“Because I do not trust myself around you right now!” he snarled, taking two steps towards her, and it was too close.
She stumbled back, but he was having none of it. For every step back she took, he closed the distance until she was backed against a wall.
With his fists shoved into his pockets once more, she could feel him. Feel him vibrating in the same way she was—with fury and desperation and helplessness—but what could he possibly feel helpless about? The king of the continent that had once ruled the realm. A king who could have anything and anyone laid at his feet. A king who would do anything to get what he wanted, no matter the costs.
This close, she could see the light stubble along his jaw. The glowing flecks of molten silver in his eyes. The faint grey shade of his veins as his magic continued to pulse and seek and writhe.
Until there was a muttered, “Fuck it,” and he was pitching forward. His mouth crashed onto hers, andoh.
This was nothing like what she had imagined a kiss would be.
Even though she was rigid and stiff, her lips were not. His were soft and plush against hers, and in the back of her mind she knew she should be stabbing him because she suddenly felt like the prey. But she wasn’t stabbing him. No, she was too caught up in the hot mouth pulling a hard and sucking kiss from her lips. She’d always imagined a kiss to be gentle and kind and intimate. That was what she’d observed anyway.
This was not gentle nor kind. This was intimate in a desperate way. As if she were something he’d been craving for days and months and years. This somehow sent her thoughts scattering, but also had her entirely focused on where their mouths met. This was a different kind of hunter and prey, and she wasn’t sure which one she wanted to be. The huntress. The hunted. Or both.
It was only their mouths touching, a brush of their noses here and there. No hands or fingers. Hers were still pressed to her sides, too frozen to do anything, but that was the strange thing. Usually an unexpected touch had her soul screaming and her body reacting on instinct.
His tongue brushed against the seam of her lips, and without thought, she parted them. Then, his tongue was inside her mouth. He was groaning, a deep and guttural sound that she was swallowing down as she tentatively licked against his tongue. The groan became a growl, and a strangled sound of her own crawled up her throat.
If this was kissing—this struggle and fighting and chasing—then she thought she might like this very much. Because fightingand hunting and seeking was something she understood, unlike all the other things she’d been navigating lately.
He shifted, and she felt rather than heard his hands come up, bracing himself against the wall on either side of her head. So careful not to touch her.
But his magic did.
His magic brushed along her skin while he pressed his mouth to hers even harder. More earnest. While his tongue danced against hers, she marveled at how this touch—the press of mouths and lips, tongues and teeth—was so, so different from bruising fingers and harsh fists, from burning palms and unyielding holds.
This kind of touch was intoxicating and exciting and?—
Dangerous.
The thought coursed through her like the flames and embers that used to torture her, and before she realized what she was doing, her dagger was out and at Cethin’s throat. Her husband blinked back at her, lust and desire still clouding his gaze as he clearly tried to form coherent thoughts.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice so low and gravelly it made her thighs clench, and wasn’t that an odd reaction to a voice? “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Kiss me?” she demanded.
“No, I definitely meant to do that,” he answered, not a flicker of apology or regret on his elegant features. “But I didn’t intend to lose that much control. Not right away. Not with it being your?—”
He pressed his lips together, searching her face.
“My what?” she asked, trying to control the small tremor in her hand that held the dagger. Her shield. Her reminder to herself that she was in control, not him.
But he noticed the tremor too, and when he took a measured step back, he moved as if it physically pained him to do so. Itpained her too, and she didn’t… None of this made sense. How could one crave closeness and want to shove someone as far away as possible at the same time? How could one person make her feel so many emotions in the same moment? And why did she want to stab him but also kiss him again?
He ran his thumb along his bottom lip as he watched her. “That was foolish,” he said. “That was why I was trying to keep my distance. You…distract me.”
“How can I possibly distract you when we are never around each other?” she asked, her arm now at her side, but her dagger still clenched tightly in her fist.
“Your mere existence distracts me,” he answered, agony and wonder merging in those few words. “Knowing you’re out there at any given time. Wondering what you are doing. Who you’re with. Life was easier when I didn’t know you existed.”
In an odd way, she understood exactly what he meant.
Silver eyes met hers once more, desperate and wanting and defeated. “You are a distraction I cannot afford, but one I am finding myself so utterly obsessed with, I keep forgetting why it’s a terrible thing.”
And she understood that too.
Dinner was a tense performance that kept her on edge. Every time Cethin moved, she had to remind herself to relax. Whenever he leaned in to speak softly to her, playing the perfect doting husband like he did every single night, all she could think about was his lips on hers. Her eyes would dip to his mouth, and his lips would curl up the smallest amount at the corners. Shewas sure to everyone else it appeared they were sharing an inside secret—and in a sense they were—but she was left wondering if everything from their rooms had been an act too. Which parts of him were real?
