to flush a deep, vivid green.
For all of the times Erryc had thought he was taking liberties with their friendship, none seemed quite as inappropriate as the way his heart quickened with lust as she frowned at him.
She was always so quiet, so reserved, he had never imagined she could be stern and fiery. The thought of her taking him to task was oddly thrilling, and completely ill-suited to this moment.
The firelight flashed against her eyes as she demanded, in the angriest of murmurs, “How could it not have meant anything when I was telling you how important you are to me?”
“I–that– you didn’t say that!”
“How can I say it when everyone’s saying how much you and the baker’s girl so clearly deserve each other, and no one thinks we’re suited for each other–”
“What? No, Fawn. I don’t want her.”
He covered her hand with his, twining their fingers together, holding her palm against his chest.
“You are special to me. Every time I see your cheeks turn red, I wish it was for me, that I might raise your pulse like you raise mine,” Erryc murmured, hoping she understood how much she meant to him. “Every time I come into this room, I check the corner for if you’re here. When you’re not, I watch the road for you to come by, and when you are here, I’m hiding behind the bar trying to think of anything at all to get you to talk to me.”
She shook her head, as if this was impossible for her to believe. The orange glow of the fire caught in the tears lining her lashes.
“That was what started all this. I just, it didn’t seem like the right moment, at the festival. You were drunk, we were still pretending. I wanted to wait for a moment that it could be real.”
