“True enough.” He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “And I suppose Ifelta bit beastly yesterday, when I was kissing you.”
“I asked you to kiss me and you did. You were a perfect gentleman.”
“On the outside.”
Her cheeks felt hot. “But on the inside?”
He cut her a sidelong glance. “Let’s just say…I was not finished with you.”
She swallowed hard. “And how would that kiss have finished, had we not been interrupted?”
He flung the rest of the stones into the river. “Not in the hallway.”
Desire clenched the muscles of her lower stomach. She would have fought it off if she could have, but it felt inevitable, suddenly, as powerful as that water rushing past them.
“Because I suspect you would have wanted a bit of privacy while we fulfilledthatparticular part of our ancient bargain,” he added in a voice that was soft, seductive, and sent every nerve in her body humming to life.
She stretched her legs out in front of her. Tried to settle her nerves. She didn’t trust herself to move any closer to him, but the way he was looking at her…
Was it possible he was beginning to want her for reasonsotherthan that stupid ancient bargain?
Was it possible she wanted him too?
It was foolish. Dangerous. It could never work between them. If she strayed from her plan, he would find out the truth about her eventually, and it would likely mean death. And not only for herself, but for her sister, too.
Or perhaps…perhaps she could come clean? She could help him solve the mystery of these shadowy attacks, maybe. And then they could…
They couldwhat, precisely? Marry and live happily ever after, as if they hadn’t just spat on a treaty that had existed for generations? As if she hadn’t been keeping a horrible, dangerous secret from him this whole time?
You’re a fool, Sephia.
She knew this, and yet it did nothing to settle that desire pulsing through her.
“We aren’t in the hallway anymore,” she said, lifting her gaze to the sky.
“No. We aren’t.”
“And we’re very much alone, aren’t we?” She felt his gaze shift more fully to her. “And I’m feeling much better now that I’ve had a bit of fresh air.”
“Are you?” His voice was even lower than before, husky with unmistakablewant.
She looked down and found him watching her. His face was not closed off for once; the desire was written all over it. And he could have been a perfect beast about quenching that desire— she wouldn’t have resisted him.
In that moment, she wasn’t certain shecouldhave resisted him.
He reached for her hand.
She reached back.
She wrapped her fingers through his. She let him pull her closer, all the way into his lap. Her knees settled on either side of him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his. Closed her eyes. Their noses brushed, and then their breaths, their mouths, their tongues. His hands found her hips, steadied her as she rocked deeper into the kiss.
And slowly, slowly, slowly she felt something unfurling inside of her, felt the tightly clenched fist of all of her prejudices and misconceptions opening and her fears falling away as he held her more tightly, pulled her in closer.
The river rushed. The impossible future loomed. Those shadows may still have lingered nearby.
But for the moment, at least, she didn’t care about anything else.
Chapter 11
